Virgin Media is selling its home-shopping broadcaster Sit-up TV to Munich-based investor Aurelius – owner of RTL Shop – for an undisclosed sum. Sit-up TV operates three digital home-shopping channels – bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auction tv. Virgin said the company’s live programmes are available to viewers in more than 20m homes in […]
The joint-venture of Telefónica and Vivendi has tabled another bid for Sogecable’s satellite pay-TV operator Digital+ in the long running sale saga. The amount eventually paid will reflect Digital's future EBITDA performance. For last year Digital+ had EBITDA of E367 million, 10% up on the previous year. At the same time it lost 35,000 subscribers. […]
UK mobile phone retailer and broadband provider Carphone Warehouse is considering a bid for the Tiscali's UK business, according to press reports. Carphone Warehouse's broadband division TalkTalk is hoping for a bargain after a deal to sell the ISP to BSkyB fell through at the last minute. Tiscali’s UK business had 1.774 million customers in […]
Jonathan Miller, former chief executive of AOL, is to join News Corp this week to oversee the broad strategic digital initiatives across the group. Miller will have operational control of News Corp's MySpace online social network, the IGN video games media and community service, Photobucket online photos service, Jamba, a mobile phone contents company, and […]
Owners of the controversial Swedish BitTorrent website the Pirate Bay – currently embroiled in a copyright trial in Sweden – have announced they’re going to start using VPN (virtual private network) technologies to make its users harder to track. In typical 'pirate style' the unlogged VPN service will be called IPREDator, named after a new […]
About 200 reactions to the interim Digital Britain report have been published. Among highlights are Sky's call for Virgin's network to be opened up to third party services, Virgin's caution on Canvas and general skepticism on anti-piracy plans and the Digital Rights Agency. Sky says it is “increasingly anomalous” that the cable network is a […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s cable company ONO has named Rosalia Portela, former Telefonica executive, as CEO replacing the Richard Alden as part of a far-reaching management reshuffle and reorganisation of the company. The appointment will be formally made in May at the shareholders meeting. Portela, a former director of Telefonica, was reportedly […]
Liberty Global's European division has restructured E530 million of its E850 million debt, creating two new tranches that will extend its due date from 2012 by two and three years respectively. As a result, around 95% of UPC Holding's debt will now be due in or after 2013. Mike Fries, Liberty Global's president and CEO, […]
Discovery Networks Asia's SVP Mark Whitehead is joining BBC Worldwide as its GM and SVP in the region. He will report to BBC Worldwide Channels MD Darren Childs, overseeing BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies, BBC HD and BBC World News in the region, which includes India.
Bertelsmann, the German media group that controls Five, has said that the UK broadcaster does not have a sustainable future without a merger with ITV or Channel 4. Thomas Rabe, the chief financial officer of Bertelsmann, which has a 90 per cent stake in Five owner RTL, said that the UK broadcaster’s current business model […]