Vocento has revealed that Disney has agreed to acquire 20 per cent of the Spanish media group’s Net TV unit for around E27 million. In a statement, Vocento said the sale is part of its 2008-10 strategy plan to consolidate its position as a Digital TV provider. After the sale, Vocento will hold 55 per […]
Mark Hurd, the chairman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, has joined the board of News Corp. Hurd replaces Roderick Paige, the former US education secretary. Rupert Murdoch praised the HP boss's management skills. “Mark has had great success in sharpening HP's strategic focus resulting in increased growth and profitability for what is one of the […]
Britain is to follow France in making ISPs cut access to users who repeatedly download music or films illegally. The government had given the music and film industries a year to come to a voluntary agreement with ISPs over how to tackle illegal file sharing, but that period expired at the end of 2007. In […]
From David Del Valle in Barcelona The European Commission’s decision to bet on the DVB-H standard to for Europe has been fiercely criticised by the Qualcomm-sponsored FLO Forum at the MWC in Barcelona which has demanded a neutral position from European authorities in the emerging mobile TV business. “It is still very premature having a […]
The president of MTV, Christina Norman, is stepping down after almost three years of trying to revitalise the cable channel and adding music and reality-based programming. Van Toffler, the president of the MTV Networks' Music and Logo Group, will assume Norman's day-to-day responsibilities for MTV.
Pay-TV sports broadcaster Setanta Sports was at the centre of takeover speculation after reports of a £1 billion-plus (E1.4bn) offer for the business. The Irish company received the unsolicited approach from a unnamed European media company and the interest could spark a flood of rival offers, reported the Sunday Telegraph. BT, Virgin Media and US […]
Yahoo’s board is expected to officially reject Microsoft’s takeover bid concluding the $44.6 billion offer “undervalued” the company, and want an offer equivalent to $40 a share, rather than the $31 offered by Microsoft. The company’s share price has increased so much since the offer was made that Yahoo’s market value now exceeds Microsoft’s offer, […]
The Kudelski Group, specialists in CA, have agreed to acquire EmbedICs, a US-based embedded software, cryptography and fabless semiconductor design firm.
Teleste has acquired the Finnish software and video service solution provider Ortikon Interactive Ltd. Founded in 2000 Ortikon develops complete integrated software solutions designed for video business. The company supplies the related comprehensive systems mainly for European cable operators. As demand for the new video services increases in Europe the market share of digital headend […]
BBC World, the commercial arm of the BBC, has confirmed it is in talks with private equity groups to raise funds for possible acquisitions. The Times suggested it wanted to raise up to £1 billion (E1.38bn). The BBC has a £350 million commercial borrowing limit set by government. In recent years it has borrowed some […]