Macrovision Solutions Corporation, a digital entertainment specialist, has reached an agreement to sell its TV Guide Network property to Allen Shapiro and One Equity Partners for approximately $255 million, plus up to an additional $45 million payable through earn-out provisions through 2012. The transaction, expected to close no later than April 1st, 2009, includes the […]
Frontier Silicon has announced its founding membership of the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA), to be launched at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Frontier's CEO, Anthony Sethill, has been appointed to serve on the steering committee of the new association. IMDA aims to develop and promote a set of open standards and […]
The UK government is considering four options to solve Channel 4’s funding crisis, including privatisation and a potential tie-up with BBC Worldwide. Lord Carter, minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, is likely to outline his proposals when the interim report of his Digital Britain panel is published at the end of January. Ofcom is scheduled […]
The first global standard offering an in-home, high-speed network capable of delivering room-to-room HDTV has been agreed by ITU. The standard, published under the G.hn banner, promises high quality multimedia over power, coaxial, phone and other home network wiring. It will give up to 20 times the throughput of existing wireless technologies and three times […]
Research In Motion (RIM) is to acquire Chalk, a publicly-held company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, in an all-cash transaction. Chalk is the developer of Mobile chalkboard, an award-winning application suite that enables the rapid creation and secure deployment of media-rich 'Pushcasts' to BlackBerry smartphones.
The European Commission has taken a decisive step towards the promotion of competitive Mobile TV services in the EU. It has published a set of guidelines for the authorisation of Mobile TV to accelerate roll-out of the service across Europe. Mobile TV revenues worldwide are expected to reach more than E7.8 billion in 2013. “Successful […]
BSkyB CFO Andrew Griffith has publicly stated it could make sense to buy the UK unit of Italian broadband operator Tiscali in order to increase the number of broadband households it can reach. “At the moment, we only address 9 million homes, so Sky broadband products -great value though they are – are only speaking […]
Thomas Ebeling is to be the new CEO ProSiebenSat.1 as successor to Guillaume de Posch. Ebeling was most recenty CEO of pharmaceutical company Novartis Consumer Health. De Posch announced in June that he would resign at the end of the year.
Deception and Distrust: The Federal Communications Commission Under Chairman Kevin Martin" is the unsubtle title of a new report from the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. The report concluded, among other things, that the outcome of an la carte cable report–reversing findings of a previous report–was predetermined and dictated by the […]
Ofcom has released details of its 2009-10 annual plan, with emphasis on delivering spectrum through the digital dividend and promoting competition in pay-TV. Ofcom expects to make a decision on proposals to force Sky to offer some of its premium channels wholesale in spring 2009. The current consultation as a result of Ofcom's pay-TV review, […]