German media group Bertelsmann said it decided not to buy the remaining 10 per cent of European broadcaster RTL Group it does not already own because of legal uncertainties. But Bertelsmann retains the right to increase its stake in RTL and to consider all options to reach its aim to delist RTL shares from the […]
US investment fund Carlyle is set to acquire a 35 per cent stake in French cable operator Numericable, formerly known as Noos, and which has almost total dominance in the French market. Numericable’s current shareholders are Altice with a 30 per cent stake and Cinven with 70 per cent. In a joint statement, the three […]
From Colin Mann in London The UK's anti-trust watchdog, the Competition Commission has recommended that BSkyB should be forced to sell some of the 17.9 per cent stake in ITV it acquired in November 2006. The regulator has recommended to Business Secretary John Hutton that BSkyB should either sell all of its shares or cut […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish media group Prisa, owner of newspaper El Pais, has launched a bid for the rest of Sogecable, Spain’s largest pay-TV group, that it does not already own, valuing the pay-TV operator, owner of Digital DTH platform Digital Plus and premium channel Canal Plus, at E3.8 billion. Prisa […]
Ericsson has acquired HyC Group, a leading Spanish company in TV consultancy and systems integration. The acquisition further strengthens Ericsson’s position in the services and multimedia domains as a systems integrator of IPTV solutions. The HyC acquisition follows Ericsson’s acquisition of Tandberg Television, provider of advanced video compression technologies, at the beginning of the year. […]
Channel Four has been fined £1.5 million by media watchdog Ofcom for misconduct involving phone-in competitions on popular programmes Richard and Judy and Deal or No Deal. Viewers were urged to call a premium number after contestants had already been chosen on Richard and Judy. Deal or No Deal selected competition finalists in a way […]
Funding received by the BBC via the licence fee could soon be diminished following possible reforms ordered by media regulator Ofcom. One option under review could lead to the licence fee being sliced up so that money could be channeled to other organisations to spend on “public service” web and television ventures. Though the BBC […]
Philips Electronics has reached an agreement in principle to sell its Set-Top Boxes (STB) and Connectivity Solutions (CS) businesses to UK-based technology provider Pace Micro Technology. Philips will sell the businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares. Philips will retain 22.5 per cent of the enlarged share capital of Pace. The deal […]
Discovery Holding Company and Advance/Newhouse Programming Partnership announced that they have signed a non-binding letter of intent pursuant to which DHC and Advance/Newhouse will combine their stakes in Discovery Communications. This will mean DHC will spin-off to its shareholders a wholly-owned subsidiary holding the networks and creative services businesses of Ascent Media Group. Immediately following […]
Omneon, provider of media server and active storage systems for the broadcast and digital content storage markets, has acquired Castify Networks, a provider of software-based solutions for managing the distribution of digital content over the Internet and private Intranets.Castify’s end-to-end software solutions enable enterprises and service providers to build scalable, easy-to-manage, and cost-efficient service delivery […]