Two US Senators have called for a congressional hearing to investigate allegations that phone and cable companies are stifling communications over the Internet and on mobile phones. Sens. Byron Dorgan, and Olympia Snowe, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, have raised serious concerns over networks “power to discriminate against […]
Video search engine blinkx has reported positive financial results for the period ended 30 September 2007. Gross profit for the first half of 2008 was $2.2 million (E1.5m), with a gross margin of 74 per cent and daily searches have grown by 280 per cent. Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx, said: “We are […]
Comcast earnings fell sharply in the third quarter in the context of a year-earlier gain related to its acquisition of cable systems from Adelphia Communications. Comcast’s net income fell 54 per cent to $560 million (E391m), compared with $1.22 billion, a year earlier. Most of the profit decline came from a year-earlier gain of $669 […]
Microsoft has beaten off competition from Google to pay $240 million for a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook that values the popular social networking site at $15 billion. Microsoft will also sell internet ads for Facebook outside the United States as part of the deal that took several weeks of negotiating. Microsoft already provides […]
The European Commission has decided that plans to finance part of the fees commercial broadcasters pay for the transmission of their programmes on the DVB-T network in North Rhine-Westphalia are not compatible with the EC state aid rules. The Commission said it fully supported the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting, however, the proposed measures […]
The UK ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has banned a Sky advert following complaints over the claim that new and existing customers get equally good deals with the company. The advert claimed that Virgin Media’s policy was to give better deals to new customers, stated: “At Sky we think it’s wrong to advertise attractive sounding prices […]
Digiturk, Turkey’s largest digital television broadcaster, plans to raise as much as $550 million (E386m) in an IPO of 25 per cent of its business. The company is controlled by Istanbul conglomerate Cukurova and Providence Equity Partners. The pair are selling down their holding from 100 to 75 per cent. The Turkish media sector is […]
The US has led calls to allocate a significant chunk of the radio frequency spectrum for use by digital television. On the opening day the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), US delegation leader Richard Russell said it was important that countries identify sections or ‘bands’ of wavelengths to be used exclusively for advanced wireless services. The […]
Eutelsat Communications said sales jumped 6.2 per cent to E211.9 million in its first quarter to September from E199.5 million a year earlier thanks to “the continuing good performance of our markets.” For the year to June 2008, Eutelsat reiterated targets of sales of E840-850 million and an EBITDA margin of more than 77.5 per […]
Viacom has stated that it will not drop its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube parent Google. Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said that Google had not done enough to prevent content from being illegally uploaded to YouTube. Viacom, owners of MTV and Nickelodeon, claims that Google allowed more than 160,000 clips of its programming to […]