UK's Ofcom is to 'grab back' capacity 02 and Vodafone have been licensed for restricted 2G services. The original mobile phone companies Vodafone and O2, formerly Cellnet, were given 2G spectrum when the UK mobile industry was founded in 1985. But Ofcom wants to release part of it to new entrants so they can run […]
Bank of Ireland has confirmed the appointment of Michele Roller to its US Media Finance team in a move that demonstrates the Bank's continued commitment to strengthening its North American offering. Michele Roller, Director, will focus on the provision of debt funding solutions for companies in the media sector, offering senior and mezzanine financing to […]
ITV’s long-awaited Deloitte report into premium rate phone-in scandals has uncovered problems with up to 10 million calls to the broadcaster’s major entertainment shows. These involved viewers still being encouraged to call after a winner had been picked or being told there was a randomly selected winner when in fact there was a pre-selected short […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Sky Italia is set to turn a profit for the first time since launch in Italy in 1991 under the brand Tele+. The results of parent News Corp reveal that profits were up from E32 million in H1 2006 to E164 million in the first six months of this year. […]
The head of the Federal Communications Commission has revealed a plan to relax the media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, wants to repeal the rule in the next […]
The UK regulator’s chief executive Ed Richards said he was not persuaded that TV should be allowed to use the “digital dividend” for high-definition programming. Instead, he spoke of the “golden opportunity” of using more efficient MPEG4 compression and the DVBT2 broadcast standard to squeeze HD channels into the existing Freeview band. Ofcom is consulting […]
The Dolan's plan to take Cablevision private is on the brink as ClearBridge Advisors, the largest institutional shareholder in declares it plans to vote against the Dolan family’s $10.6 billion (E7.4bn) bid. A defeat would end a two-year struggle by the Dolans to take private the company, which owns cable systems and the New York […]
Spain’s competition watchdog has launched a probe of the country’s three largest mobile-phone operators for possible collusion, Spain’s Consumer and Users Organisation said. The National Competition Commission is investigating whether Telefonica’s Movistar, Vodafone and France Telecom’s Orange co-ordinated a rise in their tariffs in March. All three raised tariffs to compensate for the banning of […]
Having apparently been outperforming many of its rivals dust during the past year and a half, the world's leading telecommunications equipment maker issued a sales and profit warning. It said its operating profit for the third quarter of 2007 was expected to be down 36 per cent compared with the same period last year. It […]
EchoStar Communications Corp shares rose 4 per cent on speculation that US telco giant AT&T could buy the satellite television provider within a year. Echostar’s television service would complement AT&T’s efforts to expand a high-speed fibre network it is building to sell TV services to better compete with cable and telecommunications rivals.