Viacom profits fell 34 per cent in the first quarter, hurt by a global advertising spending slowdown. The company reported first quarter net profit of $177m, down from $270m, a year earlier. Revenue fell 7 per cent to $2.91bn. Advertising at Viacom's cable networks, which as a sector is considered the most resilient compared with […]

The board of directors of struggling satellite radio provider Sirius XM has approved a “stockholder rights plan” that would effectively prevent the weakened company from hostile takeovers. According to the terms of the plan, known in financial circles as a poison pill, any attempt to buy up more than 4.9 per cent of Sirius’ stock […]

Australia's biggest investment bank, Macquarie Group, has reported its first fall in full-year profits in 17 years. Net profit in the year to 31 March fell by 52% to A$871m ($635m). It also cut A$2.5bn ($1.8 billion) from the value of its assets because of the global financial crisis. The bank said it had cash […]

Comcast reported improving subscriber losses and nearly doubling its free cash flow for the quarter. Comcast said it lost 78,000 subscribers in the period – slightly worse than the 57,000 lost in the first quarter of 2008 but better than analyst consensus estimates of a 171,000 subscriber loss. Revenue rose 5.3% to $8.8 billion and […]

Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has announced less than impressive financial results for the three months ended March 31st, 2009. Net revenues for the first quarter of 2009 were $141.2 million, a decrease of 37 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2008. Operating income for the quarter fell $130 million to a loss […]

SES has reported a 12.2 per cent rise in its first-quarter core profit, maintained its full-year forecast and said it signed a E2 billion credit facility. SES, the world’s second-largest satellite operator, said that EBITDA rose to E308.9 million. SES repeated its forecast of revenue growth between 3 per cent and 4 per cent on […]

The number of TMT (Technology, Media & Telecoms) businesses who feel they have access to funding for their business to operate effectively has more than halved year-on-year, according to new research from accountants and business advisers BDO Stoy Hayward. In 2009, only 38 per cent of TMT businesses said it was easy to get access […]

Anevia, supplier of IPTV and VOD solutions, has secured $7 million in a second round of financing led by Seventure Partners alongside CDC Innovation, a shareholder from the first round funding in 2005. Anevia leads the IPTV market with more than 10,000 live channels and over 4 million end users on the telecoms and hospitality […]

Irish sports pay broadcaster Setanta has held a fresh round of talks with private equity firms in a bid to raise up to £100 million (E110m) following the pay-television company's failure to retain both its Premier League football rights packages beyond 2010. In February, Setanta won the auction for only one of the six available […]

Playboy TV’s UK operation has been fined £22,500 (E24,700) by Ofcom for broadcasting what it termed explicit adult content free-to-air. The fine applies to its Playboy One service, which broadcast as an unencrypted, free-to-air channel until September. Seven programmes broadcast between September 2007 and December 2007 were investigated by Ofcom and it concluded that “the […]