Private equity fund Permira has cancelled its plans to sell All3Media. UBS had been appointed last March to find a buyer. All3Media is best known for producing hit shows such as Shameless and Skins. Permira had reportedly been looking for about £750 million to £800 million for All3Media, and while plenty of would-be buyers conducted […]
Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine TV production company has acquired the London-based social gaming startup, Bossa Studios, for an undisclosed fee. The acquisition is Shine Group’s first foray into the nascent social gaming market, and comes just months after News Corporation bought the TV firm for $673 million. Bossa Studios creates games for social networking sites including […]
Over-the-top programming could help moderate rising programming costs in the future, Cablevision Systems chief operating officer Tom Rutledge has said. “The rich [channel] package we provide is extremely valuable to customers and there is pricing power in that package,” Rutledge said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch event. “On the other hand, you have […]
The UK Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) has expressed irritation at the slow implementation of anti-piracy law the Digital Economy Act, claiming that the delay is costing retailers millions of pounds. It claims that though the Act passed in June 2010 yet the value of lost sales to illegal filesharing since this time has exceeding £250 […]
Tony Cohen, the chief executive of RTL subsidiary Fremantle Media, which co-produces The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, has accused the BBC’s commercial arm of “distorting the market” for British television producers operating overseas. Cohen told the Royal Television Society that BBC Worldwide pushed up the price of assets and properties for commercial rivals […]
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has confirmed his plans for yet another Arabic all-news channel. ‘Alarab’ is going to target Arabic viewers in the region and around the world, and will be a joint-venture between his Kingdom Holdings and Rotana group. Bloomberg TV will have a 5 hour financial news block on the channel. […]
Optus chief executive, Paul O’Sullivan, has urged the Australian government to create sharing provisions for digital content services provided over the National Broadband Network (NBN). He said that it was essential that rules were put in place so that “the guys with the biggest wallet” could not lock up content that allows telecommunication companies to […]
Visiware, a specialist in interactive television, has confirmed the launch of its Playin’TV games service on Bouygues Telecom’s Bbox. The games channel is available to all Bbox clients in France by pressing the “Welcome” button of the Bbox remote control and selecting the “Games” section, clients can access Playin’TV’s catalogue. The games are available without […]
Modern Times Group (MTG) will launch its third free-TV channel in Lithuania on October 3rd. The new entertainment channel – TV8 – is focused on 35+ year old women and will complement existing channels TV3 and TV6. TV8 will be available in more than 60 per cent of Lithuanian TV households from launch, via satellite […]
UK culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has countered suggestions that tackling the problem of material that is being unlawfully distributed online is an assault on the “freedom” of the Internet. He told the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention that unlawfully distributing copyrighted material was “theft, and a direct assault on the freedoms and rights of creators […]