Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
ITV is doing well in the ratings and might well enjoy a bumper holiday season helped by Christmas specials of shows like Downton Abbey. But a report from the media department at investment bankers Morgan Stanley suggests that 2012 is going to be extremely tough for the network. ITV itself is assuming a flat 2012 […]
Investment bankers Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, suggest that Sky Deutschland is “likely to announce a News Corp-backed [investment raising] before the end of 2011.” The extra cash is needed to make a strong bid for the upcoming sale of Bundesliga TV rights for the 2013-14 seasons, and is likely to be […]
Intelsat, the world’s largest satellite operator, has filed an application with US regulators to transfer its various assets to a new company following on from an Initial Public Offering (IPO) which it intends to make in the near future. No date for the IPO has been set. The FCC filing says that Intelsat will end […]
“Triple play” for rocket launch company Arianespace means having three sizes of rockets available to it, and thus enabling the company to launch any size of cargoes from smaller, Earth-observation satellites right up to heavyweight 20-tonne missions to the International Space Station. The smaller rockets take the shape of its Soyuz and Vega rocket systems, […]
Last week, hard drive manufacturer Western Digital said its Thailand production lines were beginning to return to normal. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the floods severely impacted October’s supply chain of many other classes of consumer electronics items. “As flood waters progressively travelled from the northern region southwards and inundated Central […]
Eutelsat has long struggled with the somewhat complicated names given to its fleet. From March 1 next year, it will adopt a new naming system whereby the satellite’s orbit location determines the name of the craft. Out will go the confusing Eurobird, Atlantic Bird, Sesat and W-series names. For example, its Atlantic Bird 2 satellite, […]
BBC Monitoring is reporting that China imposed restrictions on all of its provincial satellite TV channels about a month ago. “Authorities could now be gearing up to announce another measure aimed at tightening their grip on the mass media – a ban on all ads during TV dramas on all stations, including state-owned CCTV,” says […]
Korean electronics giant LG recently carried out a comparison test of its passive 3DTV technology with that of its 3D rivals’ ‘Active Shutter’ methods. LG used 4,000 ordinary Australian shoppers in a number of Westfield shopping malls to compare and contrast the technologies, and their ‘votes’ massively favoured LG’s Cinema 3DTV system over that of […]
Inmarsat had three catastrophic days last week if investor sentiment is any guide. Inmarsat, which supplies satellite-based services and communications mainly to the maritime and aircraft industries, was within the past year trading at a buoyant 724p per share. Last Monday (November 14) its price stood at 470p, already massively depressed. But from Wednesday to […]
The economic downturn has led an influential working group to advise Portugal’s government that the number of publicly financed TV and radio channels should be dramatically cut back. The suggestion is that RTP (Portugal’s public broadcaster) should transmit just one general interest channel and no longer carry advertising. Its “international” channel should be managed by […]
Cameron backs Paramount in WBD acquisition
Adria News Network launches
Viaplay scores EFL Championship rights in Nordics
Sky News Australia rebranding as News24
DirecTV adds Apple TV’s Formula 1
The Traitors hits 40 international commissions
Burnley FC launches docuseries on X
TheViewPoint rebrands to Upstream
Mega Movie Weekend returns for half-term
Channel 4 launches Content Creatives+ development scheme