Operating losses at troubled right-leaning news channel GB News grew 38 per cent to £42.4 million (€49.6m) in the year to May 2023, the business has revealed in accounts filed to Annual Companies House. The accounts for GB News Limited show 80 per cent year-on-year growth in revenue to £6.7 million, but also a 63 […]

Incoming BBC Chair Samir Shah has warned that the Corporation must confront hard choices and tough decisions in what he describes as a “tough financial situation”. In  a note to all BBC Staff at the start of his tenure as Chair of the BBC Board, Shah said that along with the Board, he was “here […]

tvScientific, the performance advertising platform for connected TV (CTV), has announced that the company had raised $9.4 million (€8.6m) in a convertible note funding round that included new investors S4S Ventures, BDMI, and Progress Ventures joining investors including NBCU/Comcast, Norwest Capital Partners, Aperiam Ventures and Hearst Ventures. With tvScientific, advertisers can buy and execute performance […]

EchoStar, which now owns Dish Network, and having suffered two reversals in its plans to raise fresh borrowings, is now contemplating raising $3 billion (€2.78bn) by issuing debt which is backed by its spectrum assets. A report from Bloomberg says that EchoStar could issue new notes backed by 20 MHz of its AWS-4 terrestrial spectrum, […]

China-backed – but Germany-based – would-be satellite constellation Kleo Connect has reportedly run out of cash, and laid off staff effective April 30th. The Chinese company behind Kleo, Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) are also the sponsors of China’s G60 mage-constellation. However, SSST on February 1st raised 6.7 billion Yuan (about €877 million) in fresh […]

Rocket Lab is a major supplier of launch and space systems. Its Electron launch vehicle is the second most frequently launched US rocket annually and has delivered more than 176 satellites to orbit for commercial and Government partners, including NASA, the US Air Force and other governmental agencies. Long Beach-based Rocket Lab, founded in 2006, […]

Such is the market’s enthusiasm for AST SpaceMobile’s prospects that the company’s financial underwriters have successfully placed another 4.83 million shares and, after fees and expenses, the net proceeds will be $14.1 million (€13m). Texas-based AST is proposing a global satellite ‘direct-to-smartphone’ service to commence within the next year or so. Last week it received […]

French commercial broadcaster TF1 group has filed a complaint with the European Commission for “illegal state aid” against PSB group France Télévisions. The abolition of the TV licence fee, to be replaced by the allocation of a portion of VAT, is at the heart of TF1’s argument, according to Le Figaro. “This change in financing […]

Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which wants to provide a global satellite-to-smartphone services, has received some major investments from major telcos and Google. But there’s also bad news. The cash, totalling some $263 million (€241.4m), comes from AT&T, Vodafone and Google. The finance, according to consultant Dr Tim Farrar (of TMF Association) suggests that the extra cash […]

Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar is reportedly looking to swap around $4.9 billion (€4.4bn) of debt for new bonds that will be backed by the company’s extensive portfolio of 5G wireless spectrum. The plan was announced after the market closed on January 12th and in essence said that holders of existing convertible debt – already significantly downgraded […]