China’s EKT (Eagle Kingdom Technologies), a supplier of advanced STB solutions and iP4 (iP4.tv GmbH), a developer of advanced STB middleware called solidTV, have joined forces in a merger that sees a seamless integration of the iP4.tv STB middleware and the Advanced Hardware solutions from EKT. The merger allows EKT to offer cost effective solutions ranging from Zappers through to [...]
Samsung has acquired up MOVL, a company known for smart TV games and its TV app development platform. Samsung acquired the Atlanta-based startup last month but hasn’t been reported until now. Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed. A MOVL spokesperson released the following statement: “In April 2013, two years after inception, MOVL has officially joined forces with Samsung. We [...]
Swiss telco Swisscom has reported net revenues fell 2.4 per cent in the first quarter as record customer growth failed to offset weakening market prices. First quarter net profits fell 12.4 per cent to 390 million Swiss francs ($420.3 million). Swisscom TV connections increased by 205,000 (31.3 per cent) year-on-year to 860,000. Meanwhile, Swisscom has increased its stake in Cinetrade [...]
A decision made this week to see South Africa’s TopTV sold to China-backed StarTimes group is likely to be challenged in the courts. Multichoice-backed consortium Dynamic TV, which submitted its own robust and well-funded take-over bid for TopTV on April 29, had tried to block the shareholder vote on April 30th and saying that they were prepared to start funding [...]
Lagardere’s chief executive has said he is prepared to consider buying Vivendi SA’s 80 per cent stake in pay-TV company Canal Plus France, according to an interview by French newspaper Le Monde. “I’m ready to look at buying the 80 per cent they have and listing it on the stock exchange in favorable conditions,” Arnaud Lagardere says in the interview. [...]
Yahoo has dropped its bid for Dailymotion due to objections by the French government, according to reports. Yahoo had been in talks to buy a 75 per cent stake in Dailymotion, owned by France-Telecom Orange, in a deal that would have valued the video website at $300 million. But French government officials raised concerns that the country would lose control [...]
A special board meeting of On Digital Media (ODM) in Johannesburg on April 30th voted in favour of the scheme put forward by StarTimes to rescue ODM’s TopTV pay-TV operator. Reportedly 99 per cent of shareholders approved the move. The decision also means that other rival bids, in one case by a consortium backed by Multichoice, have been rejected. StarTimes, [...]
Cable MSO Liberty Global has increased its stake in Dutch cable operator Ziggo, giving rise to speculation about a possible takeover. Liberty Global already had a 12.65 per cent holding in Ziggo, and raised its stake to 15 per cent, according to a filing with the Dutch stock market regulator AFM. Investment houses Cinven and Warburg Pincus April 26th sold [...]
TopTV, a digital broadcasting rival to South Africa’s Multichoice, is in financial trouble. Up until now the front-runner to buy the troubled company was StarTimes, a China-backed operation with an existing portfolio of African-based pay-TV investments. A new potential buyer (‘Dynamic TV Consortium’) has now emerged in the shape of local South African entrepreneurs, but with one major snag: Multichoice [...]
India’s Airtel Digital TV is selling 20 percent of itself and intends to raise about $200 million in the process to fund expansion. The broadcaster is currently backed fully by telco giant Bharti. Now reports have emerged from Mumbai that US private equity investor Carlyle Group is in early talks to buy the stake. However, Carlyle is far from alone [...]
