The recent record CNMC fine of almost €80 million on Mediaset and Atresmedia for illegal ad practices has led regional TV stations, represented by Federación de Organismos de Radio y Televisión Autonómicos (FORTA), and smaller DTT channels to claim for damages of up to €70 million to €100 million from the largest TV broadcasters. The […]
The Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) – which represents the interests of leading commercial broadcasters across Europe – is celebrating its 30 years as Europe embarks into a new political cycle. ACT’s Blueprint for media policy 2019-2024 sets out the body’s guiding thoughts for what European policy-makers need to focus on if they […]
Most analysts had expected the C-Band Alliance of satellite operators to volunteer 25 per cent of their anticipated revenues in a ‘windfall’ tax paid to the US Treasury. But in a major filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on November 15th, they now say they’ll use a ”progressive” formula which ranges from 30 per […]
The UK Labour party has made an election pledge to give every home and business in the UK free full-fibre broadband by 2030 – if it wins the general election. The plan would mean the re-nationalising part of BT to deliver the policy, and the introduction a tax on tech giants to help pay for […]
Who’d have predicted that broadband would take centre stage in the UK election in such spectacular fashion? But then, who would have predicted much at all about the shambles that is British politics just now. The parties are united in recognising a market failure that has seen the UK languish at the bottom of developed […]
Philip Jansen, the chief executive of BT, has warned that real cost of the Labour opposition’s General Election pledge to roll out a full-fibre network nationwide and provide free broadband for all could be as high as £100 billion and that shareholders in BT will be forced to sell at a “deep discount” under a […]
It hasn’t been a prosperous time for the C-Band Alliance of Intelsat, SES and Telesat. Both Intelsat and SES suffered significant mark-downs in the share prices on the back of negative comments from investment bank JPMorgan with its comments (which was reported on November 13th). In essence, the bank says that there are serious concerns […]
Russian news-service TASS is reporting that despite “dozens” of criminal cases and serious penalties, there remains on-going corruption concerns at the Vostochny ‘Far East’ Russian rocket launch site. TASS quotes President Putin saying: “It has been stated a hundred times: you must work transparently because large funds are allocated. This project is actually of the […]
Europe’s leading independent private telecoms companies have formed a new industry association – GIGAEurope. Built on the foundations of Cable Europe, the association will promote the industry’s interests, and in the longer term become an umbrella organisation for a broad section of the connectivity industry. GIGAEurope’s founding members include most of the current Cable Europe […]
Spanish regulator CNMC has imposed a record €40 million fine on each of the largest TV companies in the country – Mediaset and Atresmedia (around 4.5 per cent of their revenues) – for “hindering the entry and expansion of third operators in the TV ad market in Spain” and thus breaking the competition legislation. With […]