China’s Orient Hontai will now control Spanish media company Mediapro after acquiring a 53.5 per cent stake in the company for around €900 million. The Chinese private equity firm has acquired the stake from the shareholders: Torreal, another private equity company with a share of 23 per cent; the Mexican broadcaster Televisa with 19 per […]
Sky and BT Sport have agreed to pay £4.464 billion (€5bn) for Premier League games for three seasons from 2019-20. Five of seven live packages have been awarded, with bidding for the remaining two ongoing. Interest from “multiple bidders” remains, the Premier League said – there had been speculation FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) […]
ESPN, Sky Sports and Formula 1 are joining forces to bring Sky Sports’ presentation of the championship to the US. Television audiences in the US will be able to watch the Sky Sports coverage as ESPN and ABC air all 21 races in the championship under a multi-year linear and digital partnership between ESPN and […]
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in a Tweet on February 12th said that even if his new Falcon Heavy rocket was “fully expendable” the cost of a complete launch would only be about $150 million. That’s still a lot of cash, of course, but is around $200-$250 million ‘cheaper’ than its rival at United Launch Alliance […]
Following successful legal action taken by Sky, Sandra McEwan, of Fourways pub Lanarkshire, Victoria Redding of Ellwyn pub in Stirlingshire and Nicholas Whewell of the Thistle Tavern in Fife have each been ordered to pay £10,000 (€11,222) in damages for infringing Sky’s copyright by showing Sky Sports programming illegally in their premises. They must also […]
The BBC has launched a public consultation on its new distribution policy. The BBC is required by its Royal Charter and Framework Agreement to develop a strategy and policy for distributing its output and services. The Agreement states that before publishing that policy the BBC must consult the public and Ofcom. The consultation period runs […]
YouTube plans to roll out its premium subscription service YouTube Red to around 100 countries later this year, according to CEO Susan Wojcicki. YouTube Red launched in the US in October 2015 but although a swift global rollout was predicted, it has since only launched in Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea. It offers […]
Telefónica’s pay-TV platform Movistar has launched a new package combining movies and TV series branded ‘Movistar Fusión Ocio Total’. The package is available at €125 a month and also includes a broadband connection of 300 Mbps, unlimited calls to fixed numbers. It also encompasses the Familiar package with over 80 TV channels, the cinema offer […]
Netflix has published January data from its ISP Speed Index – a monthly update on which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide the best primetime Netflix streaming experience. South Korea’s D LIVE had the largest speed gain in January, gaining by 0.59 Megabits per second (Mbps). This increased its average monthly speed to 2.84 Mbps, up […]
The world’s two largest satellite operators made very different impacts on their local stock exchanges on February 12th. SES was hammered as a result of its worrying change of CEO and CFO. While some observers and analysts welcomed the news as representing a clean sweep at the top of the company, the market voted with […]