Discovery Communications has confirmed that the European Commission (EC) has cleared Discovery’s proposed $14.6 billion (€12.4bn) acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, subject to conditions. This regulatory milestone is an important step towards closing the transaction. The EC’s approval is conditional on Discovery’s commitment to offer third party distributors the right, on a non-exclusive and unbundled […]
Four leading industry participants – Sky, Adobe Systems, TVbeat and Alphonso – have formed a new thought leadership consortium that will work with the European TV industry to explore future opportunities enabled by new developments in measurement, metrics and data, in areas such as advanced targeting, audience profiling, viewability and attribution, and advanced analytics. Building […]
The anticipated agreement between Telefónica and Netflix – to be officially announced by mid-February – is set to see Movistar’s pay-TV offer become more focused on cinema and TV series, to the exclusion of football on account of its high cost. Telefónica paid football rights owner Mediapro €2.4 million in 2016 for coverage, a high […]
China’s StarTimes media group is investing heavily in many African countries. Guo Ziqi, a VP at StarTimes, speaking on February 2nd in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, said its investments in the country have reached $220 million over the past nine years. She was speaking at the formal launch of the Chinese Animation season and heard the […]
UK multichannel broadcaster UKTV has appointed Baby Cow Production’s Kerry Waddell as Head of Production. This comes at a time when the broadcaster has committed to a third more hours of original programming in 2018. Reporting into Richard Watsham, UKTV’s Director of Commissioning, Waddell will be joining UKTV in March 2018 to lead the company’s […]
The next round of auctions for the TV rights to live Premier League football opens next week, but BT’s CEO Gavin Paterson has downplayed their importance, saying the company has a ‘Plan B’ if the cost rises beyond what they’re willing/able to able. Asked if BT’s business model could work if it was shut out […]
According to Paolo Pescatore, VP, Multiplay and Media, CCS Insight, BT’s Q3 results indicate a “somewhat challenging” quarter for the company, especially for Global Services. Reported revenue was down 3 per cent to £5.97 billion (€6.8bn) and underlying revenue down 1.5 per cent. “Worrying times for the consumer unit, with another quarter of line losses […]
Spain’s pay-TV share reached 22.8 per cent in January, the highest in its history according to the Barlovento Comunicación firm. IPTV took 10.1 per cent followed by cable with 9.8 per cent and satellite with 2.8 per cent. DTT is the most used distribution system to watch TV in Spain with 76.8 per cent. Spaniards […]
International digital entertainment group Modern Times Group (MTG) has agreed to accept a €2 billion bid from Danish telco TDC that will see it merge its Nordic Entertainment and MTG Studios businesses with TDC Group, in order to create what the pair say is Europe’s first fully-convergent media and communications provider with an enhanced and […]
Vodafone Spain increased its subscribers in the third fiscal quarter (October 1st – December 31st 2017) but its total revenues remained almost flat. The company’s revenues grew by 0.3 per cent to €1.2 million. The number of subscribers significantly grew –mainly for its convergent package Vodafone One with a gain of 45,000 subscribers against the […]