A report from Macquarie investment bank has suggested that the time was now right for a deal which would see 21st Century Fox buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already control. “That moment has come, with Sky shares down 32 per cent [this year to date] in US$ terms,” Macquarie’s Guy […]
Virgin Media is reportedly about to close a deal to buy UK-based Arqiva’s WiFi distribution business. Arqiva, according to the FT, has some 27,000 hotspots covering hotel rooms, airline lounges and airports in Britain. Virgin Media is also building its WiFi distribution business and, for example, operates the WiFi system on London’s Underground metro system. […]
Reports have surfaced that John Malone’s Liberty Media is seeking to take control of Formula One motor racing, with Sky News reporting that it is in detailed talks with F1’s controlling shareholder, CVC Capital Partners, about a transaction. Similar reports late June 2015 suggested that another of Malone’s companies, Liberty Global, was working with Sky […]
Vivendi is reported as planning €300m of cuts at Canal Plus in a 2018 turnaround target for the loss making French pay-TV unit. The French media and content group plans cost cuts across the board, including broadcasting, distribution and production, yielding savings of €60m – €80m this year alone. The cost-cutting comes as Vivendi revealed […]
The battle over the April deal between the European media groups continues as Mediaset rejects Vivendi’s position on the aborted agreement between the pair in the strongest terms. The Italian group said Vivendi’s account of the events leading up to, and following on from its decision not to go ahead with contained “information without foundation” […]
ITV has aborted plans to buy Entertainment One, the owner of Peppa Pig. The broadcaster said in a stock market statement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire eOne because the two companies could not agree on a price to begin negotiations. The withdrawal comes a fortnight it emerged that eOne had turned down […]
A Luxembourg-based offshoot of Beijing-based Xinwei Group has bought Spacecom of Israel (Space Communications), operators of the AMOS fleet of satellites of $285 million (€252.7m), an impressive premium of 41 percent on the stock market valuation. In a somewhat complicated three-way transaction Spacecom will ‘merge’ with Luxembourg Space Telecommunications (itself a subsidiary of Beijing Xinwei […]
Eurofins Digital Testing, a global player in end-to-end quality assurance (QA) and testing services (formerly Testronic Labs Belgium and Digital TV Labs), has acquired Labatus, to strengthen its ability to help accelerate and reinforce deployment of multiplatform TV and video services for operators around the globe. Financial terms were not disclosed. Labatus offers automated test […]
Italian broadcaster Mediaset has initiated legal action before a Milan Court to enforce a contract signed in April with French media group Vivendi. Mediaset is requesting €50 million in damages for each month of delay in the implementation of the agreement as of July 25th, the date when Vivendi allegedly backtracked from the deal. However, the […]
It isn’t the first time that India’s Dish TV and Videocon d2h have been reported to be in merger discussions, but again the gossip has led to India’s CNBC-TV18 news channel to state that the two pay-TV giants are close to agreeing merger terms. The news channel said that Dish TV, already India’s largest DTH […]