Swissom has offered to buy out its remaining fellow shareholders in Fastweb, giving the Swiss telecommunications group full control of its troubled Italian subsidiary. The Swiss group will offer Fastweb shareholders E18 a share – 34 per cent, over this weeks prior average price. The all-cash deal will cost the highly profitable Swiss group […]
The French media group has said it will press ahead with a flotation of its stake in pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus after failing to strike a deal with Vivendi. Arnaud Lagardère, chief executive, said there would “not be a U-turn” in a planned IPO of its 20 per cent stake which it values at E1.5bn […]
Yahoo! is preparing to buy a “considerable” stake in Hulu, if the VoD site goes through with its IPO, according to investment bank Stifel Nicolaus & Co. It has been reported Hulu will go for a float and seek a value of $2bn. Hulu generated video ad impressions of 783 million in July, putting it […]
Five is to lose seven of its nine executive directors in a management cull as new owner Richard Desmond looks to cut £20m (E24m) from the business. In total up to 80 jobs will go. Among the leaving are director of strategy Charles Constable and managing director Mark White. Dawn Airey, the Five chairman and […]
Management gurus and journalists have a habit of ascribing human characteristics to corporations: ‘the sleeping giant,’ ‘the agile start up,’ ‘the strong brand.’ But you hardly ever hear companies described as ‘nerveless,’ or ‘calm’ or ‘wise’. The reason is that they are none of the above and particularly not in the hot house of the […]
BSkyB is in talks to broadcast a 24-hour rolling news service in Arabic, based in Abu Dhabi, as part of a joint venture with a local private investor, according to reports. Entering a highly competitive market, the satellite channel would launch under the Sky News name and be the UK broadcaster’s first venture into a […]
News Corp has made its latest move in digital content exploitation by acquiring e-reader platform Skiff and investing in a company that develops paid content models for publishers. News Corporation, which is close to charging customers for access to the Times and Sunday Times online, said that the two deals represented “key building blocks” in […]
Singapore's fully-integrated info-communications provider StarHub has deployed SeaChange International's Intelligent Video Platform in support of its mobile TV service. Providing a unified and open back office software solution for high-quality streaming over StarHub's mobile network to any mobile device, the Intelligent Video Platform was implemented on the “StarHub TV on Mobile” service this month. StarHub […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish media group that controls Digital Plus and Cuatro TV is investing E31.5 million to acquire a 51 per cent of the US Spanish-speaking US TV channel V-me Media. Initially, Prisa will invest E3.3 million to control a 23 per cent stake; another investment of E8.2 will be […]
Cablevision Systems has bought Bresnan Communications, which is majority owned by Providence Equity Partners, for $1.365 billion. Bresnan is the thirteenth largest MSO in the US with cable operating systems in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah that pass more than 630,000 homes and serve more than 300,000 basic subscribers.