Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has boosted its stake in Arabic music-to-films broadcaster Rotana Media Group. A year ago, News Corp bought nine per cent of Rotana, which is owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed, and with that purchase struck a deal which gave News Corp an option to double its stake within 18 months. News […]

US senators have re-introduced a bill aimed at giving US authorities more tools to crack down on websites selling pirated movies, television shows and music and counterfeit goods. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said the legislation would protect the investment American companies make in developing brands and creating content and protect the jobs […]

Weak first-quarter results at Telefonica showed the damage of the stagnant economy in Spain, with the numbers rescued by strong performance in Latin America. And worldwide the group added 9 per cent to its pay-TV subscriber base – 2.865 million compared to 2.613 million last March. Overall the group had a 2 per cent fall […]

Deficom Telecom a consortium of investment companies, allied with the UK’s private-equity house Apax, have entered into negotiations to acquire Numericable networks in Belgium and Luxembourg. The cable operator has doubled its revenues and increased its operating income fivefold since 2003 thanks to the success of triple-play services. It is the main player in the […]

Technology licensing company Rambus Inc has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held semiconductor security R&D and licensing company Cryptography Research, Inc (CRI) for an aggregate of $342.5 million comprised of $167.5 million in cash, approximately 6.4 million shares of Rambus stock, and $50 million payable to CRI employees in cash or stock over three […]

French entertainment and telecoms company Vivendi has reported a solid start to the year with huge sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops and World of Warcraft boosting earnings in its games division by almost a third, more than countering a plunge of 35 per cent at Universal Music Group. Overall Vivendi, which also owns […]

Eros International, the largest integrated Indian film studio, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ricky Ghai, 50, with effect from July 2011, as Chief Executive Officer of Eros Digital, the rapidly growing digital and new media arm of Eros International plc. Ricky will be based in Eros’ operating offices primarily in India, as well […]

The German pay-TV provider added 73,000 new customers in the first three months of 2011, taking its total subs base to 2,726,000 for the end of March, up from 2,471,000 a year earlier and a step on the way to its challenging 3m target by this next year. Q1 revenues grew 15% YonY to €269.6 […]

BT reported a 71 per cent rise in profits after more than £1 billion (€1.146bn) of cost savings helped it overcome a four per cent drop in revenues. The bigger-than-expected improvement in full-year profits to £1.7 billion was helped by continued success in broadband. BT said 252,000 customers were added by companies using BT’s network, […]