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 […]
Sogecable-owned Digital Plus, continues losing subscribers with a drop of 24,523 in only two months ending August. It now has 1,760,320 subscribers with an ARPU of E41.7. The company, which reported an EBITDA of E189 million, claims to have reduced its churn rate “for the fifth consecutive month.” Over the last months, Digital Plus […]
Police have conducted a series of raids across Europe in the biggest crackdown yet on file-sharing. 48 sites were targeted in countries including the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Hungary. In Sweden, seven premises were raided including PRQ, which is believed to host Pirate Bay and the revelatory website WikiLeaks. Co-ordinated by Belgian police, the operation […]
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 […]
Net Neutrality is, ironically, a matter on which nearly no one is neutral. When the Web was young the idea of equal access for all content and service providers was logical and easily accommodated. Then came video, which was magnitudes more bandwidth hungry than what had gone before. But there was still no question of […]
TiVo, the digital video recorder maker, has reported a narrower loss than expected thanks to a pick-up in sales for its new Premiere recorder, but forecast a wider-than-expected net loss in the fiscal third quarter. The company said it expects a net loss in the range of $19 million to $21 million for its fiscal […]
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 […]
The hail of regulator references and appeals continues in the UK as Ofcom asks the Competition Commission to investigate its concerns regarding the sale and distribution of pay TV movies. Ofcom thinks the way in which first-run Hollywood movies are sold and distributed creates a situation in which Sky has the incentive and ability to […]
From Colin Mann in London Free-market policy research body The Adam Smith Institute is proposing that the TV Licence Fee should be abolished, and that the BBC should instead become a subscription service. The think tank makes its arguments in a report – Global Player or Subsidy Junkie? Decision time for the BBC – written […]
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 […]