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Business

Fox appoints Ytreland MD Nordic

Fox International Channels (FIC) Europe has hired Ã…se Ytreland as the new MD for Nordic and Baltic regions. Ytreland will be based in the FIC Nordic's local offices in Copenhagen and Oslo and report directly to Jesús Perezagua, FIC Europe president. Over the last two years, she has been partly based in London as EMEA […]

April 27, 2010

McCann leads Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon UK has appointed Turner Broadcasting's chief content officer to head its UK operation. Tina McCann becomes the new senior vice president and chief content officer for Nickelodeon UK replacing Howard Litton who left in January. She has previously been acting chief content officer for Turner's children's entertainment brands in EMEA, including Cartoon Network, Boomerang […]

April 27, 2010

BBC closes in on re-streamers

The BBC is cracking down on re-streamers of its iPlayer services like TVCatchUp and Zattoo. "We took them [BBC channels] down and they will remain down and we will link to the iPlayer instead," CEO of Zattoo Beat Knecht told the Guardian. "This is to comply with a request of theirs; and it frees us […]

April 27, 2010

Netflix stock passes $100

Netflix’s stock rocketed past $100 a share – a doubling in three months – after the company reported another phenomenal quarter. The online movie rental company logged a 44 per cent surge in first-quarter profit on a 25 per cent jump in revenue. Even more impressive, the company gained a net 1.7 million subscribers in […]

April 26, 2010

SES cuts 2010 growth guidance, shuffles transponders

SES, the world’s second-largest satellite operator, cut its forecast for 2010 revenue and core profit growth after weaker-than-expected first-quarter results. SES, which sells transmission capacity to the likes of BSkyB, Canal Plus, Premiere and NBC, said the delay of a satellite launch and the reduction in revenue from another satellite meant it had to cut […]

April 26, 2010

ONO IPO in 2010

From David Del Valle in Madrid ONO, Spain's dominant MSO that recently completed a major debt restructure, is now planning an IPO to raise further fresh capital. CEO Rosalia Portela said and IPO later this year might raise E700-E1 billion and the company would also look to tap the bond market for further funds. The […]

April 23, 2010

Virgin completes refinancing

Virgin Media, the UK's sole significant cable operator, is completing its long road to restructuring its debt taken on through consolidation. Eamonn O'Hare, finance director, says scheduled repayments have been reduced from £4.8 billion (E5.5bn) by 2012 to £325 million by 2013, and there is no single payment over £200 million before 2015. He says […]

April 23, 2010

Netflix Q1 profit rises, 1.7m more subs

Netflix’s first-quarter income rose 44 per cent as the movie subscription service added 1.7 million more customers. The service has picked up more than 5 million subscribers in the past 18 months as more households are embracing Netflix’s DVD-by-mail and Internet video packages. Netflix ended March with nearly 14 million subscribers and expects to add […]

April 23, 2010

News Corp buys social gamer

News Corp has acquired Irata Labs, a developer of social games across Twitter and Facebook. It seems Irata will be tapped to work with various News Corp. holdings when needed, rather than folded into MySpace or News Corp's existing games companies. At the moment, the company says it's developing a location-based platform for social gaming. […]

April 23, 2010

Yahoo profits treble

An upturn in online advertising helped profits at Internet firm Yahoo almost treble in the three months to the end of March. Net profit rose to $310 million from $118 million in the same period a year ago. The company’s takings were helped by its search and advertising partnership with Microsoft and sale of the […]

April 22, 2010