The European General Court has annulled the planned merger of the UPC and Ziggo cable TV networks in the Netherlands, finding that the European Commission failed adequately to look into the impact of the merger on pay-TV sports channels. In 2014, the European Commission approved international cable operator Liberty Global’s acquisition of Dutch cable TV network […]
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to consider a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking authorising television broadcasters to use the Next Generation television transmission standard (ATSC 3.0) on a voluntary, market-driven basis at the November Open Commission Meeting scheduled for November 16th, 2017. In a blog post discussing the published […]
The ‘big three’ satellite operators, Intelsat, SES and Eutelsat have all suffered massive falls in their share prices. Intelsat’s tumbled 19.36 per cent in late-afternoon trading on October 26th (by $1.15 to $4.79) and at one point the share price hit $4.44 (€3.82). Eutelsat’s fall from grace was even more dramatic, crashing 14 per cent […]
Satellite operator SES suffered a 5.4 per cent drop in video revenues during its Q3 period (to September 30th), partly because of the failure of AMC-9 but also because of unexpected non-renewals at its recently purchased MX1 division (the former RR Media) which cost it around €7 million. Total TV channels grew 6 per cent […]
Eutelsat has reported a 9.3 per cent fall in Q1 reported revenues to €349 million (although 6.7 per cent when ‘like for like’ numbers were measured) and including a 11.7 per cent tumble in in its ‘Fixed Data’ division compared to Q1/2016. However, these numbers were very much in line with market expectations, and only just […]
US pay-radio operator SiriusXM added 311,000 net new subs during its Q3 and taking the overall total for the year to date to more than 1 million. James Meyer, SiriusXM’s CEO, told analysts on the broadcaster’s conference call that it expected to achieve about 1.4 million net new subscribers this year. The broadcaster now has […]
Social media site Twitter has, effective immediately, banned RT and Sputnik from buying advertising amid fears they attempted to interfere with the 2016 US election. US authorities say both of the Russian media outlets act as “a platform for Kremlin messaging”. Twitter will donate an estimated $1.9 million made from the outlets into research on […]
Intelsat’s headline numbers for Q3 are steady when compared with previous quarters. This latest period saw total revenues of $539 million (€456.2m) for the 3 months to September 30th, which is down 1 per cent on the same period last year ($543m) but up modestly on Q2 ($533m). Overall loss for Q3 was $30 million. […]
A judgment has been obtained in the High Court of England and Wales against a Sky customer who had been streaming Sky Sports content illegally online. Yusuf Mohammed, of Bristol in the west of England, has been ordered to pay legal costs of over £16,000 (€17,945), and to disclose details about the money he made […]
Orange Spain is performing well in the Spanish market. The company managed to increase the number of its TV subscribers by 29.6 per cent to 593,000 in the first nine months of the year. Orange Spain currently has 4,2 million broadband customers – 2.08 million through optic fibre, up 47.7 per cent from one year […]