Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset group has refuted reports that it has rejoined the auction for KirchMedia but has vowed to keep a watching brief on developments involving the bankrupt media group. It was reported yesterday that Mediaset, which owns three Italian national TV channels, had joined forces with French broadcaster TF1 and US media magnate Haim… Continue reading Berlusconi Denies Swoop For KirchMedia

NTL, Britain’s largest cable TV company, is looking to renegotiate a $500 million debt facility in a move that will delay its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, says a report in the Financial Times today. Bondholders have already agreed to a $10.6 billion debt-for-equity swap but NTL needs the facility to fund working capital when… Continue reading NTL Seeks To Change Debt Facility

US online advertising revenues fell by 4.1% to $1.46 billion in the second quarter of 2002, according to a new report from the Internet Advertising Bureau. The figures, produced in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that internet adspend was down 21.9% when compared with Q2 2001. The report also revised down its Q1 estimate to $1.52… Continue reading US Internet Advertising Remains In Decline

Although broadband is proving popular in some parts of Europe, significant growth will not occur until dial-up internet access has peaked, according to a study from Probe Research. The report, European/African Internet Connectivity and Leading European ISPs, forecasts that providers can expect to see ongoing growth in broadband through 2007. However, Probe suggests that many… Continue reading Broadband Providers Must Reach Out To Consumers, Says Report

Around 2 million person to person text messages were sent each hour during September bringing the monthly total to an all time high of £1.43bn, according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association September’s figure takes the daily average of SMS messages sent across the UK’s four GSM network operators to 48 million,… Continue reading Text Appeal Shows No Sign Of Abating

Mediaset, the Italian television group, is understood to have re-entered the auction for Kirch Media, the German media division of the collapsed Kirch empire (see News Corp Out Of The Running For Kirch, Says Report). According to the Financial Times, Mediaset has joined a consortium bid involving leading French broadcaster TF1 and US billionaire investor,… Continue reading Mediaset Rejoins KirchMedia Auction

Channel 4 and Channel 5 are understood to be preparing to approach competition regulators to prevent the creation of a single ITV on the grounds that it will control too much of the TV advertising market. Carlton and Granada announced plans to merge earlier this month ending a period of intense speculation about the future… Continue reading Rival Commercial Broadcasters Challenge ITV Merger

Consumers’ use of the internet to handle billing and account management is set to reach a 45% penetration of the US adult population by 2005, according to forecasts from Gartner Dataquest. The report shows that 22% of US adults will be using online billing and account systems by the end of this year, up from… Continue reading Online Billing Systems To Become Increasingly Popular

US broadband service providers attracted 1.3 million new subscribers during the second quarter of 2002, according to a new study from Jupiter Media. Approximately 13.1 million households or 21% of all online households now connect to the internet using a high speed connection. In the report, Broadband User Segmentation: Understanding and Targeting the Broadband Audience,… Continue reading Broadband In 13 Million US Homes, Says Jupiter

Less than half of all UK employers know how long their staff are online and in many cases, employees are free to use the internet for non-work purposes. These are the conclusions of a new report from the ISP Star Internet. The survey found that only 43% of bosses were aware of the amount of… Continue reading Employers In The Dark On Internet Usage