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

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

Trinity Mirror’s revamp of the Mirror and other main national titles is unlikely to result in any substantial increase in circulation, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch. Responding to a Trinity Mirror analyst meeting last night, the broker says that whilst the rationale behind the strategy is sound (adding that something does need to be… Continue reading Mirror Revamp Unlikely To Bear Fruit In Declining Sector, Say Analysts

There was some good news for the US newspaper advertising sector yesterday as two major publishers reported positive results for the third quarter of the year. The New York Times Company (NYTC) talked of a steady improvement in advertising and circulation revenues and posted profits up 35% on ad revenues up 3.6% during September; circulation… Continue reading US Newspaper Groups See Ad Pick-Up In Q3

Global shipments of games consoles will hit 41.9 million units in 2002, an increase of 84% year on year, according to new forecasts from Strategy Analytics. Sony’s PlayStation 2 (PS2) console is expected to account for 63% of sales, followed by Nintendo’s GameCube with 21% and Microsoft’s XBox with 16%. Cumulatively, the PS2 will account… Continue reading Sony Domination May Drive Nintendo Out Of Games Console Market

Vivendi Universal has entered discussions with its bankers in an attempt to secure the funding necessary to take control of Cegetel, the French telecoms firm. A report in the Financial Times claimed that the indebted media group plans to head off a challenge from Vodafone and launch a bid for BT’s 26% stake in Cegetel.… Continue reading Vivendi Seeks New Funds For Cegetel Bid