French broadcaster TF1 has confirmed that is interested in acquiring Kirch Media, following speculation in yesterday’s Financial Times newspaper (see TF1 Offers Low-End Bid For Kirch Media). The group says that it has sent a preliminary and non-binding letter to UBS Warburg, Kirch’s bankers, expressing interest in the acquisition of some of the group’s assets.… Continue reading TF1 Confirms Preliminary Interest In Kirch Media

French broadcaster TF1 has tabled a bid for the insolvent Kirch Media of around E2.0 billion, according to reports in the Financial Times. Kirch Media has been teetering on the brink of full financial collapse (see KirchMedia Files For Bankruptcy Signalling The Demise Of The Kirch Empire) and has already seen the closure of Premiere… Continue reading TF1 Offers Low-End Bid For Kirch Media

Liberty Media has disclosed that it is to extend an offer to acquire bonds of the UK cable operator, Telewest after a group of bondholders filed a lawsuit claiming that the offer was illegal. Telewest, which is £5.3 billion in debt, announced last week that it was to begin refinancing negotiations (see Telewest Agrees To… Continue reading Liberty Extends Telewest Tender

The first round exit of the French team from the World Cup has hit advertising revenues at French broadcaster, TF1, which had set in place a pricing model based on the team’s expected progress through the competition. Analysts at ABN Amro are now expecting H1 ad revenues to be down by 1.9% at E818 million,… Continue reading TF1 Revenues Hit By France’s Early World Cup Exit

UK press advertising revenues may be showing signs of an upturn, albeit patchy, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch. At Trinity Mirror, struggling national revenues have begun to recover in May and June, turning positive after a 10.3% decline in the first five months of the year (see Trinity Mirror Sees Very Little Visibility, Poor… Continue reading UK Press Advertising On The Up?

US national radio advertising revenue jumped by 11.0% during May, whilst local spend rose by 1.0%, according to the latest data from the US Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB). The combined total revenue was up 3.0% year on year. In the calendar year to May, local revenue remained flat, whilst national rose by 4.0%; this gives… Continue reading US Radio Shows Strong National Advertising Growth In May

British mobile phone subscribers are holding on to their handsets for longer, hindering a revival in the telecoms industry. This is the upshot of of a new report by Taylor Nelson Sofres which examined mobile ownership in the year to April. With mobile phone penetration levels reaching saturation level in the UK, manufacturers and retailers… Continue reading Mobile Users Hanging On To Phones, Reveals Study

The development of digital terrestrial television (DTT) has been hampered by substandard marketing, lukewarm government support and poor targeting of services, according to a new report from the Yankee Group. Nonethess, the study, entitled ITV Update, Part 1:DTT Down, But Is It Out?, is essentially optimistic about the future of the medium. The report concentrates… Continue reading DTT To Learn From Setbacks, Says Yankee Group

The advertising market is improving more quickly than was predicted just a few months ago, Doug Flynn, CEO of Aegis, has told the Wall Street Journal in interview. The paper reports that Aegis is now expecting US adspend to rise 1.5% in 2002, up from a previous forecast of -0.2%. Whilst Asia is also predicted… Continue reading Aegis Chief Sees Improvement In Media Spending

There will be approximately 27 million ‘e-workers’ across Europe by the end of the decade, according to the UK Institute for Employment Studies (IES). Currently, more than 9 million people, or 6% of the entire European workforce, have a job which involves an element of IT. By 2010, this will have risen to a sixth… Continue reading Number Of Euro ‘E-workers’ To Treble By 2010