SMG this morning said that it has completed the acquisition of Orpheus Publications, publisher of consumer magazine titles The Strad, Double Bassist, Choir & Organ, International Piano Quarterly and Classic Record Collector. The company said it will acquire net assets of around £20,000. SMG Publishing’s magazine portfolio includes Scottish Farmer, Boxing News and The Great… Continue reading SMG Acquires Music Mag Publisher

Bert Meerstadt, the CEO of advertising agency Young & Rubicam Europe, has announced his intention to step down from his post this summer, after three years in the role. He will be replaced by Etienne Boisrand, formerly CEO of R&Y France and chairman of Y&R Asia. US-based Y&R was taken over by UK advertising and… Continue reading Young & Rubicam Europe CEO To Step Down This Summer

UK-based telecommunications company, Cable & Wireless, has this morning showed that moves to concentrate on its internet protocol (IP) networks may be starting to be off. Towards the end of 1999, C&W sold its UK consumer cable division – Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) – to rival cable company NTL. Since then C&W has begun… Continue reading C&W’s Focus On IP Networks Pays Off

Stock in the radio sector is currently in freefall after Scottish Radio said it had ended merger discussions (see Scottish Radio Ends Takeover Talks As SMG Declines To Reveal Its Intentions) and a report in this morning’s Financial Times claimed that Capital Radio will tomorrow issue a profits warning. Shares in these two groups naturally… Continue reading Insight Analysis: Radio Shares Take A Dive

BSkyB has completed the acquisition of British Interactive Broadcasting Holdings (BIB), the company which owns and operates the Open interactive TV service. Sky has bought out BT’s stake in BIB, after the telecommunications company decided to exercise its option to exit the group, following Sky’s acquisition of HSBC and Matsushita’s holdings last week (see City… Continue reading BSkyB Completes Open Acquisition

Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) this morning said that it has discontinued offer talks for the group, at least ‘for the time being’. The announcement comes as the group completes the Goldman Sachs-led strategic review which began in December last year. In recent months, the Board has been in discussions with a number of parties which… Continue reading Scottish Radio Ends Takeover Talks As SMG Declines To Reveal Its Intentions

The latest radio audience figures, for the three months to March 2001, showed BBC Radio notching ahead its lead over the commercial sector quarter on quarter. This is a continuation of a trend that began around a year ago when then BBC stations took their share over the 50% mark and commercial dropped back to… Continue reading Insight Analysis: BBC Radio Continues To Build Advantage

The divide between the strongest and weakest Internet companies in Europe is widening according to the latest edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Internet 150, a rolling quarterly analysis of cash burn rates and share price performances of the top 150 publicly listed European internet companies. The top 25% of companies in the index are, on average,… Continue reading European Internet Market: Divide Grows Between Rich And Poor

According the first National Internet Study by Scarborough Research, 23% of online consumers said that they watch less television now than they did before they started using the internet. Although 50% of internet users reported that a tv was on in the room where the internet was used most often and 91% said that they… Continue reading TV Viewing In Decline As Net Popularity Increases

It is thought that talks will be initiated this week regarding the integration of Carlton and Granada’s new media divisions. Simon Shaps, managing director of Granada Broadband and Duncan Eaton, marketing and strategy director at Carlton Interactive are expected to meet with Stuart Prebble, chief executive of ITV to discuss the structure of ITV.com. Plans… Continue reading Carlton And Granada New Media Departments To Plan ITV Web Presence Boost