Independent News & Media’s £300 million bid for the Belfast Telegraph has been referred to the Competition Commission. The group made its bid earlier this month (see Trinity Mirror Sells Belfast Telegraph To Independent), and its referral is obligatory under newspaper merger rules.Disposal of the Belfast Telegraph Newspapers, which includes the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday… Continue reading Indy’s Bid For Belfast Telegraph Referred To Competition Commission
Independent News & Media, publisher of the Independent newspaper, has this morning posted a 68% rise in pre-tax profits to £86.1 million for the whole of 1999. The Dublin-based company publishes a number of newspapers around the world and has begun investing in the development new media businesses, which it said are now starting to… Continue reading Independent News Profits Strong In 1999
BSkyB today announced an increase in the number of subscribers to its digital service. There are currently 2.8 million subscribers, with total sales of 3 million.Today’s figures show a slight increase on the previous quarter (see SkyDigital Subscribers Up To 2.6 Million). A statement from the group said that the rise was in line with… Continue reading SkyDigital Subscribers Rise To 2.8 Million
There has been a further increase in the overall decline in national newspaper readership, according to the latest figures released by the National Readership Survey (NRS). A year-on-year analysis shows the whole sector falling 3.1% – or 2.2 million readers – for the six month period ending February 2000.The largest falls came from the Sunday… Continue reading National Newspaper NRS Round Up – February 2000
A year after ITV made the decision to ditch the News At Ten, CIA MediaLab’s Sensor survey has found that 29% of people would like to see it return, and 30% claim to miss it. However, the public does not support parliamentary pressure on ITV to bring the bulletin back, with only 6% agreeing with… Continue reading Public Does Not Want MP’s Pressure On ITV To Return News At Ten
Global advertising and communications company, WPP, yesterday benefited from a reiterated recommendation of the stock by Deutsche Bank. Deutsche said that WPP was well-placed to benefit from the fragmentation of media markets, particularly into the emerging digital delivery systems. WPP finished up 34p at £10.70.Stock in online information provider Dialog has continued to fall since… Continue reading Sharewatch
Manchester United is positive that live television rights to Premiership matches will be taken from BSkyB when the contract is renewed this year. The football club, announcing its half-year results yesterday, reportedly said that the new rights deal for the games would be split between operators.The rights to live Premier League games have been monopolised… Continue reading BSkyB Will Lose Monopoly Over Premier League Matches, Says Man Utd
The Independent Television Commission (ITC) is advertising the availability of 22 new non-exclusive local cable licences for the provision of television services. The franchises have become available after Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) decided that it wanted to operate the licences on a non-exclusive basis.The 22 licences cover 2.7 million homes across the country and… Continue reading ITC Advertises Licences For 22 New Cable Areas
NTL has today signed a deal with Middlesborough football club which will see the cable group receiving a 5.6% stake in the team. NTL said that its Premium TV subsidiary would act as media agent for the team for all rights excluding those negotiated by the Premier League. It will operate any Middlesborough channel, internet… Continue reading NTL Signs Deal With Middlesborough
The chief executive of the Independent Television Commission (ITC) said today that he did not expect the switch-over to digital to happen before 2010. Speaking at the Commission’s announcement of its annual report today, Peter Rogers said: “I would love to be surprised and delighted by a digital switch-over happening in less than ten years.”This… Continue reading ITC Pessimistic About Digital Switch-Over This Decade
