The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to hold a review of BSkyB’s position in the pay-TV market as a broadcaster and channel provider, it announced today. The competition watchdog is to assess whether Sky’s position is too dominant and whether undertakings made by Sky in 1996 to ensure fair competition between the satellite broadcaster… Continue reading OFT To Review BSkyB’s Position In Pay-TV Market
Open, the interactive television service, announced yesterday that it had achieved sales exceeding £1 million per week in the pre-Christmas period. The service, which is co-owned by BSkyB, BT, HSBC and Matsushita, said that at least 8 million visits have been made and over 127,000 orders processed since it was launched on SkyDigital last year… Continue reading Open’s Sales Top £1m A Week
Digital terrestrial broadcaster, ONdigital, has broken the half million mark in its latest subscriber figures released today. The group – 50:50 owned by Granada and Carlton Communications – said that it had signed up 552,000 customers by 31 December 1999.The takeup represents a 34% increase on the September 1999 subscriber base, which stood at 411,000.… Continue reading ONdigital Takes Half A Million Subscribers
Media groups were amongst the highest movers on the FTSE 100 yesterday as news of the world’s biggest corporate deal, between America Online and Time Warner, affected shares in the sector (see AOL And Time Warner Confirm Mega-Merger). Pearson, once rumoured to be interested in a deal with AOL (see Sharewatch), was the highest climber… Continue reading Sharewatch
Programmes ITV’s decision to screen nine editions of Coronation Street, five episodes of Emmerdale and a week’s worth of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, helped the channel to pull in big audiences. The late night editions of Coronation Street: After Hours boosted ITV’s old News at Ten slot, with the best weekday performance coming… Continue reading TV Viewing Round Up – November 1999
Shares in Carlton Communications closed up 16p at 573p as the television group emerged as the most likely target for a takeover bid by Granada (see Market Backs Carlton As Most Likely Target For Granada). United News & Media’ shares fell at the news that Granada was planning to scupper its proposed merger deal with… Continue reading Sharewatch
Monday A TV Viewing Round-Up for November 1999 will be available on Newsline and in the Television features list later on today.MediaTel’s weekly industry focus, Media Track, is featured in Campaign Media Business.Tuesday Digital terrestrial broadcaster, ONdigital, is to release its latest set of subscriber figures. As of September last year, the service had 411,000… Continue reading The Week Ahead
The Guardian is to celebrate its first year on the internet with a week of themed editorial in its newspaper and on the Guardian Unlimited website. From 15-22 January the future of the Net will be explored in a week of dedicated features and supplements.The Guardian will run exclusive extracts from “The New, New Thing”,… Continue reading Guardian Celebrates First Year Online
The Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) and Leo (Burnett) Group agencies have this afternoon confirmed the merger of their respective UK media operations, Motive and Starcom, to form the Starcom Motive Partnership (SMP). The combined group will become the third largest media services company in the UK with estimated annual billings of £440 million.SMP will be… Continue reading Starcom And Motive Confirm Merger
Cable group Telewest Communications has added a further fifteen companies to its interactive TV service. Available from Spring on the group’s Active Digital platform (see Telewest Builds Interactive Service To Rival Open), the service now boasts a total of 29 partners providing content for its interactive outlets, and puts cable at the forefront of interactive… Continue reading Retailers Back Telewest’s Cable Interactive Service
