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
Commercial Impacts February saw slight increases for ITV in most categories terms of commercial impacts. Housewives and Children fell by 8.3% however in a year-on-year analysis and ABC1 Adults dropped 3.7% compared to February 1999. Channel 4, Channel 5 and Total Satellite, by contrast, saw significant increases in impacts across all audience types.Costs Per Thousand… Continue reading TV Market Round Up – February 2000
The Independent Television Commission (ITC) today said that continued care is needed to ensure acceptable standards of late night programming on Channel 5. Publishing its annual report for 1999, detailing performance reviews for Channel 4, Channel 5 and GMTV, the Commission praised the efforts of the channel but said there was still room for improvements.The… Continue reading Continued Care Needed For Late Night Programming On C5, Says ITC
Cable operator Telewest Communications continued to benefit from the announcement of its high-speed internet plans last week (see Telewest And Flextech Report Losses Ahead Of Merger), with stock closing up 32˝p at 559žp. Flextech, which is set to merge with Telewest, is benefiting from the tie-up, with shares rising 93p to £20.48 yesterday.Border Television, currently… Continue reading Sharewatch
Scottish Radio Holdings (SRH) has taken its hostile takeover bid to the shareholders of Border Television today, in a letter detailing the terms of its offer (see Scottish Radio Launches £116m Hostile Bid For Border TV). The Board of Border says that the proposals represent a ‘significant undervaluation’ of the group and is not recommending… Continue reading Scottish Radio Takes Offer To Border Shareholders
Revenue Total terrestrial revenue for February 2000 (including GMTV) came in at £221 million, according to agency estimates. Of this, revenue for the ITV Network rose 7.7% compared to February 1999, taking a total £152 million for the month; Channel 4 took £48 million, an increase of 7.5%, and Channel 5 saw its ad revenue… Continue reading TV Market Round Up – February 2000
Kelvin MacKenzie is preparing to list his Wireless Group radio network on the London Stock Exchange in a float which could value the company at up to £200 million. West LB Panmure has been appointed to broker to the float, set to take place in June.The Wireless Group was formed by MacKenzie, its chief executive,… Continue reading Wireless Group Set For Floatation
