Sharewatch W/E 16/8/96

The main development in the media market last week was Granada’s hint that it may not be interested after all in buying Yorkshire Tyne-Tees Television.

Whilst announcing the restructure of Granada’s media business *Granada Announces New Organisation Structure, Duncan Lewis, chief executive of Granada Media, said that he had an ‘open mind’ regarding possible take-overs. He hinted that Scottish Television or HTV may be more suitable acquisitions. As a result of this, Yorkshire’s share-price on Thursday dropped 38p to 1235p, whilst STV strengthened 6p to 718p and HTV lost 6p to 353p. Granada on the other hand firmed 9p to 866p.

BSkyB put in a good performance on Friday, with the City expecting the satellite company to report good financial results tomorrow. Analyst are predicting pre-tax profits to hit £250m, up 61%.

Flextech rose 27p to 501p on Tuesday on news of its planned UK Gold and UK Living deals, along with speculation that it is negotiating a deal with the BBC *BBC And Flextech In Possible Joint Venture.

W/E 16/08/96 Television Share Prices

There was also merger talk among the big cable operators on Wednesday: TeleWest (up 1p at 143p) and Nynex Cable Comms (up 3p at 102p) are believed to be negotiating a deal.

* MediaTel subscribers only