Finance
Leumi sells HOT holding
Bank Leumi has confirmed it is to sell its 15% stake in Israeli cable operator HOT to the Internet Service Provider Netvision. Last month Leumi said it had received an offer for the stake for which it will receive 480 million shekels (€90m). Read the story »
Channel 4 launches 7-day catch-up
Channel 4 has launched a new online catch-up service that allows viewers to view shows from the past seven days. The new service, found at channel4.com, is separate to the existing 4oD that already offers a selection of free and paid for content from the UK broadcaster. Read the story »
Polsat slashes individual IPO bids
The Polish DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat has reduced bids in the individual investor segment of its forthcoming IPO by 88.5%. Read the story »
NDS nudging 90m active smart cards
NDS has announced an increase in third quarter revenues of 20% bringing in $213.3 million to the News Corp technology division. Nine-month revenues were up 25% to $633.1 million. Read the story »
Orion Cable closes KDG networks sale
The German cable operator Orion Cable said it has closed the sale of a number of its networks to Kabel Deutschland KDG. Early April regulators approved the sale, which netted the operator about €500 million. Read the story »
M6 buys online company Cyréalis
The French commercial broadcaster M6 has bought into the online company Cyréalis to increase it web presence. The acquisition through its subsidiary M6 Web will add a number of popular web sites to the company. Read the story »
Gemstar approves Macrovision purchase
Gemstar-TV Guide International has approved the purchase of the company by Macrovision. Read the story »
Costs cap Canal Digital
The expansion of the Canal Digital product portfolio helped increase first quarter sales at the Nordic pay-TV platform from NOK1,396m (€174.94m) to NOK1,477m (€185.09m). However, higher content and hardware cost contributed to a near halving of profits within the Canal Digital Group to NOK61m. Read the story »
Sky churn at lowest level for 4 years
BSkyB put evidence of the resilience of the pay-TV sector in the current credit crunch forward today. The DTH broadcaster reported net customer growth of 56,000 as total subscribers reached 8.888 million. New customer additions of 289,000 helped churn fall to its lowest level for four years at 10.5%. Read the story »
Financial high for CME
The US investment company CME enjoyed a significant upturn in its financial fortunes in the first quarter, its net revenues of $223,470,000 (€143,181,163) being 51% up on the corresponding period in 2007. Read the story »
