City mourns bow-tied branding pioneer Olins April 15, 2014 TRIBUTES have been flooding in following the news yesterday of branding legend Wally Olins’ passing on Monday. The man who not only rebranded British Telecoms as BT, but also made wearing black rimmed glasses and bow ties cool long before east London’s hipsters got hold of them, has died of a short illness, aged 83. [...]
Watchdog set to probe BT’s fibre pricing April 14, 2014 BT IS PREPARING for a battle with the regulator to defend its wholesale pricing of superfast fibre to other operators such as Sky and TalkTalk. Last May TalkTalk complained to Ofcom, alleging that BT had been abusing a dominant position by making the wholesale price, that all providers pay, too close to its own fibre [...]
Musical adaptation of film is a certain hit April 13, 2014 THEATRE DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS The Savoy Theatre | By Alex Dymoke Four Stars STARRING Robert Lindsay, Zoe Wanamaker and the guy from the BT adverts, My Family was the sitcom equivalent of Michael McIntyre; good-natured mass-market comedy so inoffensive it ended up offending the chattering classes. Lindsay played flustered middle-class dentist Ben Harper, a far [...]
European rugby future resolved April 10, 2014 RUGBY UNION: The European Rugby Champions Cup is to replace the Heineken Cup next season, it has been confirmed. A second competition, the European Rugby Challenge Cup, will offer a route into the top tournament, while Italian and minor sides will take part in a qualifying competition. BT and Sky are set to share rights.
Best of the Brokers for 10 April 2014 April 9, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com KINGFISHER UBS has boosted Kingfisher from a “neutral” to a “buy” rating with its target price rising from 440p to 470p. The broker believes the home improvement retailer’s proposed deal to buy the French hardware firm Monsieur Bricolage could boost earnings per share by [...]
Why one analyst is so bearish on BT April 9, 2014 BT’s shares have been cooling for the past month, falling around 10 per cent, and now broker Bernstein has downgraded BT to “market-perform” on fears it may overspend on upcoming Premier League auction. “BT's ambition in TV is clear, what is not is how far they are willing to push Sky in the next round [...]
City A.M. reader selfies good enough to eat April 7, 2014 EVERYONE loves a selfie and City A.M. readers are no different. These three are the lucky winners of our competition with Eat, each winning a week of free breakfasts. You can have a go too – turn to the back of the paper now and send us a selfie using #mademymorning for a chance to [...]
Why Game of Thrones is now the most important show on TV April 7, 2014 Tonight’s broadcast of Game of Thrones isn’t just the start of another fantastic season of bloodletting, beheading and gratuitous violence, it’s actually the most important thing happening on TV. For Sky, it’s the payoff from a £150m bet it made on HBO (the US channel behind Game of Thrones) in 2010 for exclusive UK access [...]
BT poaches Sky exec to lead TV and sport push April 7, 2014 TELECOMS giant BT has hired a veteran Sky executive to head up its TV and Sport operations, just two weeks after the division underwent a restructuring that pushed its former television chief out. BT will announce today that Sky Italia’s commercial chief Delia Bushell will join the company in July as manager of BT TV [...]
Bottom Line: Broadcaster is back on track but new boss faces fresh challenges April 7, 2014 THERE were fears last month that with BT’s TV head Marc Watson making a snap departure, the company wouldn’t be prepared for the upcoming Premier League bidding process that Watson played a key role in leading in 2012. The appointment of Delia Bushell should calm those worries. Bushell is highly regarded by her peers at [...]