Desmond sets a deadline for Channel 5 bids February 20, 2014 RICHARD Desmond has stepped down from the board of Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited in a sign that the media boss may be preparing for a sale of the broadcaster. An information memorandum has been sent to would-be buyers and City A.M. understands that a deadline of 27 February has been set for initial offers. Last [...]
London Report: Third straight day of gains sees FTSE erase 2014 losses February 18, 2014 BRITAIN’S top equity index erased its losses for the year as it rose for a third straight session yesterday, boosted by BHP Billiton and telecoms giant BT. Shares in global mining firm Billiton rose 1.9 per cent after first-half profit beat forecasts and it hinted at a share buyback in August, despite a cautious outlook [...]
BT’s clash over Sky Sports goes into extra time February 17, 2014 BT’S DISPUTE with BSkyB over the price and availability of Sky Sports on its YouView set top boxes will go into an epic eighth year following a court ruling yesterday. The Court of Appeal decided that the competition tribunal should re-examine its decision from August 2012, which stopped BSkyB being forced to offer Sky Sports [...]
Capita wins a £325m contract to connect Scottish public services February 17, 2014 OUTSOURCING firm Capita has won a £325m contract to deliver a single shared network for Scotland’s public services. Under the contract, which is for nine years, Capita will connect more than 4,600 sites, including schools, hospitals, GP surgeries, pharmacists and local council offices. The Scottish Wide Area Network (Swan) is aimed at reducing costs, improving [...]
Former BT chief joins CityFibre board February 17, 2014 CityFibre, provider of fibre optic infrastructure, has appointed Sally Davis to its board as non-executive director. Davis previously worked as chief executive of BT Wholesale before stepping down in 2011 after four years. Davis also serves as a director at Logitech and Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor. “Sally’s expertise in delivering large scale telecoms solutions in [...]
Vodafone eyes UK broadband and TV markets February 6, 2014 VODAFONE is considering a move into the UK broadband and television market, its chief executive confirmed yesterday, while its UK mobile revenue declined for the seventh consecutive quarter. When asked about Pay-TV chief executive Vittorio Colao said: “We are watching the space. Today, there’s not an urgent need to be there. It could be different [...]
Bottom Line: A tie-up to take on BT could put Voda within range of new growth February 6, 2014 VODAFONE’S investors were yesterday rightly pleased about a plan for the company’s future that doesn’t include the initials A, T and T. With a takeover from the States off the cards for a few months, and its Verizon stake gone, the telecoms giant has got some time to put its affairs in order. Pressing on [...]
Witts joins Imperial Tobacco board February 5, 2014 Kingfisher’s finance director Karen Witts has been appointed as non-executive director of Imperial Tobacco, the owner of DIY chain B&Q said yesterday. Witts will join Imperial Tobacco’s board today with immediate effect, taking the number of women on the company’s board to three and meeting the target set out in Lord Davies’ 2011 report for [...]
TalkTalk customer base hits 4m as it signs new Sky Sports deal February 4, 2014 TALKTALK will begin offering its customers £9.99 pay-per-day access to Sky’s sport channels as part of a new three year wholesale deal with the satellite broadcaster. The deal was announced along with TalkTalk’s third quarter results which showed a 5.1 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue to £436m, and 175,000 new TV customers during the [...]
BT profits from growing sport and broadband customers January 31, 2014 BT said its sports customer numbers passed 2.5m in the last three months of 2013, reporting what chief executive Gavin Patterson has described as an “encouraging set of results”. In November, BT paid almost £900m for the rights to broadcast Champions League football from 2015-18. Its efforts to drum up customers have saw six per [...]