ITV could show Premier League in deal with BT August 21, 2012 ITV could strike a deal with BT to become the first terrestrial channel to show live Premier League football, it emerged last night, with the broadcaster in talks about an alliance that would see it screen some of BT’s matches from next year. Negotiations are at an early stage, say sources close to discussions, but [...]
Netflix CEO vows to take on Sky in bids for premium film rights August 19, 2012 NETFLIX will attempt to wrestle Sky’s grip on premium movie rights away from it, a move that could provide a serious challenge to the broadcaster’s film dominance. Reed Hastings, the chief executive of the US film streaming service, has outlined his intentions to bid for exclusive rights to films from the six leading Hollywood studios, [...]
Get ready: the Paralympics are almost here August 19, 2012 LONDON has seemed a duller place since the Olympics came to an end. No chance of bumping into an Olympic medallist on your tube journey, and far fewer maroon shirt bedecked volunteers around to share a smile with. But it’s now just over a week until it all begins again – with a whole 11 [...]
It can’t come soon enough. Welcome to the new season August 16, 2012 There’s been too much written since the end of the Olympics comparing the (admittedly inspiring) event with the oncoming football season, most of which maintained that football stars are poor role models, football fans are foul-mouthed and more generally that football pales in comparison with the great sporting drama that we witnessed early this month [...]
Stelios plans fresh pressure on easyJet to sack chair Sir Michael August 12, 2012 EASYJET founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is today expected to lose a vote to oust chairman Sir Michael Rake – but he plans to continue in his efforts to remove him. The tycoon will not attend the shareholder meeting he called, but is understood to have drawn up a list of questions for the board on [...]
BT staff receive £160m payout August 9, 2012 THOUSANDS of staff at BT pocketed thousands of pounds in payouts yesterday as the telecoms operator’s three-year share scheme matured, leaving workers with an average of £8,000 each. Twenty thousand employees – a third of total staff – enrolled in the scheme when BT’s share price was half as high as yesterday’s £2.16. They took [...]
Standard Chartered lifts the FTSE in Olympic-thinned trading session August 9, 2012 Banking stocks lifted the benchmark FTSE- 00 to its best finish since early April yesterday, led by a resurgent Standard Chartered Bank. Investors were impressed with chief executive Peter Sands’ robust defense of allegations of malfeance lodged by US regulators, and pushed the shares 3.6 per cent higher. However RBS bucked the trend, sliding 1.3 per [...]
Mining gains prop up FTSE August 9, 2012 Gains in heavyweight miners kept Britain’s main share index flat this morning, as solid results from Randgold Resources and expectations of fresh stimulus measures from China propped up the equity markets. The FTSE 100 was down 0.08 per cent, as Randgold rose 3.1 per cent after reporting a 10 per cent rise in second-quarter profit. [...]
Sky appeal on sports upheld August 8, 2012 SKY could be free to charge its rivals higher prices for its sports channels after winning a competition appeal against Ofcom yesterday. The competition appeals tribunal found the regulator’s concerns over Sky’s dominance to be “unfounded”, paving the way for rules to be lifted on the amount Virgin Media and BT pay for Sky Sports [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 6, 2012 Riverview Law Paul Bird has been appointed finance director at the law firm. He joins from Pearson Education, where he was finance director and company secretary at its subsidiary, Education Development International. UBS Global Asset Management Stephen Hutton has been appointed head of UK wholesale at the asset management firm. He joins from Zurich Intermediary, [...]