BT to sell stake in Indian tech firm August 29, 2012 BT is to sell about five per cent of Indian IT service provider Tech Mahindra for about $100m (£63m), two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said yesterday. The UK telecoms company is selling Tech Mahindra shares in the price band of 735 rupees (£8.3) to 790 rupees each, the sources said, a discount [...]
BSkyB’s rivals scheme over new live football rights deals August 22, 2012 Word that ITV might be interested in showing live Premier League matches for the first time ever is fascinating. If the unlikely move occurred, ITV would bring elite football back to a broader audience after more than 20 years of having it shown exclusively live on pay-per-view television. Not everybody would be cheering from their [...]
ITV and BT still mulling tie-up to screen footie August 22, 2012 BT and ITV could face severe obstacles in cutting a deal to allow the terrestrial broadcaster to screen live Premier League games, although a tie-up is still being considered, sources said yesterday. An unprecedented sub-licensing deal, which would see ITV screen one or two of BT’s matches, would face considerable difficulty in complying with regulations. [...]
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 [...]