Sky’s rivals want to punish it for being a success October 29, 2009 BACK in 1997, Japanese carmaker Toyota took a gamble and spent $1bn (£603m) developing the Prius, its hybrid fuel vehicle. At the time, the panic over global warming had yet to develop and there was little call for a mass-market green car. In its first year of production, it sold just 300 units. Now the [...]
Sky rivals call on Ofcom to speed up its probe into the pay-TV market October 28, 2009 Broadcasters have urged Ofcom to speed up its review of the pay-TV industry, calling on it to implement rules to force Sky to wholesale premium sports and movies content to rivals at fixed prices. The watchdog yesterday published submissions to its third consultation on the pay-TV review, which showed that Sky’s rivals are becoming increasingly [...]
FOOTBALL-CRAZY PWC GETS STUCK IN ON ENGLAND’S WORLD CUP BID October 28, 2009 GOOD news for the multitude of football fans in the City: the team behind England’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup have secured themselves a powerful ally. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy giant, today announces it is the first sponsor to officially back the bid, responsible for working on crucial aspects of the proposal such [...]
RAPPER TALKS CRIME, DRUGS AND THE CUT AND THRUST OF BUSINESS October 27, 2009 FRESH from interviewing Warren Buffett, otherwise known as the “Sage of Omaha” or one of the most successful investors the world has ever seen, the Beeb’s Evan Davis yesterday turned his microphone on a different type of guest: rapper 50 Cent. “Fifty”, who’s recently co-authored a business book called The 50th Law, was happy to [...]
Economic downturns can lead to more innovation October 26, 2009 IT’S A well-known fact that an economic downturn corresponds with an innovation upturn. Change means winners and losers. Are you going to sit at the dinner or be the duck which is served? It comes largely down to your attitude, to whether you are going to embrace the change or resist it. Henry Ford said [...]
THE LONDON REPORT October 22, 2009 The FTSE 100 closed one per cent, or 50.49 points, lower yesterday at 5,207.36, as weaker crude and metals weighed on energy stocks and miners. The index has rallied more than 50 per cent since hitting a low in early March, and is up 17 per cent this year. Energy stocks suffered with crude slipping [...]
Carphone on track for a March split October 8, 2009 CARPHONE Warehouse said yesterday that it signed up more broadband customers than expected in its second quarter, and that it is on-track to demerge the business in March 2010. The long-awaited demerger of its telecoms and retail businesses has been delayed due to the problems of valuation during the economic downturn. “The worst seems to [...]
BT extends fast broadband plan October 8, 2009 British Telecom is more than doubling its ultra-fast broadband network, taking it to at least 2.5m homes by 2012, instead of the 1m homes originally planned. The network will offer download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, compared to the current UK average of 4.1mbps.
Pension funds slam calls for annual voting October 6, 2009 BRITISH pension schemes with more than £50bn in assets have sharply criticised a call by other major institutional investors for annual re-election of all directors at listed UK companies. BT Pension scheme fund manager Hermes, and the universities pension fund USS – which manages £21.7bn in assets – said a move to put the entire [...]
Virgin and BT join forces in BSkyB attack October 4, 2009 Virgin Media and BT have hit out at BSkyB’s pricing mechanism for its premium channels, saying that its “near monopoly” restricts consumer choice and keeps prices high. The attack came in a joint submission to Ofcom, which is consulting over its proposals to control the wholesale pay-TV market, that would mean BSkyB having to sell [...]