Gaining control of the British pay-TV company was key for Comcast’s future plans, but it came at a steep price and Disney still has 21st Century Fox’s assets.
British media company Sky Group is planning to cut 1,000 jobs over the next year as the company transitions to internet-based TV from satellite. The majority of jobs cut will be concentrated in the Comcast-owned company’s engineering teams, primarily impacting those who install and service the satellite products, and will result in a reduction of about 4% of the business. It comes as the company says more of its customers are choosing to use the company’s streaming box Sky Stream and its new line of televisions, Sky Glass.
Comcast-owned European TV giant Sky unveiled a new leadership structure for its Sky News Group on Monday. It named former CBS News president David Rhodes executive chairman of the Sky News Group with “overall responsibility for Sky’s news services across Europe, Middle East and Africa.”
Sky, owned by Comcast, will launch an advertising-free linear kids TV channel in the U.K. and Ireland in February. It will be available to Sky subscribers with the Sky Kids package, which costs 6 pounds a month, and subscribers of Sky’s streaming service Now that have the 9.99 pound a month entertainment membership.
The new consultancy and research arm will provide partners bespoke insights on cultural trends through the eyes of almost 700 million people worldwide. The inaugural Co-Lab research study details the critical tie between local culture, community values, dedicated fandoms, and global resonance.
Exclusives
Executives at a TVNewsCheck webinar last week said that broadcasters mulling investments in new cloud-based workflows should spend as much time thinking about inherent changes for their personnel as they do considering which software vendors and cloud platforms they might use.
WORKING LUNCH WEBINAR
AWS’ Statton, SDVI’s Eldridge To Join Speaker Lineup For ‘Building ROI Into Your Media Supply Chain’ Webinar
Two executives with extensive experience in broadcast technology and cloud workflows will participate as speakers in a TVNewsCheck webinar set for Thursday at 1 p.m. ET. They join executives from Sky and Global Eagle, who will talk about what they have learned building IP supply chains for media companies. Pictured are, clockwise from left, Dave Travis, group director of content, broadcast and platforms, Sky; Terri Davies, SVP content and media services, Anuvu; Evan Statton, principal architect for media and entertainment, AWS; Glen Dickson, contributing editor, TVNewsCheck and the event’s moderator; and Simon Eldridge, co-founder and chief product officer, SDVI. Register here to attend.
TV broadcasters Sky, ITV and Channel 4 have today announced they are working together to launch CFlight, the industry’s first unified advertising metric that captures live, on-demand and time-shifted commercial […]
Executives from Sky, Global Eagle and A+E Networks will look at how media companies are building supply chains ready to facilitate new revenue streams in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on July 1. Register here.
NBCUniversal has unveiled its inaugural speaker lineup and event themes for ONE21, what it calls “a first-of-its-kind global gathering that will redefine what it means to develop and build with […]
KC Sullivan is tapped to head the new global division. Andrew Mortimer will oversee the global partnerships team, while Max Raven will lead the global news advertising team.
NBCUniversal unveiled plans for a new advertising venture with its Comcast sibling Sky, a “creativity summit” over the summer and other initiatives during a “state of the marketplace conversation” on Monday. The online event was held on the day the company had planned to host its annual upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall.
A new global news venture will arrive this summer as some analysts wish Comcast was a pure-play cable company, while a Wall Street bull says Sky and NBCUniversal give the company a “distinct advantage.”
Sky is on the verge of a deal with Disney to bring the Hollywood superpower’s new streaming service to millions of British homes. The pair were putting the final touches to a multiyear partnership over the weekend. Sky’s rivals Virgin Media and BT will be able to carry the Disney+ app, however, they will be unable to offer Disney+ fully integrated with other programming.
Comcast confirmed plans to launch a global news platform with Sky News at the launch of its highly anticipated streaming offering Peacock. Variety understands that the new channel will be a brand new service that exists independent of Sky News and NBC News, with bases likely to be set up in London and New York and a team of journalists around the world. The new venture, which is as yet untitled, could contend with the likes of CNN and Bloomberg.
Sky and NBCUniversal today announced the global expansion of CFlight, with Sky adopting the next-generation metric across all of Sky Media’s content and platforms. CFlight is a unified advertising metric […]
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the company is “exploring” the launch of a global news channel co-branded with NBC and Sky by the end of 2019. “We look at this as a way to grow our company and power our company for decades to come,” Burke said during a conference call with analysts Thursday.
The two unify their Suite of advanced advertising capabilities for global marketers under AdSmart. This unification of capabilities marks the first joint advertising initiative following Comcast’s acquisition of Sky.
NBC Sports Group and Sky Sports are set to announce on Monday that they are planning the most extensive television coverage ever of the Players Championship golf tournament, their biggest collaborative foray on sports coverage since Comcast took over Sky last fall.
Comcast said it had secured over 75% of Sky’s shares, bringing it closer to finalizing the $40 billion takeover of the British pay TV group. Comcast has previously said it hoped the acquisition would complete by the end of October.
After taking a couple of days to mull its options, 21st Century Fox has decided to sell its 39% stake in Sky to Comcast, enabling the Philadelphia-based media conglomerate to take full control of the European pay-TV giant.
Comcast won its fight with 21st Century Fox for Sky over the weekend, but now the company is taking its lumps from industry analysts for apparently overvaluing the European operator.
After three rounds of secret bidding on Friday and Saturday, Comcast offered the higher price of 17.28 pounds ($22.58) per share for European broadcaster Sky, the equivalent of nearly 30 billion pounds ($39 billion). Rival 21st Century Fox offered 15.67 ($20.47) per share.
The Takeover Panel, an independent British regulator, says that since neither company has declared its offer final, an auction procedure is expected to commence at 5 p.m. on Sept. 21 and end during the evening of Sept. 22.
If neither suitor gives up before Sept. 22, U.K. regulators could take the rare step of setting up an auction that will determine which U.S. media heavyweight ends up controlling the coveted broadcaster.
Sky has invested $2 million in TV technology company SDVI alongside Fox, Turner and Discovery. The companies have participated in a new round of funding for the Silicon Valley firm, which provides cloud-based services to manages their content supply chains.
Twenty-First Century Fox has triggered a 46-day deadline to raise its bid for Sky in a battle with Comcast for control of the British pay-TV group. Under British takeover rules, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox now has until Sept. 22 to trump Comcast’s £14.75 per share offer for Sky, which values the broadcaster £25.9 billion ($33 billion), after it formalized its own £14 per share bid.
Comcast let Fox’s increased bid for Sky simmer for all of 14 hours before coming back with its own raised stakes. Now, several scenarios have been put in motion.
Sky shares shot up to an 18-year high on Thursday as investors bet a transatlantic battle for the European pay-TV group had further to run, after Comcast’s $34 billion bid trumped an offer from Rupert Murdoch made just hours earlier.
The decision by Britain’s culture secretary clears the final regulatory hurdle for Fox’s bid for the 61% of Sky that it does not already own.
Fox raised its bid to 14 pounds ($18.58) a share as it seeks the 61% of Sky not already under its control. The company says this is 12% higher than the last bid from Comcast and values Sky at 24.5 billion pounds ($32.5 billion). Fox has increased its bid by just over 30% since its first offer in December 2016.
