Posts Tagged "Sky"

Comcast has triumphed over 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney in the auction for Sky with a £30.6bn bid in a deal that will redraw the global media landscape. Comcast’s £17.28 a share bid beat a rival £15.67 a share bid from Fox, which was backed by Disney, and came in the third and final round of an auction when each bidder was asked to make their best offer for the broadcaster. The Comcast offer values Sky at almost £4bn more than the Disney-Fox bid

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox posted an offer document for its 14 pounds a share bid to buy Sky late yesterday evening, but did not raise its bid to top rival Comcast’s

The cold war between 21st Century Fox and Comcast over ownership of Sky has finally turned hot, as yesterday evening the US cable operator swooped in with a £26bn bid, hours after the Murdoch camp improved its own offer

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has kicked off a potential bidding war with US entertainment giant Comcast after making a new offer for the 61pc of Sky it does not already own that values the UK-based broadcaster at £24.5bn

One day after AT&T got court approval for its big Time Warner acquisition, Comcast formally made a $65 billion bid for 21st Century Fox’s businesses, which had intended to sell various businesses to Walt Disney

Amazon has acquired rights to show English Premier League matches in the UK, signalling a new era in which digital platforms increasingly compete with traditional broadcasters to screen live sport.

The UK Government has today said that it will support Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox bid to buy Sky only on the understanding that Sky News is sold to Disney or another buyer.

Comcast has gatecrashed Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Sky with a rival £22bn offer, sparking a bidding war for Britain’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster. The media and telecoms company, which owns NBC Universal and is the largest cable operator in the US, has made an all-cash offer of £12.50 a share, a 16% premium on the offer from Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, which values Sky at about £19bn.

Hedge funds now control around £3bn of Sky shares, giving them major influence over the future of the British broadcaster as it is targeted for takeover by two rivals. The Mail can reveal that hedge funds based in Mayfair, New York and Chicago now own 13 per cent of Sky’s stock as it is embroiled in bids from 21st Century Fox and US cable giant Comcast

Nils Pratley of The Guardian writes: The wily media mogul finds himself in a battle to secure a Hollywood ending to his reign. Rupert Murdoch risks being out manoeuvred in a frenzy of media deal-making. 

Comcast offered £12.50 for each Sky share in cash, which it said marks a premium of 16 per cent on Fox’s current offer to buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already own. Shares in Sky rose more than 18 per cent at the market open to 1,305.5p.

Sale of 21st Century Fox assets includes stakes in Sky in the UK and Hollywood film studio as tycoon focuses on Fox News and newspapers

Disney acquires the 39 per cent of Sky currently owned by Fox and “full ownership” of the broadcaster if and when its ongoing takeover bid is completed, according to the terms of the deal

The Fox boss James Murdoch is reportedly being considered as a potential successor to Bob Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney, if the two companies reach agreement on a possible takeover.

Premier League clubs are braced for digital giants such as Amazon and Facebook to gate-crash the bidding for streaming rights when the next TV deal is negotiated in the coming months, according to Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman of Manchester United

Sky has struck a new £600m broadcasting deal with the English Football League, with the agreement also allowing clubs to livestream matches directly to fans from their own websites. Under the five-year deal that begins in 2019, Sky will screen up to 150 matches each season from the EFL‘s professional divisions below the Premier League. Games from the Sky Bet play-offs, Carabao Cup and Checkatrade trophy are also included. The EFL said the deal represented a year-on-year increase of 36 per cent on its current broadcasting deal with Sky.

Amazon is to add more than 40 TV channels to its UK streaming service, including ITV and live sport for the first time, upping the stakes against rival Netflix and pay-TV operators such as Sky.

Sky is to make its full TV service of hundreds of channels available without the need for a satellite dish for the first time, as it looks to stem customer defections to rivals such as BT

Sky has taken a substantial stake in the reborn Chrysalis television production company that will fund the creation of a slate of new dramas. Chrysalis Vision was set up by the former management team behind Chrysalis Television, one of the original “super indies” in the production sector that developed long-running shows including Midsomer Murders and Doc Martin. The original business was sold in 2003 as the former Chrysalis media empire was dismantled and became All3Media, which was acquired by Liberty Global and Discovery in 2014 for £500m

Amazon is in talks with British broadcasters to add their channel brands and programmes to its streaming service, as it gears up to use Jeremy Clarkson as the spearhead of an attack on the pay-TV market