UK pay-television operator B
SkyB retains its position as the highest-earning television company in Europe last year, according to figures from the European Audiovisual Observatory. The satellite broadcaster’s revenues overtook those of the BBC in 2002, and the gap between the two widened to £28m (€41m) in 2003. Twelve of the top 50 television companies were based in the UK, including ITV and Channel 4, and only Germany had more entries, led by RTL.
In film production, Canal Plus remained the dominant broadcaster in Europe. The French pay-TV company led Spanish broadcaster Sogecable, majority owner of the Digital Plus satellite platform, despite a steady in decline in revenues over the past few years.
The observatory also found that Sweden was comfortably the leading European market for television-over-DSL at the end of 2003, with around 200,000 subscribers. France had 51,000 television-over-DSL subscribers while the UK’s two VoDSL operators, Kingston and Video Networks, had just 9,000 subscribers between them at the end of 2003, before the latter launched its current marketing push.
UK cable operator NTL has bought out Virgin Media Group’s stake in the two companies’ joint venture, Virgin Net. The internet service provider was formed in 1996 and has grown to become the fifth largest ISP in the UK, with 590,000 customers. NTL takes sole ownership of the company, having also acquired minority interests held by management.
The unit will retain its management and continue to trade under the brand virgin.net, a name which NTL believes it can exploit nationally.
NTL chief executive Simon Duffy confirmed that the move was related to a recent decision to offer services over DSL. “I am confident virgin.net [the company’s brand] will accelerate our growth…complementing our strategy of extending our network through local loop unbundling,” Duffy said.
07-10-2004
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