|
[BSkyB] [Flextech (now part of Telewest)] [AOL Time Warner] [Bertelsman] [Pearson]
[Satellite] [Interactive TV] [Internet]
BSkyB is 40% owned by News Corp. and therefore has access to extensive media material - for example, News Corp. owns Twentieth Century Fox the US film and TV company, famous for its X-Files and Titanic films and now the leading supplier of TV shows in the US. BSkyB is also 20% owned by the French Vivendi Universal but following Vivendi's merger with with Seagram, Vivendi must sell its stake to meet the demands of the EC regulators.
BSkyB plans to spend £15m funding 9 feature length films over the next 2 years (98/00). It also sells its content to the other service providers. Until May 2000, BSkyB's content strategy was led by managing director of channel and programming networks Elizabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch and the head of News Corp.. Under her guidance BSkyB increased its meagre original content creation to £90m per annum. However, in May 2000 Elizabeth Murdoc departed to run her own UK film, television and new media production company.
BSkyB has been very aggressive in buying up sporting rights including £670m for the Premier League football rights until 2001. Viewers pay £25 a month to see 60 Premier games. From 22 August 1999 Premier League viewers are be able to use their handsets to access an interactive service selecting camera angles, replaying scenes, and viewing statistics. BSkyB is reputed to have offered £1bn to extend its Premier League football rights for another 3 years.
In mid 1998 BSkyB launched MUTV (Manchester United TV), a daily television channel about the club. Its planned acquisition of Manchester United football team and stadium was rejected by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. In August 1999 it announced it was seeking to acquire a 9.9% stake in Chelsea football club and a similar stake in Leeds United. It also has shares in Newcastle United and Aston Villa.
In July 2001, the company was notified by the European Commission that it was being investigated for suspected anti-competitive behaviour.
Open is a consortium which includes BSkyB, BT, HSBC Holdings, and Matsushita. Launched in November 1999, Open provides an electronic shopping mall but to achieve success it will need to attract sufficient retailers.
However, in August 1999 Woolworths and Abbey National announced they would be launching interactive services on Open and others soon followed (see following sections on Value Added Service Providers and New Services)
Sky.com is BSkyB's internet portal. It has an emphasis on news and sports but is expanding into entertainment. For example, in August 2000 BSkyB bought an 8% stake in commedyred.com.
In early 1999, News Corp. launched epartners, a change of tack from the original intention not to be involved with internet and other new media. With $300m capital it will buy minority interests in internet, interactive TV and wireless communications companies. In late 1999 BSkyB announced it would provide £40m funds to Wiggins, the property group, for the construction of a new horse racing course in London in return for television rights. Then in February 2000 there were rumours that BSkyB were about to link up with Yahoo! the major Internet portal and search engine. Also in February 2000, BSkyB announced it would launch its own sports retail Internet site and also increase its stake in Sportal to 12.5%. To cross promote the Internet operation the BSkyB Sports channel was to be rebranded and renamed Sports News.com. In March 2000, epartners announced it will invest $150m in Softbank UK V, a joint venture with the Japanese Internet group.
Flextech, the US owned cable company, has many European alliances. Flextech has 13 channels and provides many of the programmes offered by the satellite, terrestrial and cable providers. Examples are SkyDigital's Living, UK Arena, Bravo and UK Gold. Flextech is 37% owned by the US company TCI via Liberty Media. TCI is owned by AT&T (see previous section). Liberty Media also owns 21.6% of Telewest. In December 99 it was announced that Flextech and TeleWest were considering a merger. In March 2000 the OFT cleared the acquisition.
In March 99 Flextech announced a £20m investment in Flextech Interactive to create transactional and interactive services including many already established on the Internet. It aims to become a provider and a source of expertise of interactive services to all the digital mediums. Services include SceneOne, an entertainment guide, UK Travel Shop, a travel booking service with First Choice Holidays, and Screenshop, a home shopping service. It also has an alliance with Freepages Group, the owners of the Scoot business directory databases, with Abbey National bank, and with the publisher Dorling Kindersley. SceneOne is being provided to BT's ADSL trial in West London and its Travel Shop to NTL Video-On-Demand trial in Cardiff. Flextech is also partnering with Microsoft and its Web TV trials.
Together with the BBC Worldwide it has created UKTV launching 8 channels including BBC Style, BBC Horizon and BBC One-TV, UK Gold, UK Living, and in late 2001 will launch UK Food. In August 2000, the BBC and Telewest (now owners of Flextech) agreed to expand their joint operation, particularly in the areas of Net services and interactive TV. A floatation of UKTV is a possible future option.
The $350bn merger of these two companies, the biggest in corporate history, is eventually bound to have an impact on the European scene. Time Warner is the world's biggest media company and has an unequalled volume of entertainment content. AOL is a major Internet player and is expanding into interactive TV and mobile services. Time Warner also owns a US cable network. In Europe AOL Europe is a 50/50 venture with the German Bertelsmann, a major media company, especially in music where it ranks number 2 in world wide sales.
In June 2000 the EC opened 2 inquiries within days of each other concerning Time Warner. One was a four month inquiry into the planned merger with AOL and the other the planned joint venture between Time Warner's music operation and the UK's EMI. The EC said there were concerns with the vertical integration of TW content with AOL's online services, especially in the light of AOL's joint promotion, distribution and sales arrangements with Bertelsmann. And in respect of the TW-EMI merger there were competition concerns as the number of major music companies would be reduced from 5 to 4.
On 6 October 2000, a few days before the expected EC decision, Time Warner and EMI called off their planned merger when it became apparent that the EC wanted substantial concessions. However, the EC was more positive about the Time Warner -AOL merger and approved it a few days later. See Controversy: Two massive world mergers to be investigated by US & European authorities.
In April 2000, the German media giant Bertelsmann has joined forces with the UK's Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, and Audiofina of Belgium announced their intention to create a major new European media group. It will be floated on the London Stock Exchange with a value in excess of £12bn. Bertelsmann and Audiofina jointly own CTL-UFA whose properties include RTL, German's biggest TV channel which will be merged with Pearson TV. The merged group will own 65% of the UK's TV Channel 5. Other interests include radio and internet companies.
Following the collapse of the Time Warner - EMI merger, Bertelsmann approached EMI with a view to a merger (see controversy).
Pearson's business mainly focuses on education and publishing (it owns the Financial Times, Penguin Books and Doring Kindersley). It also has television interests including a 22% stake in RTL after folding in its Channel 5 stake as well as a small stake in BSkyB. It also owns various TV programme rights.
Back to the
content page for Players, Content
Providers
Content Providers: [Public
Service Broadcasters]
[Cable and Telephony Commercial
Broadcasters]
[Independent Television
Companies] [Media
Conglomerates] [Other
Media Companies]
Players: [Service (Delivery) Providers]
[Content Providers] [Value
Added Service Providers] [Transmission
Companies]
[Hardware & Software Suppliers]
[Regulatory & Standards Bodies]
[Controversy]
[Digital TV Content]
[Introduction] [Summary]
[No. Customers] [US
Scene] [European Scene]
[Scene Elsewhere]
[Delivery Channels]
[Players] [H/w & S/w]
[EPGs] [Existing Services]
[New Services]
[Audience]
[Disadvantages]
[Advantages] [Sceptics]
[Advertising] [Financial
Services]
[Mediums Overview]
[SIM Report Mediums]
[More
Recent Developments
]
[Which to Use?]
[Other
Technologies]
[SIM Overview]
[One to One Marketing]
[Mass Customisation]
[Interactive Mediums]
[STEP Analysis]
[SIM Executive Summary]
[SIM Report]
[SIM Project]
[SIM Framework]
[SIM Methodology]
[SIM Illustrations]
[SIM Links]
[Key Information & Resources] [Guest Contributions] [List of Support Topics] [What's On]
[Contact]
[Company]
[Disclaimer]
[Privacy]
[Legal]
[Copyright Fair Use]
[Feedback]
[Publications]
[Publicity]
[Why Ads?]
[What's New]
[What's Coming]
[Technical Info]
[Home]
[Site Search Form]
[For a Full list of Contents see the Site Map]
This page updated July 2001 © Managing Change 1997,98,99,2000,01 www.managingchange.com