Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks?
 

Today John Malone has swapped some of his shareholding in premium US cable channel Starz for a stake in Lionsgate, the successful US TV and film production outfit. It is being speculated that this may be a prelude to a merger of the two companies with the aim of international expansion.

Starz, which used to be fully owned by John Malone's Liberty Media company and is still controlled by him, is one of the main competitors in the US to HBO and shows stuff like Black Sails as well as the Spartacus trilogy of series'.

Lionsgate is the producer of shows like Orange Is The New Black which is currently shown on Netflix, as well as shows such as Nashville, Mad Men, Anger Management and Weeds.

So, as the title, is he plotting a worldwide launch of Starz beefed up with Lionsgate stuff, or is this just US only? Perhaps he intends it to merge it with ITV in the future....

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0VL45P20150211

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/li...rd-1201430973/

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Reading between the lines there mate. I would hope though that Virgin will go back to being a broadcaster and not just a platform in the near future. They're held to ransom by the likes of Sky, ITV etc. Virgin need to have their own bargaining power.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Like they did when they lost Sky Basics?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

They could quite easily have removed Living tv, Bravo etc if they had, had the balls to do so, but chickened out.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Unless, of course, they had a legally binding contract, where, if they 'had the balls to break it', it would have cost them millions of pounds in breach of contract, and no potential future business partner would have ever trusted / entered into a contract with them again....

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

And how would that benefit anyone? Look at how Sky and BT withhold sport content from each other. Is that good for their users?

The only place to get all the sport is the place that doesn't own any. Odd, eh?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

really?

whilst BT & Sky are having a dick waving competition over the premier league, spending billions that doesn't really improve the customer experience but buys average European and African players new Bentleys.

VM are instead spending billions improving and expanding their network whilst broadcasting both of the willie wavers goods.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

.....lets not forget it's not just all about networks. Malone has a sway of his own content under his control:

Discovery
QVC
Starz & Encore premium cable tv channels
Eurosport

All3Media - Uk's largest "independent" production company whose programmes include the BBC's Wolf Hall, Grange Hill and Saturday Kitchen, Ch4's Shameless, Ramsey's Kitchen Nighmares, Brookside & Wife Swap, ITV's The Cube & Weekend, ITV2's The Only Way Is Essex, Ch5's The Gadget Show, to name a few.

and:

ITV shareholding
minority shareholdings in Viacom and Time Warner
shareholdings in European tv channels

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

In fairness, you can get all the sport on the Sky platform too; you just need to subscribe to Sky and to BT but that's not particularly hard.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Here is the story on "All3Media" from May 2014 as seen on Media Boy Blog.

http://mediaboyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...discovery.html

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Further to my earlier posts, Broadcast reported on Thursday that Discovery is to move into sports, natural history and factual entertainment (aka reality) programming.

Discovery's new programming boss wants closer ties with the production outfits that Malone owns and has commissioned programming from them.

I posted in the formula 1 thread recently that Liberty Global and Discovery have taken minority stakes in the new Formula E racing championships.

Not quite the premium offering I mentioned in my first post, but Malone is starting to link his various assets up.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I think things are becoming even more obvious with the latest news.

In the US, it was announced today that Charter Communications, which is part owned by John Malone's Liberty Media, is to buy Bright House House Networks to form the second largest cableco in the US.

Bright House's largest shareholders are another media mogul family called the Newhouse's who own Advance Publications, they also own a large chunk of Discovery along with Malone. Almost seems they're working in tandem with each other...

I think things are becoming clear:

Malone has bought loads of cablecos in Europe to become the world's largest cableco.

He is buying up cablecos in America again. He once owned the largest cableco there and he is recreating his empire again.

He has bought loads of tv production companies/assets.

I reckon he is going to recreate in America the same sort of situation that we have here in the UK with quad play operators all offering tv, phone, broadband and mobile. I doubt there will be more than 4-5 companies once all the mergers are done.

I believe he intends to create one massive cableco in America and if he's not allowed to that, he'll settle for two. He'll then merge that with one of the 4 big mobile companies over there.

Next, he'll buy more tv companies such as AMC (makers of Breaking bad) and Scripps (who do the Food Network) and merge that with his existing portfolio of Discovery, QVC, ITV (should he fully buy it) and his other stuff like the Starz and Lionsgate companies.

Finally, he'll merge his US cable/media company with Liberty Global creating a gigantic worldwide media/telecoms company all under one name. Perhaps it'll stay as a separate company or perhaps he'll see if someone like Viacom or Time Warner want to buy it. It depends whether he can merge his US cableco with Comcast or not.

Who said retirement is boring!

You heard it here first.:)

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

.....well, the story continues.

The Comcast-Time Warner (TWC) massive cableco merger is off in the US. American regulators were luke warm on the idea at best and the companies have now called it off. Thus, in steps John Malone to fill the gap...

Malone's Charter cableco put in a bid yesterday for TWC just hours after the TWC-Comcast merger collapsed. Media speculation is that this time it will be successful.

Malone will then own a giant US cableco and a giant European cableco. It's a matter of when, not if, Liberty Global merges with the TWC/Charter cableco.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Oh Hell you make him sound like another Murdoch..

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Just as a point Liberty does not own all of Charter, it owns 26%.

I am pretty intrigued to see how Liberty Broadband, market cap $5.5 billion, acquire Time Warner Cable, market cap $41.79 billion, even with help from Liberty Global, market cap across all share classes $45.26 billion, and leveraging Charter Communications whose market cap is $20.82 billion.

I suspect a whole bunch of debt secured on the new entity alongside paying largely in shares would be the plan. It'd end up more of a merger than a full on acquisition.

Talk about having to throw the kitchen sink at the deal - Comcast is as of now valued at $150.76 billion so could've relatively comfortably assimilated TWC.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

He is, if not worse.

He's a media magnate who once owned the largest US cable company. His other media assets are enormous and he is the largest private landowner in the US. He is utterly ruthless and thinks of making even more money left, right and centre. He especially likes to fianance everything with a sea of debt and doesn't pay tax.

How isn't he like Murdoch?:)

---------- Post added at 18:54 ---------- Previous post was at 18:40 ----------

Malone finances everything with debt, which in turn enables him to pay no tax. How exactly he will arrange this deal, I have no idea. I am as intrigued as you as to how he can keep making these deals and get away with it, but he does.

As for the point about Liberty only owning 26% of Charter. I've said in many threads that Malone has de facto control of whatever company he takes a large stake in, case in point Discovery.

I cannot prove it, but he seems to work in tandem with the Newhouse family who own another media company called Advance. Advance are a large shareholder in Discovery and Charter and the agreement they seem to have gives Malone de facto control of the companies.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

He is actually a pleasant person, he visits the uk occasionally to give his views on where the Cable TV markets and technologies are heading.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

....being pleasant personally has nothing to do with him as a businessman. He doesn't get to be a billionaire by being a pleasant businessman.

Do a search for TCI, his old US cable company, and look at all the complaints from customers who were stuck with old cable boxes that barely worked. He calls it sweating the assets.

Anyway, this thread isn't about whether he is nice or not. It's about him rebuilding him media empire up one last time.

By the way, I met Rupert Murdoch near Embankment station in London twenty five years ago and he was extremely charming, as was Richard Branson. I met him around the same time on one of his planes as he went round handing out sweets to all the passengers. He chatted to every person on the plane. By the way, his kids were NOT flying first class.... He was asked about this several times and he explained that he would lose too much money having his family in premium seating... it was a transatlantic flight and they were toddler age...

They may all be "pleasant", but there is no way in hell I'd ever work for such a person and I'm not keen on them controlling too many companies either.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

My point was, he may be like Murdoch from a business perspective, but he is very different from a human perspective.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I judge people by how they treat others, including their employees.

I noticed on the Virgin flight that while all the passengers were happy and well looked after, I certainly was, it was noticeable that the staff were very uncomfortable. If Branson were such a "pleasant" person they wouldn't all have had ashen faces and looked like something just out of the morgue and that was just the ones with sun tans.

But I take your point, if someone is nice to you, of course you should be pleasant back.

---------- Post added at 20:21 ---------- Previous post was at 19:58 ----------

Back to Malone, and a rather insightful article in to how he, Murdoch, et all do business:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhodg...ommunications/

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Yes am fully aware of all of this but he has done a hell of a job driving the LG share price and thats where my interests lie. Same for the VM employees on here as well I assume.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

You started off saying he was pleasant and ended saying you didn't care as you are more interested in the share price. Interesting thread.

Are Liberty shares your retirement or a large part of your investments?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Not sure I said I didn't care?

From a share perspective, I used to be into property and in 2007 someone gave me advice on share dealing and talked at length about where the telecoms sector was going, which in hindsight was the best advice I have ever been given.

At the time i bought the same value of shares in both Sky and VM but latterly I have be more interested in VM (LGI) I haven't retired (too young) but the LG shares have been very helpful in creating far more value than my pension ever would.

One of the things I like about this forum more than others is that you can gauge how customers feel about the business, there are also the odd tit bits that make you go and carry out further investigation, which may lead to buying at the right time.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

That is why it is drummed into us at work not to post information on forums about something that has not been released to the public yet. ;):D

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

More speculation today from ISP Review that Vodafone and Liberty Global may join together:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...uk-parent.html

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I seen that. Even if it does happen, even if it was announced tomorrow, I don't see it being finalised and completed before the end of 2016 at the earliest.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Telegraph article on it too: (behind a paywall, but it may work)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...erty-deal.html

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

It's interesting and a different proposition from earlier rumours where a takeover of Liberty by Vodafone was mooted.

Here they are talking of spinning off the European operation from their global operations. The article says that this would value the Vodafone European operations at 30million, which is much, much less than Liberty. Liberty bought just VM for 23million.

This is basically Malone taking a punt out there and getting any potential deal on his terms.

It could happen, but it would depend if the Vodafone board have the stomach for it as it would essentially be Liberty buy out of Vodafone, not the other way around.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

A lot of the investments house have the same view as you Pierre, whereas the main stream press seem to have missed what he was actually saying.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I'm sure the Vodafone board have the stomach for a deal, but what they might not have the stomach for is Malone's loading debt onto more debt to pay for things. Vodafone don't believe in leverage.

It's clear Malone wants the deal as part of his ambition to create a global media giant, it's just whether Vodafone will tolerate his way of doing things. Of course, they could take the lead and merge his operations in with theirs.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Don't see how they can do that, if not on his terms.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

The newspapers are reporting that Malone's bid to buy Time Warner Cable may complete later today or this week sometime.

Busy, ain't here?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Juat to correct myself.

It's the non-European operations that are valued at 30million. So it would be more of an equitable match up in Europe.

Anyway still a long way off.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Deal between Charter, Time Warner and Brighthouse agreed - $55 billion.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

.... that's a lot of wonga for cable tv. Next, Vodafone. Or, as I said in an earlier post in this thread, he'll go for a US mobile operator. But Vodafone are pimping themselves to him, so why not?

Malone's a busy old grandad.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Have they got up to 3 years to pay?:D

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Charter are buying Time Warner in a $78.7bn deal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32883033

oops

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Scary amount of debt involved in this. Charter are loading up the combined entity with debt so that they can ensure they are the dominant partner in the deal.

TWC are over half-again the size of Charter, have three times the revenues and are far more profitable.

Vodafone won't be so keen on being saddled with a bunch of debt in a merged entity. Of course their lovely short-termist shareholders may well disagree if they see $$$ signs waved in front of them.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

To be honest, I think Vodafone is going to be more interested than you might think. I have a suspicion that Vodafone is running a bit scared.

With the EE+BT and O2+EE merger, Vodafone is going from one of the biggest to one of the smallest in a relatively short period of time. Short term they're fine, but long term it's going to be interesting to see how they remain competitive against what are, frankly, giants. Diversifying into a large cable company makes a hell of a lot of sense when you think about it.

I know nothing really, though.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

...not true. I think you summed it up perfectly why Virgin Media might become Vodafone Media in the not too distant future.

Everyone wants to be number one not number three.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Vodafone hasn't been "one of the biggest" since 2009. They've been the smallest major network and second smallest of all networks for at least the last five full years.

All they've gone from is 3rd out of 4 to 3rd out of 3. But they are now 3rd by a much larger gap.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

True enough, but even in your own words, they've been the smallest "major" network. At some point, the gap will widen enough that people won't consider them "major" any more. Either way, the widening gap is not good for business. Particularly as Three has always been the "Cheap" brand, they're suddenly going to become the biggest and if they keep up the cheap branding, I'm not really sure how else Vodafone is going to compete for marketshare. They won't have the best coverage, they won't have the best value, what else could really define them as an operator?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Their massive international operations define them. They aren't going to break their group apart for the sake of the UK market. The case needs to be way more persuasive than just us. Their German market is a far more persuasive one.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/05/3.png

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Vodafine certainly have the best unreliability.

But seriously, having a USP doesn't seem to matter anymore, seeing as O2 pre-merger didn't have anything unique. They did not have the best coverage, did not have the best value, did not have the best reliability, did not have the best speeds, did not have any good roaming deals, and don't have any own-brand handsets. They had no triple or quad play offerings and no broadband/TV/home phone packages.

Yet O2 had more people joining and more total customers than any other network.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Well it wouldn't be just for the UK. malone said Europe and Liberty is on the whole european.

I could see it happening but it would take a boat load of work on the vodafone side of things.

Vodafone would have to be split into two, incidentally not dissimilar to what C&W did before they were bought by Vodafone.

You would have Vodafone Europe and Vodafone rest of the world, I'm assuming the huge submarine cable network would be spun off with the RoTW, can't see Liberty wanting it.

I don't know. The question is do you destroy Vodafone to save it?

From what I can pick up around here, it could happen.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

The Vodafone board did say last year that the UK was not that important to them in the great scheme of things, and to merge with Liberty on the basis of making Virgin Media stronger, was not something they were interested in.

This time round, the media are reporting that Vodafone's shareholders are pushing for a deal with Liberty. So if they want it, it will happen, but I do think Vodafone will split into two with one part merging into Liberty and the other part remaining separate.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

The Vodafone-Liberty rumours rumble on:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0OD2HA20150528

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Nothing new here.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

A more sober analysis than the usual speculation

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3232...dafone-deja-vu

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Update to my original post in this thread. Malone is still looking at joining Lionsgate and Starz together:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0OJ2Y020150603

And in other news, Dish Network may merge with the American arm of T-Mobile:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0OK06H20150604

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Latest News on Vodafone/Liberty tie-up ... or not?

Vodafone/Virgin Media?

Independent/Evening Standard business editor James Ashton tweets:

Vodafone/Liberty talks must be all about UK/Germany. Voda outbid Lib for Kabel Deutschland. Now will it swap it for Virgin Media?

James Ashton

7:50 a.m. - 5 June 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-32929073

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Malone's empire building continues:

He intends to buy Ireland's TV3 (there is already a thread on that) and Discovery (which Malone controls) has got the European tv rights for the Olympics. Discovery intends to create a Olympic Channel as well as use its Eurosport channels for Olympic sports. The BBC will lose rights in 2022:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33311902

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

So in the past 6 months the bbc have lost Olympics rights(From 2022), The Open Championship (From 2017) & The Best Top gear Team. RIP BBC :)

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

They've definitely lost The Open. They keep Top Gear minus its previous team but with an opportunity to refresh the programme under Chris Evans. And they've definitely got the next couple of Olympic Games but will have a reduced role/no role from 2022 onwards. But no one knows the details here yet.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

The BBC is reporting:

Free-to-air rights moving from The BBC to Discovery's Quest (It broadcast on Freeview right now)?

Info from link of post #52.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

At the moment Quest would not qualify to show the 200 hours of the Olympics but who knows what the situation will be in seven years' time? Maybe all channels will be cable/IPTV-delivered by then!

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

A paltry 200 hours from Discovery?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Given the games are only two weeks long, that's 14 hours a day, every day, of live coverage.

I don't see how 14 hours a day on one channel is 'paltry'. Given there's no events at 2am, that's basically 100% coverage.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I think the problem is that there's multiple events running side-by-side? BBC had nearly everything (if not actually everything) available live on iPlayer, which was great if you followed a less popular sport.

A lot of it was also on red button and they had a few channels to spread the content over (Though I don't remember if it was ever on 2 channels at once).

I think as long as they offer a compelling streaming service, it'll grand.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Exactly.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I'm not sure how you expect multiple events running side-by-side to be broadcast on a single channel...

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

He never said anything about running side by side on one channel , he said using red button streams and via the likes of the BBC Sport app.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I don't see anyone mentioning anything to do with red buttons, nor what that's got to do with the requirement of live coverage on free-to-air channels.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Fair enough I knew what he meant clearly it was lost on you.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

As did pretty much everyone... well, except...

The Olympics gets even non sports fans like myself watching parts of it and the coverage by the BBC was incredibly comprehensive.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

And I think that's the crux of the issue?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

I don't get it. It's not as if the BBC broadcast 2500 hours live on Freeview. I don't see how comparing the minimum of 200 hours Discovery plan to broadcast live on free-to-air to the 2500 hours the BBC didn't broadcast live on free-to-air proves anything?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

The BBC may not have broadcast the 2500 hours, but they had it on other services - iPlayer, red button, etc.
So far it doesn't look as though Discovery is going to do the same.

If you're say, big on Fencing, you might be SOL if you want to watch it live.

Early days, though, they could easily have a streaming service on par with the BBC's offering by the time it comes around. See what happens though. The BBC were widely acclaimed for their 2012 coverage, I think they were easily the best worldwide. That's a tough act to follow.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

That's just an assumption though, while there's no evidence so far they will be doing the same I don't see any evidence suggesting they won't.

Let's hope they do. Quest does have an on-demand service that looks surprisingly similar to iPlayer so it's certainly an option.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

More Bad News For BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33363225

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Malone's expansion continues as Discovery takes full control of Eurosport:

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/...-of-eurosport/

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...broadband.html

Paywall - but use incognito mode on browser to avoid as it's very basic cookie tracking.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Liberty Global increases Stake in ITV.

Liberty Global has increase its stake in ITV from 6.4% to 9.9%.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/liberty-gl...9--sector.html

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

AMC Networks may buy Malone's Starz channel:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0RF2Q120150915

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Following on from my earlier comments in this thread, the merger between Time Warner Cable, Charter and Bright House has completed, it actually happened last Wednesday, 18 May 2016:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twc-m-a-idUSKCN0Y92BR

Malone's empire is coming along nicely and perhaps he may now merge these with Liberty Global?

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

Given he doesn't own the vast majority of that combined entity he might find that tricky. By vast majority I mean 98% of the voting rights.

Would also be complicated as Captain Tax Avoidance would be risking some liabilities.

Re: Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks
 

.... earlier in the thread I've said that I believe Malone has some form of relationship with the Newhouse family that amongst other things allows him total control of Discovery.

Prior to this cable merger, Malone was the largest shareholder in Charter and the Newhouses' the largest shareholder in Bright House. Their combined shareholding of the new Charter company makes them the largest shareholders if they are, as I believe, working together. They'll own 34% of the combined company. What other classes of shares they may have, I do yet know. Malone always owns less common stock of his companies, yet always has higher voting rights shares giving him effective control.

Yes, I am interested what he does with regards to tax as well...... hence my Liberty Global comments. You call him Captain Tax Avoidance, I call him Captain Offset. When I used to work in the field it was explicitly changed from calling things tax avoidance to tax planning. Whatever you think of Malone, he is a master tax planner.