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

[Horizon]

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.

[Horizon]

The Vodafone-Liberty rumours rumble on:

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

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Horizon

The Vodafone-Liberty rumours rumble on:

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

Nothing new here.

[Pierre]

A more sober analysis than the usual speculation

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

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Horizon

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/

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

[gba93]

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

[Horizon]

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

[Martin_D]

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

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Martin Dee 11

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

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.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

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.

The BBC is reporting:

-Discovery and Eurosport confirmed they will develop a new Olympic TV Channel across Europe.
-Media watchdog Ofcom lists the Olympics as a category A event, which must have live coverage made available to free-to-air channels.
-In a statement, Discovery said it was committed to broadcasting a minimum of 200 hours of the Olympic Games and 100 hours of the Olympic Winter Games on free-to-air television, during the games period.

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

Info from link of post #52.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Media Boy

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

Info from link of post #52.

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!

[passingbat]

A paltry 200 hours from Discovery?

The BBC broadcast 2500 hours in 2012 and that's less than half of the 5600 hours that is actually offered by the Olympics

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by passingbat

A paltry 200 hours from Discovery?

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.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

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.

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.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by Kushan

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.

.

Exactly.