General : Liberty Global to buy SKY's stake in ITV

[Chad]

SKY News are reporting Liberty Global are poised to buy SKY's 7.2% stake in ITV with the deal expected to be announced as early as tomorrow

http://news.sky.com/story/1302418/li...b-stake-in-itv

"It is unclear whether Liberty Global, which bought Virgin Media last year, would view the purchase of a minority stake in ITV as a passive investment or as the prelude to discussions aimed at collaborating in areas such as content and distribution."

---------- Post added at 23:28 ---------- Previous post was at 23:26 ----------

Spot the deliberate spelling misteak in the title

[Horizon]

....""It is unclear whether Liberty Global, which bought Virgin Media last year, would view the purchase of a minority stake in ITV as a passive investment or as the prelude to discussions aimed at collaborating in areas such as content and distribution."....

Passive, yeah right. John Malone doesn't do passive. This is a prelude to a full takeover of ITV, something ntl tried to do several years ago and failed when Murdoch stepped in and bought a large stake in ITV. Now we know why VM was keen to get rid of its UKTV stake and other minority interests.

Don't forget a year ago, VM's boss said "we're not interested in content" "we're concentrating on our broadband network".... Ha, ha, I didn't believe him.

If John Malone were to bid for ITV, he could merge it with his Discovery and Eurosport interests to create a powerful content company. He already now owns all3media (subject to regulatory approval) makers of of shows like Midsomer Murders and Kitchen Nightmares.

One hell of a bunfight is coming between the old US media moguls before they retire to the great tv network in the sky....

Murdoch owns everything from The Simpsons to 24's Jack Bauer to Masterchef and Life On Mars.

Sumner Redstone, another old codger who owns National Amusements which in turn own the CBS/Viacom/Paramount empires now owns our Channel 5, subject to regulatory approval. He will own more general entertainment channels on VM's EPG than anyone else ranging from Channel 5 to Comedy Central, Horror Channel to CBS Reality and then there's all those other MTV and Nickleodeon channels too.

Doesn't it feel you with ease knowing that all our media is/will be owned by a small group of old American codgers.....? Bless them.

[Tricky Trevor]

So it's possible that we might get ITV Encore soon,or have we got to wait until the deal with Sky expires?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Chad

SKY News are reporting Liberty Global are poised to buy SKY's 7.2% stake in ITV with the deal expected to be announced as early as tomorrow

http://news.sky.com/story/1302418/li...b-stake-in-itv

"It is unclear whether Liberty Global, which bought Virgin Media last year, would view the purchase of a minority stake in ITV as a passive investment or as the prelude to discussions aimed at collaborating in areas such as content and distribution."

---------- Post added at 23:28 ---------- Previous post was at 23:26 ----------

Spot the deliberate spelling misteak in the title

And l thought they learnt you to spell at Eton.

---------- Post added at 05:13 ---------- Previous post was at 05:11 ----------

Originally Posted by Tricky Trevor

So it's possible that we might get ITV Encore soon,or have we got to wait until the deal with Sky expires?

Its hard to answer that currently Trevor but you never know.

[spiderplant]

Now confirmed

http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/pre...-ITV-FINAL.pdf

Typo in title amended.

[muppetman11]

Doesn't surprise me , I saw a week or two ago that Sky would offload its shares in ITV to concentrate on Sky Europe.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Tricky Trevor

So it's possible that we might get ITV Encore soon,or have we got to wait until the deal with Sky expires?

As this is tied up in a legal contract, we will not be getting this during the exclusivity period. It's only repeats at the moment, so no sweat in waiting for a year to get this channel.

Intriguing development this, though, it will be interesting to see where all this leads.

[heavyside]

Reuters speculates that Liberty Global may bid for all of ITV at a later date.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0FM0GR20140717

[theone2k10]

Liberty Global aren't messing around are they?
I think ITV is just the beginning for them, don't be surprised to see them bid for others soon.

[OLD BOY]

Liberty's press release states that they do not intend to take over ITV, but then there is provision for them to change their minds within 6 months!

I am struggling to think how the stake in ITV will impact on Virgin Media viewers, but if there was a full takeover, I think the implications could be enormous. Along with its stake in all3media, Eurosport and Discovery, this would provide Liberty with an opportunity to start up a range of new channels with its newly purchased archive of programmes as well as new programming, which it could provide exclusively to Virgin Media as a counterbalance to Sky's antics. Now, that would be really interesting.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Liberty's press release states that they do not intend to take over ITV, but then there is provision for them to change their minds within 6 months!

I am struggling to think how the stake in ITV will impact on Virgin Media viewers, .

It might enable VM/Liberty to negotiate better rates for Sky's channels on VM, for one thing if Liberty take full control of ITV.

For Liberty/VM, the reasons are obvious:

Scale.
Control of a vast proportion of UK production.
Increased ad sales and leverage to monestise futher pay tv revenues.
Defensive move against a takeover of Liberty.
And many things like reduction of costs. Back office operations could be merged together.

But I have said on this forum and others, that I always thought BT would make a move on ITV one day. So, I am curious to see what their reaction is to Liberty's move into F1, UK production and a terrestrial broadcasting.

[devilincarnate]

Wonder if this means we will get more on demand stuff and in HD?

[denphone]

Who knows what the future holds as thing are changing all the time in the marketplace and my hunch is some of these changes will be very much to the betterment for Virgin customers in the next couple of years.

Originally Posted by denphone

Who knows what the future holds as thing are changing all the time in the marketplace and my hunch is some of these changes will be very much to the betterment for Virgin customers in the next couple of years.

Certainly looks like there is a plan being formulated. Upgrade the current network properly, get rid of the copper stuff, acquire product, expand.

Very exciting times ahead I reckon.