sky might buy canal digital+

[englishsatman]

Prisa is Spain’s largest media conglomerate (it publishes El Pais, for example), and is selling its Digital+ pay-TV business in order to clear some heavy debt obligations. Prisa hasn’t been helped by the tumbling ad market, and there are also concerns that local rivals like ONO and its IPTV rivals are making better headway than satellite.

Now there seems to be something of a long queue waiting to carry out Due Diligence (also known as having an officially-sanctioned peek at your neighbour’s business) at Digital+. The range of offers already on the table, according to the Financial Times, stretches from $3.95bn to $4.2bn. Digital Plus has 2.1m subs.

"The fact there are several bidders is good news for Prisa," said Luis Padrón, a Fortis Bank analyst. "This shows the operator is an
interesting active for the market."

Telefonica is already said to have made an offer, as has Vivendi (which, if successful, would see it returning to the Spanish pay-TV market). A report in El Pais states that Telecinco (owned by Italy’s Mediaset), and cable operator ONO have also expressed interests. Other names recently reported to be interested include Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and France Telecom’s Orange subsidiary.

BSkyB and/or News Corp is also rumoured to be a possibility. If this does happen then one way or another Rupert Murdoch will own, control or influence pay-TV operations over much of Europe including Sky Italia (100% News Corp), BSkyB (39%) and Premiere (25%).

At the end of June, Digital+ had 2.08 million subscribers and generated EBITDA of €175.6 million for the first half of this year.

Morgan Stanley and HSBC are advising Prisa in the Digital+ sale process.


Source:Rapid TV News




The above might make it alot easier to get english tv and it might be worth while signing up to them now as it is alot cheaper to have installed to recieve digital+ rather than sky thank

[sat]

i doubt that this will "make it alot easier to get english tv " as

many channels on Sky uk are already on d+ (nat geo, discovery)
many sky movies ard already on d+movie channels and taquuilla pay tv service
many sports are on d+ sports service
Sky only own a handful of channels anyway (sky1,2,3, movies, sports, hallmark), i think the bbc and virgin own more (with the UKTV brand) as do virgin by themselves (challenge and bravo)
and the availability of programmes in spain will depend on whom the programme makers have sold their broadcast rights to - if sky1 were on d+, then i think quatro and sexta and tve ant3 who own the spanish rights to many sky1 programme may kick up a fuss

if the takeover by bskyb does take place i can only see d+ being renamed Sky espania, just like what happened in Italy and Sky Italia, (there are no bbc or itvs or c4 on the Sky italia service)

and the sky buys d+ is a rumour that happens most years - this year they financial papers sais that bskyb and news corp are the most unlikely as they do not have the financial assests and would have to increase debt to buy it £2.5billion was the number quoted- i think telefonica and vivendi were the favourites...

found the link - well a link from reuters from july

UPDATE 2-BSkyB mulls $4 bln bid for Spain's Digital Plus-FT | Reuters