Spain’s top football club FC Barcelona (Barça) has threatened to withdraw its broadcast licence from Sogecable unless it matches an offer from Mediapro that is almost double the current annual fee for the two football seasons commencing 2006/2007 

The present TV advertising slump appears due to a uniquely British combination of very rapid digital TV growth and singular advertising airtime regulations that include the Contract Rights Renewal (CRR) remedy 

Sogecable FY 2005 results recorded the first net profit (€7.7 million) since 2001, two and a half years after the merger with Vía Digital. With the after effects and restructuring costs of this merger behind it, the question we examine in this note is what growth can Sogecable's pay-TV business look forward to and what extra contribution will be made by the national free-to-air (FTA) analogue channel Cuatro, which launched on 7th November 2005?

Under rules agreed with the EC no one party could win all six packages. The surprise is that BSkyB has only won four, the other two going to Setanta. Although BSkyB has won the four ‘best-looking’ packages, it must pay an extra £97 million per annum for two thirds as many games 

One response to the growth of the satellite and cable households has been for terrestrial broadcasters to launch their own digital channels. These channels are beginning to absorb significant fractions of the total programming budget and in this report we look at the implications for the parent broadcasters. We examine E4, Channel 4’s main satellite entertainment channel, showing that it is likely to remain a drain on the parent for many years to come. Rather than ‘strengthening the brand’ of terrestrial broadcasters, which is the reason normally given for diversification into satellite channels, our research shows that E4 and other services do nothing for the parent company and divert programming expenditure that would otherwise be usefully spent on the terrestrial service.