Prisa, the 98% owner of Sogecable, has put Spain’s leading pay-TV platform Digital+ up for sale in order to make a large reduction in its debts
Yell announced this week that full year sales growth (to March 2008) in its UK operations would be 2%, sharply down from the previously forecast 3%, due to “toughening market conditions” since the start of 2008
Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print
The long drawn out merger between the two Spanish pay-TV operators will finally be consummated in the next few weeks. As we have seen elsewhere in Europe, competition in pay-TV produces little but red ink. Investors will be pleased that Sogecable and Via Digital are finally combining. We have little doubt that this merger will eventually produce a profitable and successful business. But management appears too optimistic about the likely continuing cash drains as operations are combined and costs reduced over the next two years.