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Sky needs years to become ‘sustainable’

The head of Sky Deutschland, Brian Sullivan, said on Monday the beleaguered German pay-TV station would need another two to three years to become “a company with sustainable future.”

Published: 6 September 2010 15:47 CEST
Sky needs years to become 'sustainable'
Photo: DPA

He refused, however, to forecast when the channel would stop making losses, saying he was prohibited from doing so ahead of the firm’s planned capital increase.

Sky announced last month it hoped to raise at least €340 million by issuing new shares and convertible bonds backed by its parent company News Corp. The capital increase is structured to keep News Corp.’s stake from increasing over 49.9 percent.

Sullivan said Sky, which has struggled for years to get Germans to pay for television programming, would implement new content, technology and marketing measures in the coming months.

Besides exploring subscription models for new mobile platforms such as Apple’s iPad, Sullivan said Sky was “in good talks with a number of cable companies” for new content.

Sky also said it planned to broadcast the Ryder Cup golf tournament in 3D and high definition on October 3.

DAPD/mry

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BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Published: 4 November 2021 10:15 CET
Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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