Category Archives: Digital Entertainment

Was the price of Five OK! for Desmond? ...

On the face of it, the takeover of Channel Five by Richard Desmond for a price of £103.5 million is a great example of two well-matched parties ending up with an agreement that suits both of them. . However, dig a little deeper and it would appear that Five’s owners, RTL, have got the better [...]

Can BSkyB resist Rupert’s Bear-hug? ...

The proposed deal for News Corp to buy out the other existing shareholders at BSkyB throws up some interesting scenarios in relation to the participants’ needs and how they can best be met. A quick look at the needs, bargaining power and behaviour patterns on all sides suggests that a deal will be forthcoming. But [...]

Paul Rich Award Winner ...

Penny for the Guy? Why Terra Firma should get its Hands on further funding ...

EMI is apparently in a scramble for cash and working on a bonus scheme to persuade investors to inject an extra £120 million. This is to stave off a takeover by its bank, Citigroup. From a negotiating standpoint, however, the odds of raising the money are strongly in its favour. The headlines surrounding EMI’s financial woes do [...]

Why Lady Gaga is the real deal ...

So, Lady Gaga scooped more awards than any other artist at this year’s Brits, prompted yet more gasps over her choice outfit – and no doubt won some hearts for her touching tribute to her friend, the late Alexander McQueen. Amid such hoo-ha it would be easy to forget the scale of her victory over us [...]

Why HMV was destined to take care of Mama ...

So, Mama Group PLC has been up for sale. MAMA Group Plc is the parent company of number of UK-based music and media businesses. It has three divisions – Live Music, Artist Services, and Consumer – and owns, among other things, the Barfly venue chain, the Hammersmith Apollo, and The Fly magazine. Technically there have been [...]

Why only services like Spotify get licensed ...

There are now more than 500 legitimately licensed digital music services around the world from iTunes, to Nokia’s “Comes with Music”, to the hugely popular Spotify. You might be forgiven for thinking that it is easy to get a licence to distribute and make money from selling digital music. Think again: there is real a problem under the surface. The fact is that there is a huge bottleneck in obtaining licences – and generally only large, well-funded licensees are able to secure or pay for licences. An analysis of fundamental negotiating needs, attitudes and bargaining power shows why this is.

Hardbacks and Hotbytes: the future of books in a connected world ...

This site incorporates a video player widget to use for Rich Futures’ video blogs, video announcements and video trailers about Rich Futures Associates. The player operates as a widget so it can be embedded on your own social networking pages. Currently the video player is showcasing a video about our book publishing seminar on March [...]