Chapter 390 BBC's Proposal
When Tamaran woke up, sunlight poured in through the gaps in the curtains, and she was alone in the room.
At this moment, she couldn't help but have many images of last night appear in her mind, as if they were a dream.
She stood up, found some clothes and put them on. After washing, when Tamaran walked out of the bedroom, she saw the housekeeper Riley walking over.
"Hello, Miss Ecclestone."
"Ms. Riley, where is Barron?"
Hearing Tamaran's words, Riley said with a smile:
"His Royal Highness is meeting a man in the reception room on the second floor. Guest, he ordered, if you wake up, you can have something to eat first "Should I ask the kitchen to prepare breakfast now?"
Hearing what Riley said, Tamaran suddenly felt hungry. She nodded and said:
"Okay. , thank you, Ms. Riley.”
"It's my honor."
......
At this time, in the reception room on the second floor, sitting in front of Barron was BBC President Dyke who came from London specially. .
The other party has only one purpose, and that is to increase its investment in Digital UK, so as to increase the BBC's shareholding proportion in this digital TV network with the largest number of users in the UK.
“What you need to know is that we initially sold a majority stake in DigitalUK, but the BBC was not enthusiastic about bearing the huge upfront costs, so we at SEM Group had to take over the company. Control, at a time when funds were already tight, insisted on a high investment, and now..."
Barron's words made Dyke a little embarrassed, because what he said was the truth.
As early as the second half of 2002, SEM Group reached an agreement with the BBC. The two jointly funded the establishment of DigitalUK, which is responsible for managing the strategy, policy and service development of British terrestrial digital television.
DigitalUK’s shareholding ratio is SEM Group’s 60% shareholding, and the BBC’s 40% shareholding. The two companies contribute capital according to their shareholding ratio to promote the terrestrial digital TV platform Freeview.
Later ITV also joined DigitalUK. Currently, DigitalUK’s shareholding ratio is SEM Group holds 51%, BBC holds 34%, and ITV holds 15%.
The reason why SEM Group was able to hold so many shares of DigitalUK at the beginning was that the BBC itself gave up most of its holdings in the company.
The reason is that after the initial ITVDigital failed to compete with SBSky on the path of terrestrial digital TV, leading to bankruptcy, although the BBC took over part of ITVDigital's terrestrial digital channels at the request of the British government, they had little understanding of terrestrial digital TV technology. I don’t have much confidence in development and don’t want to invest too much energy in it.
What's more, according to the commitments made to the government when the BBC and SDTV took over the three channels of ITV Digital respectively, DigitalUK needs to invest at least 100 million pounds per year in the next five years, with a total of no less than 5 billion for the development of terrestrial digital television.
This number is also difficult for the BBC to accept, or they simply do not have much willingness to invest so much money in the development of terrestrial digital television.
Therefore, when the two joint ventures finally established DigitalUK, a company used to promote terrestrial digital television and launch the Freeview platform, the BBC took the initiative to give up most of its shares and only held 40% of the shares.
At that time, Barron's, the man behind SEM Group, did not have as much money as he does now. It can be said that investing so much money into DigitalUK was considered a desperate move in the eyes of others. .
It is also worth mentioning that when ITV decided to join the company DigitalUK, its development had already made great achievements and its prospects began to be promising.
Because of this, when iITV joined, the BBC also restricted the proportion of shares that ITV could obtain. In the end, ITV invested 150 million pounds and obtained 15% of DigitalUK's shares. This was not what they originally expected. They invested more funds and obtained more than 25% of the shares.
Now the number of users of the Freeview platform has exceeded 12 million, making it the largest digital TV broadcasting platform in the UK, far surpassing Sky TV - although Sky TV's channels are mainly paid, there are also different.
Under such circumstances, the BBC is somewhat dissatisfied with its 34% shareholding in DigitalUK. Today, the BBC president came specially from London to talk to Barron about this matter. "If the BBC is willing to increase its investment in this company according to DigitalUK's valuation, it is not impossible to issue some additional shares to you."
Barron looked at the man in front of him and said calmly:
“But as shareholders of DigitalUK, SEM Group and ITV also have the right to allocate shares in equal amounts.”
He was slightly happy at first. Dyke, after hearing what Barron said later, frowned again:
“Your Highness the Duke, this result will probably not change our shareholding ratio much. "
"So everyone knows that DigitalUK has excellent prospects, so what is the BBC going to do to convince me? You should understand that the biggest obstacle to the increase in the BBC's shareholding ratio is not us. But ITV.”
"But you have a controlling stake. If we can reach an agreement, ITV's objection will be invalid."
Hearing Decker's words, Barron laughed:
"Then how can I let me Do you have the motivation to do this? "
"Perhaps, Your Highness the Duke, we can promote the IPO of DigitalUK..."
Seeing Barron's questioning eyes, Dyke continued Said:
“This is a good thing for both DigitalUK’s financing and the determination of the company’s value.”
“But in fact, DigitalUK has not yet made a profit.”
“This It’s very simple. In terms of profit, you only need to increase the fees on the Freeview platform.”
Hearing the other party’s words, Barron slowly came to his senses...
Engage. After a while, it seems that the BBC is really targeting ITV?
Although according to media reports, the financial situation of the BBC during this period is not good, the financial situation of ITV is not as good as that of the BBC...
Speaking of which, if SDTV is not supported by Summit Media, it will still be there. The losses...
Barron was a little strange at first, what about the BBC? At this time, they will suddenly become rich and want to increase their holdings in DigitalUK...
After working for a long time, their purpose is to increase the fees charged by the Freeview platform for the TV stations that broadcast on it, then For ITV, it can also increase their financial pressure.
But this is a double-edged sword. It will also have an impact on the BBC, but the BBC can always sustain it, but the same cannot be said for ITV...
Is it necessary for these two families to be so tit-for-tat?
Barron did not expect that as the competition between the BBC and ITV intensified, SDTV, a subsidiary of his SEM Group, could also be regarded as a catfish.
After all, SDTV has grabbed a big piece of the cake in many fields, especially the field of variety shows, so the competition for the remaining cake will naturally become more intense.
“I still need to think about it, I believe there will be a result soon.”
In the end, Barron politely sent away BBC President Dyke.
As for the BBC's proposal...
It doesn't seem impossible.
(End of this chapter)