Branson: Virgin still wants ITV

Tara Conlan and Katie AllenThursday September 27, 2007
http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,2178666,00.html

Sir Richard Branson has signaled that cable group Virgin Media has not abandoned its ambitious plans to buy ITV. Sir Richard, Virgin Media's largest shareholder, also suggested his Virgin group would retain its 10.5% stake if the cable company is sold. Speaking today from his home in Oxfordshire at the launch of Virgin 1 channel, Sir Richard was asked about recent takeover approaches from private equity groups and what a sale would mean for the Virgin Media brand. "I think it's extremely unlikely the Virgin brand would ever be withdrawn from Virgin Media and we never said that we'd be selling our shares," Sir Richard said. "I think if anybody wanted to buy Virgin Media it would be because it's got the brand." Sir Richard said he was not sure he could comment on any fresh plans to take over ITV for regulatory reasons. However, when asked if ITV remained a long-term goal for Virgin, he replied: "We'll just have to sort of watch this space."
Virgin's attempt to buy ITV last year was spurned by the broadcaster's board, but was effectively scuppered before any formal response came through when rival BSkyB snapped up a 17.9% stake in ITV. The shock £940m swoop is now the subject of an investigation by the Competition Commission, after Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading flagged up public interest and competition concerns. The enterprise secretary, John Hutton, will rule on the stake in the new year. Sky and Virgin are also at loggerheads over their failure to strike a deal over the cost of each other's channels. Sky's basic channels have been missing from the Virgin platform since March because the two companies could not agree on a price, and the acrimonious row is to go to court. "If you have a gun held to your head and you give in the first time around you are likely to get a gun held to your head a second time around," Sir Richard commented today. "And sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand."
He said the competition authorities would have to decide if Sky had behaved anti-competitively. He added: "We believe the approach was tantamount to blackmail at the time, or at least anti-competitive. And we decided not to give in to it." Sir Richard said that he would like the new Virgin 1 channel to get more viewers than Sky One, adding: "Sky One isn't exactly shining." However, the Virgin Media major shareholder said he would like the company to improve customer service. "I'd like it to be a hell of a lot better," he said. Sir Richard also said that it was likely that his space venture Virgin Galactic would work with Virgin Media on some kind of reality show. When asked if the winner of a reality show could win a trip into space with Virgin Galactic he said it was "quite likely, it could well exist".

I decided to choose this article because I have read a lot about the ITV dispute and this article interested me as to how far the arguments have gone. This is very important because even though the interview was initially about virgin 1’s launch the priority of the interview seems to have become the ITV situation. Branson is not stepping down from the argument, and is still hoping to get something out of the ITV shares. Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson own a substantial amount of shares in the media already, and by buying more the media tends to become one sided, so our consumer choice of watching what we want becomes much lower even though we think we have a diverse choice of watching what we want.
I’m surprised that they are not letting this go. I think they should just stop where they are and give someone else a chance and think about consumer choice, but that is incredibly impossible, and they just need to move on and not hang on to a few shares like kids play tug of war with a teddy bear.
XxXxX By ZeBrA XxXxX

Here are some examples of films and programmes Disney has produced in the past…..and also the financial records

1930’s
Snow white
Alice in wonderland comedies
1940’s
Pinocchio
Dumbo
Bambi
Song of the south
1950’s
Cinderella
Alice in wonderland
Peter pan
Lady and the tramp
1960’s
Mary poppins
Jungle book
Parent trap
1970’s
Aristocrats
Freaky Friday
The black hole
Robin hood
1980’s
Pop eye
Return to oz
Honey I shrunk the kids
1990’s
Beauty and the beast
Aladdin
Hocus pocus
Lion king
Santa clause
Pocahontas
101 Dalmatians
George of the jungle
2000’s
The tigger movie
102 Dalmatians
Monsters inc.
Lilo and stitch
Piglets big movie
Finding nemo
Brother bear
Pirates of the Caribbean
Princess diaries
Cars
High school musical(s)

Future releases include: High school Musical 3, Hannah Montana movie and Roadside Romeo which will be co produced with Yash Raj films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney

http://disney.go.com/index

http://www.disneyinstitute.com/

WHO OWNS IT?-->Since 2002, it has been headed by chairman Dick Cook.However it was originally founded by Walt and Roy Disney on october 16 1923.The key people of the Institution at the moment are John E. Pepper, Jr., ChairmanRobert Iger, President/CEO.It has become one of hollywoods biggest studios and owns eleven theme parks and several TV networks.
the channels they own are: ABC, ABC Family, ABC Kids, Walt Disney Studios Distribution, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Group, Disney Channel, Disney Channel Original, ESPN,ESPN2, Jetix, Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Walt Disney Television, Walt Disney Television Animation, Walt Disney Records, Walt Disney Pictures, Playhouse Disney, Disney Consumer Products, Pixar, Soapnet, Disney Interactive Studios, Disney Store Toon Disney.It had 13 board of directors, and has had 8 Chairmen of the boards over the time it has been running.

history of the institution?-->walt and roy disney got together in 1923 and first produced alice comedies(based on the alice in wonderland character.)The alice series ended in 1927 (took 4 years to complete).Roy suggested the companies name was changed to Walt Disney.Steam boat willie was the first cartoon Mickey mouse appeared in, in 1928 and was the first cartoon with sound. between the 30's and 40's disney produced many of their cartoons and pluto goofy and many other characters wer introduced in this decade.In 1945 disney ,for the first time employs real life actors for song of the south.In 1954 disney found Buena vista to distribute its programmes, cartoons and feature films like Bambi.1957: Walt Disney Productions went public on November 12.After Walt disneys death alot of changes took place.1971: The Walt Disney World Resort opens in Orlando, Florida.This showed a major turnover but roy junior still resigned in 1977 after claiming there was a decline in product quality.in 1983 disneyland tokyo opens in japan, this clearly shows that disney was starting to become bigger and bigger.

In 1984 walt disney productions found touchstone films, a really big institution at the moment, with films.

on february 6th 1986 disney changed its name from Walt Disney Productions to The Walt Disney Company.

by 1991 they had an award for beauty and the beast.Aladdin became the animated movie that won the most golden globes.

Winnie the pooh out-sold mickey mouse merchandise.

They released lion king in 1994 and it became extremely popular,and so followed the sequels.

they have also made alot of money from the high school musical films as they have become intriguing for little children.

my first task....jus 2 remind me wt 2 do

Choose a large media institution (one that produces media texts). You could choose from the following suggestions (or come up with your own) but try to do something different from that you know someone else is doing...
BBC, News Corp, C4, Disney, EMAP, Fox, MGM, ITV, Zee TV, Microsoft, Sony BMG, Google, IPC, C5, HBO, Time Warner
Carry out a case study into its workings, using at least three different internet sources. (Include the urls in your posting). Find out...
who owns it...people and other organisations involved
a history of the institution...how has it developed or changed
the texts it produces...give lots of examples
information about its finances & income...provide actual data
recent developments...how is it responding to the 'new media' age
Try to make this as detailed as possible, include images & logos etc. that are relevant, and make sure it has been written in your own words and not cut and pasted from other sources. You will be required to make a presentation on this topic - without notes - in lessons w/c 24th September.