The UK Competition Commission has decided to allow the merger of Arqiva and National Grid Wireless, which are now both owned indirectly by Australian financial group Macquarie. In effect they have already merged, and that means Macquarie controls virtually all TV and radio broadcast networks in the UK. Because of this the Commission plans to introduce pricing and quality controls, some price reductions and the appointment of an adjudicator to resolve disputes.
The deal by which Google will buy internet advertising network DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, announced almost a year ago, has finally been completed. The deal represented a 20 times revenues valuation, although DoubleClick certainly deals with a vast amount of advertising through its DART system. The deal drew criticisms and concerns over Google controlling too much advertising and knowing too much about private individuals, and it is one of the reasons that Microsoft feels the need to acquire Yahoo, in order to keep up.
Cisco has put part of a $9.5 million investment into GridNetworks, a company that offers managed Internet TV delivery services. The investment is a belated addition to the rest of its first round begun by Panorama Capital back in October. GridNetworks streams TV and film content in HD clarity and high-fidelity sound to a computer or a television screen via the Internet, and will be competing with other managed TV suppliers like Brightcove and Maven networks, recently acquired by Yahoo.
The French and German media search engine love-child, Quaero is a huge mistake in our view, and will never amount to anything, but the European Commission has approved a $152 million state aid package which may have Google and others concerned that the EU is not exactly playing by competition rules. The money will be paid to the companies that are conducting research into search that will treat video, audio, image and text equally, managed by French company Thomson. The funding and the project is supposed to last five years, but which time Google and co will be so much further ahead.