November 2009 archives

Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on November 2, 2009 4:25 PM
Tags: acquisition, ART, jazeera, media, merger, TV
Another guest post from The National's media maven, Keach Hagey:

-------------
Rumors have been swirling around the Middle East media water cooler for a while now that the two pay-TV players that weren't a part of this summer's merger between Orbit and Showtime -- that is, Arab Radio and Television (ART) and Al Jazeera Sports -- are up to some kind of merging of their own.

Those rumors jumped from the Arabic to the English press yesterday, with Rapid TV News reporting that ART had sold its extensive library of sports broadcast rights to Al Jazeera. That's quite a scoop! Too bad there aren't any sources in it. And that ART's spokesman is denying it. Still, here's the juicy bit:

Comments [0] Back to top

Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on November 1, 2009 2:46 PM
Tags: berytech, entrepreneur, gaming, incubator, startup, venture
- The number of new start-ups registering their businesses in Abu Dhabi has more than doubled in the last year, The National's Charlie Hamilton reports. A decision to scrap the Dh150,000 ($40,000) minimum capital requirements is being credited for much of the spike, although surely being a fast growing economy in a world of painful stagnation helped. Lifting bureaucratic barriers to entrepreneurship is always a good thing, but it's not as if anyone should even dream of trying to do business in Abu Dhabi - even selling sodas on the side of the road - without $40,000 in the bank.

- The Lebanese tech angel fund / incubator, Berytech, has announced a new $100,000 prize for great regional entrepreneurs. They are looking for a good idea(s), and will fund up to the full 100K for the winner. For more info see their site, or this post at Startup Arabia.

Comments [0] Back to top

Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: David George-Cosh on November 1, 2009 11:48 AM
Tags: du, earnings, etisalat, mobile, penetration
The National's favourite mono-syllabic UAE telecom operator announced their third-quarter earnings this morning (the story is here).

The financial numbers are impressive, to say the least (an almost 400 per cent gain in year-over-year profit, for example), but the interesting stat that really grabs your eye is how many new subscribers du signed up in the quarter.

Comments [1] Back to top

1 2 Next »

Subscribe

Subscribe to feed Subscribe to Beep Beep (RSS)

About Beep Beep

Search

Beep Beep resources

Blogs and archives

 

Blog topics

Business blogs at a glance