SBS finds favour among analysts with pay-TV plans

摘要

Pan-European company SBS Broadcasting's bid to reposition itself as a digital pay-television company has received the thumbs-up from the financial community. Investment bank Bear Stearns is the latest financial house to recommend buying the company's shares. In a report published this week, Bear Stearns raised its end-of-year target for SBS shares to ?40 (￡27.41), 13 per cent above the current share price, and maintained an "outperform" rating. Much of the positive sentiment relates to SBS's purchase last month of the C More Group, which had bought Vivendi Universal's Nordic pay-television unit in 2003 (NMM March 11, 2005). This unit, branded Canal Plus Television, is the biggest pay-television operator in the region with 768,000 subscribers across Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. C More's pay-television packages are available on satellite, cable, digital-terrestrial television and IPTV platforms across the Nordic region. Until the C More acquisition, SBS's focus had been on the free-to-air television market, with 16 channels in seven European countries.