STV sell Pearl & Dean

From BBC News Online

The media group STV is to sell its cinema advertising business Pearl & Dean for £1.

The sale to Image Ltd, a newly formed company backed by Empire Cinemas director Thomas Anderson, is subject to shareholder approval.

STV said the deal would allow it to refocus on its core television business.

In a trading update, the company said it had seen a strong improvement in advertising.

It said this would allow it to increase its investment in high definition TV services which it hopes to have in place for the 2010 World Cup.

Pearl & Dean was put up for sale by the group nearly four years ago.

It has been making a loss due to a contract signed in 2004 which guaranteed minimum payments to the multiplex operator Vue.

Although the sale price is just £1, STV will recoup £9.1m from the business due to a 2010 payment it had already made to Vue Cinemas.

Founded in 1953, Pearl & Dean is the second largest cinema advertising contractor in the UK, with a market share of 36.6%.

STV's chairman Richard Findlay said the sale "represents the final step in the board's plan to dispose of legacy businesses which we inherited and to refocus the group on its core media business".

While confirming trading for the company was in line with expectations, STV said that it remained cautious about the second half of 2010 "given the uncertainty caused by the general election".

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STV are to go HD by the summer?

As an aside, I thought STV had dumped all of their non-core stuff yonks ago, but this seems to suggest P&D were on the market for four years.

Wonder if the new crowd will retain the famous jingle.

STV faces new challenges after sale of Pearl and Dean

By Jamie McIvor
BBC Scotland News

The sale of Pearl and Dean completes the transformation of STV Group, which started when the current management team took over three years ago.

The old Scottish Media Group - an attempt at a multimedia empire - is now a memory. The group now basically consists of the Channel 3 TV station covering most of Scotland and its linked businesses such as a TV production company and its associated websites.

It means the company can now focus completely on its core businesses. But these businesses are facing challenges.

A legal wrangle with ITVplc, which runs most of the Channel 3 network, continues. The dispute is over whether STV can withhold payment for network programmes it decides not to show.

Each side is suing the other - and both are adamant they are in the right.

One practical effect of the dispute and STV's decision to drop some popular network programmes was that some Scots discovered they could watch ITV1 London on satellite and cable - although this does not actually benefit the other station commercially and does not necessarily harm STV either.

Meanwhile a plan to use public money to pay for Scottish news on STV is up in the air until after the election. STV lost a bid to provide the service itself - but the company could still benefit if it goes ahead, as it would no longer have to meet the cost of providing news.

However it is by no means certain the project will go ahead because the Conservatives say they will scrap it if they form the next government.

More positively, STV intends to bring forward its plans for high definition broadcasting. However it faces a big challenge. Initially its HD service will only be on cable and Freeview - but the majority of people with HD equipment have satellite TV.

That's an interesting stat in the last line of the second post. Most HD is on Sky?

It's always been said that in cabled areas Virgin trounce Sky so I wonder if the same applies for HD.

Some good news there for cable TV customers in Scotland. I understand English VM customers have already been getting ITV1 HD since the start of April so was beginning to feel left out. I'm still waiting for BBC Alba though. Humph.