Tony Ball is a British television executive, former chairman of Kabel Deutschland and former CEO of BSkyB.
Born and educated in London, Ball received an MBA from Kingston University and later an honorary doctorate. [1]
Ball joined Thames Television on graduation as a broadcasting engineer. [2] he was later a founding director of Champion TV, which launched the UK's first dedicated sports channel, The Sports Channel, broadcast on British Satellite Broadcasting. [3] In 1993, Ball joined BSkyB, where he built the success of Sky Sports. [3]
Ball went to Australia to manage Fox Sports Australia and from here moved to the United States to become President of Fox Sports International, where he oversaw the creation and the operation of sports television businesses in North America, Latin America, Asia and Australia.
Ball then became chief executive of News Corporation's Fox/Liberty Media Network, [4] which included the FX Network, Fox Sports Net and 20 Regional Sports Channels throughout the United States. [2] By creating cable deals Ball was able to significant increase the number ofsubscribers to Fox. [5]
In 1999, Murdoch picked Ball to revive loss-making BSkyB, returning to the UK to manage the change from analogue to digital transmission. His reputation as an astute and intelligent marketer was solidified, on the back of doubling subscribers to 7million and taking BSkyB into profit for the first time in five years. [6] The results were reflected in his basic salary of £762,000 and a £1.5m bonus; his total earnings during his tenure are estimated[ by whom? ] at £30m.[ citation needed ] After resigning in late 2003, [7] he was replaced by James Murdoch, and left News Corp in April 2004.
Ball joined Kabel Deutschland as chairman in 2003, where he introduced premium internet, telephony, and television services and executed a €1 billion network upgrade. [8] From February 2006 to September 2010,Kabel Deutschland was majority-owned by Providence Equity Partners. On 24 June 2013, Vodafone announced a takeover bid for Kabel Deutschland valued at €7.7 billion, 4 times the valuation at the time of IPO. The board recommended the bid above that of rival Liberty Global. [9]
Ball became a non-executive director for various companies, which presently include: non-executive director of the Spanish cable company ONO; and a non-executive director of BT plc. [2] In mid-2009, Ball started negotiations with ITV to become Chief Executive, [3] but talks broke down in September over various contractual issues. [10]
Ball is a board member of the Olympic Delivery Authority for the London 2012 Summer Olympics, [3] and a trustee of the Media Trust. [2]
His second marriage is to a Spanish-national lady, Gabriella; the couple have homes in London and Spain. The motorcycle he bought and rode whilst resident in California, was placed in his office at BSkyB. [11]
Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.
ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners of multiple licences of the ITV network. Starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was rebranded as ITV Digital in July 2001.
Sky Group Limited is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate, which is a subsidiary of the American conglomerate Comcast, and headquartered in Isleworth. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Sky is Europe's largest media company and pay-TV broadcaster by revenue, with 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees as of 2019. The company is primarily involved in satellite television, producing and broadcasting. The current CEO is Dana Strong.
The original incarnation of News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's largest media company in terms of total assets and the world's fourth largest media group in terms of revenue. It had become a media powerhouse since its inception, dominating the news, television, film, and print industries.
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. In 2019, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the 12th time it has held the award. The channel and its live streaming world news is available on its website, TV platforms, and online platforms such as YouTube and Apple TV, and various mobile devices and digital media players.
Sky UK Limited, trading as Sky is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and, from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and the internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase, Sky Max, and Sky Atlantic.
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is a British-American businessman. He is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.
Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech before becoming a subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting, with Challenge still broadcasting.
Top Up TV was a pay TV service in the United Kingdom that was launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial television platform. The service aimed to "top up" Freeview customers by providing additional content and services through encrypted TV channels unavailable to other viewers.
VideoGuard, produced by NDS, is a digital encryption system for use with conditional access television broadcasting. It is used on digital satellite television systems - some of which are operated by News Corporation, which owned about half (49%) of NDS until its sale to Cisco in 2012. Since 2018 VideoGuard is improved and maintained by Synamedia. Its two most widely used implementations are Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland and DirecTV in the United States, the former of which launched the digital version of the system in 1998.
Vodafone Deutschland GmbH is the largest cable television operator in Germany. Kabel Deutschland was subject to a hostile takeover bid by the British Vodafone Group in September 2013; the deal was approved in December 2013 and finalised on 29 January 2014. Until the takeover the company name was Kabel Deutschland.
Virgin Media Limited is a telecommunications company from Britain, founded in 2007, which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica.
Sky Deutschland GmbH, branded as Sky, is a German media company that operates a direct broadcast satellite Pay TV platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It provides a collection of basic and premium digital subscription television channels of different categories via satellite and cable television.
Mark Brian Sharman is a British broadcasting executive.
YouView TV Ltd is a British media company, a partnership of four broadcasters: the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5; and two telecommunications operators, BT Group and TalkTalk Group. It launched in 2012 the hybrid television platform named YouView, which was formed from an ambitious project between the UK's four terrestrial broadcasters originally titled Project Canvas.
This is a list of events that took place in 2010 related to British television.
The foundation of the Premier League in English football occurred in the early 1990s. A proposal for the establishment of a new league was tabled at the end of the 1990–91 season. It received the support of representatives of all eighteen First Division clubs, as well as The Football Association (FA) through its "Blueprint for the Future of Football" publication. The Premier League was actualised in stages: the signing of the Founder Members Agreement on 17 July 1991, clubs handing a joint notice of resignation from the Football League, and the final go-ahead from the FA who administered affairs.
The British media company Sky UK has incurred criticism over the years, much of it centred on overcharging, anti-competitive practices, and the business practices and undue political influence of its one-time majority owner News Corporation.
This is a timeline of the history of Sky Television.
This is a timeline of cable television in the United Kingdom.
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