TOP NEWS
* Altice NV has entered into an exclusive agreement with Tofane Global, a Paris-based telecommunications and digital player specialising in international carrier services. The agreement relates to the sale of Altice's international wholesale voice carrier business in France, Portugal and the Dominican Republic.
* Activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. is planning to request the resignation of up to seven board members in Telecom Italia SpA and replace them with Italian directors, Telecompaper reports, citing Il Sole 24 Ore. The list of directors reportedly includes Telecom Italia Chairman Arnaud de Puyfontaine and CEO Amos Genish. Elliott's supposed plans come ahead of a meeting of the Italian telco's shareholders on April 24.
PAN-EUROPEAN
* The High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and Disinformation, formed by the European Commission, has submitted a report to Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel recommending the creation of a code of principles that online platforms should adhere to. European Consumer Organization Director General Monique Goyens responded that the report failed to recognize that online platforms, such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., "massively benefit from users reading and sharing fake news."
* Infosys Ltd. intends to voluntarily delist its American depositary shares from the Paris and London Euronext exchanges, citing the low average daily trading volume of the company's ADSs on the exchanges. Infosys ADSs will continue to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
UK AND IRELAND
* Keshet International Ltd. has acquired a majority stake in Greenbird Media, buying out BBC Worldwide Ltd.'s 30% stake in the British production group, Digital TV Europe reports. The deal will allow Kehet to become the content distributor of 13 indies that Greenbird supports, such as Big Light Productions, Flicker Pictures, Kalel Productions and Top Hat Productions. BBC Worldwide is a unit of British Broadcasting Corp.
* Canadian lifestyle channel Edgy TV will launch in the U.K. through Vision247 Ltd.'s Freeview channel, the visiontv.co.uk website, on mobile apps and on EE Ltd.'s TV set-top boxes, Digital TV Europe reports. British Telecom owns EE.
* Virgin Media Inc. is set to roll out its ultrafast broadband service in the Test and Dun Valleys as part of the Liberty Global plc unit's £3 billion Project Lightning ultrafast broadband expansion project, which is scheduled for completion in 2019. The company expects to deliver Internet speeds of up to 350 Mbps.
* The British government is pushing back the release of a compulsory age verification check for online porn websites "later in the year," BBC News reports, citing the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Companies that are developing the online verification tool earlier told the BBC that the planned April implementation will unlikely be met.
* The U.K.'s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced that Frances Cairncross has been appointed as the chair of the new review on journalism sustainability in the U.K. Cairncross will be joined by a panel of industry experts, who will serve as advisors in the review's final report.
GERMANY, SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA U.K.
* German public broadcaster ARD and satellite operator SES SA have extended their collaboration. As such, the SD programs of the various ARD stations will be broadcast via Astra until mid-2020.
* Bafin, the German federal financial supervisory authority, has deemed the attack by analysis firm Viceroy Research on ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE illegal. Viceroy published a sale recommendation for shares in ProSiebenSat.1, which violated information requirements of the Securities Trading Act.
* A third round of tariff negotiations for journalists of German newspapers has ended without a result on Monday. German journalism association Deutscher Journalistenverband called it an "entirely inadequate result."
FRANCE
* Lagardère Active SAS announced that Lagardère Studios has acquired Dutch independent production company Skyhigh TV which is owned by its three founding shareholders, Marc Dik, Wilfred Drechsler and Bernard van den Bosch. Skyhigh TV creates productions for Dutch public and private broadcasters.
NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG
* Engie M2M and the Belgian municipality of Knokke-Heist will start an internet of things pilot program, Knack.be reports. Sixty sensors will be installed in the area to provide insight in the fields of energy, mobility and safety.
* Ziggo NV will not expand the offer of unencoded HD channels after removing analog TV from its packages, TotaalTV reports. Although demand for new unencoded HD channels has reportedly been increasing, Ziggo will maintain its current offer of NPO 1 (NL), NPO 2 (NL), NPO 3 (NL), Ziggo Evenementenkanaal, Ziggo Kanaal 13 and Ziggo Sport.
NORDIC COUNTRIES
* Norwegian telecom regulator Nkom announced that the government has maintained the regulator's decision to continue the regulation of Telenor ASA in the Norwegian mobile telephony market. The decision means that all competitors without their own mobile network have the right to lease into Telenor's mobile network. Telenor has tried to have Nkom's decision overturned.
* Norwegian TV encryption and content security company Conax AS will collaborate with Telenor's pay-TV and ISP company Canal Digital Norge As. Conax, which is part of Kudelski SA, will secure Canal Digital's new Android TV-based entertainment service OnePlace.
* Facebook's Swedish real estate company Pinnacle Sweden AB has applied for a building permission for a third server hall on the island of Porsön, local paper Norrländska Socialdemokraten reports. The server hall will be more than 31,000 square meters.
* Nokia Corp. announced the launch of a new cloud-native service bringing secure, high-quality IP voice and video services to enterprise customers. The Enterprise Session Border Controller optimizes the use of IP bandwidth for communications and delivers several security measures.
* Ericsson AB's CEO Borje Ekholm told The Economic Times (India) that the company is "investing to be competitive in India," and that success in the Indian market can be a template for success in other markets. The chief executive also said the company is ramping up production at the Pune facility to serve the needs of both local and key Asian export markets such as Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
SOUTHERN EUROPE
* Spanish broadcaster Mediapro has officially announced its team up with soccer league La Liga to produce sports docu-series "Six Dreams" for Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon Prime Video. The production will focus on six La Liga personalities and their journey throughout the league's 2017-2018 season. Mediapro also produced "Edha," a 13-episode drama series that will premiere March 16 on Netflix Inc.
* Spanish ICT company Indra has acquired Ericsson's Italian unit that is in charge of IT development initiatives for energy utility Enel SpA, as it expands its presence in Italy's IT sector. The acquisition includes almost 160 professionals.
* Telecom Italia named Stefano Siragusa as its chief infrastructures officer. Siragusa has held leadership roles in various companies spanning the mass transportation, air traffic control and industrial sectors, according to his profile.
EASTERN EUROPE
* Eleven Sports Network Ltd. secured a three-year extension for its exclusive rights deal to broadcast games from Italian soccer league Serie A in Poland, Broadband TV News reports. The extended agreement, which will last until 2021, allows Eleven Sports to also broadcast exclusive game highlights and near-live clips on social media platforms.
* Telia Co. AB unit Telia Lithuania has secured approval from a special Lithuanian government commission for state security services in relation to the company's takeover of hosting services provider Duomenu logistikos centras, Telecompaper reports, citing Vz.lt. The deal still needs to be approved by the Competition Council.
* Russian national operator Rostelecom PJSC and U.S. tech company Oracle Corp. will work together to support the federal government's Digital Economy program, Telecompaper reports, citing Comnews.ru. The two companies will support and help improve cloud services for the program's implementation.
* Yandex NV is planning to stop providing its cloud photo service Fotki, which has recent lost its popularity years after its launch in 2007, Telecompaper reports, citing Tdaily.ru. The Russian search engine will migrate all images stored on Fotki to the Yandex.Disc file storage site, beginning April 27.
FEATURED NEWS
M&A Replay: Fox wants probe into Comcast's Sky offer; hedge fund buys Telecom Italia stake: 21st Century Fox urged EU and British media regulators to investigate Comcast's rival takeover offer for pay TV giant Sky, while hedge fund Elliott bought a 6% stake in Telecom Italia in a bid to challenge the latter's largest shareholder Vivendi.
FEATURED RESEARCH
The Best Of: Kagan research and analysis, editor's picks: Here are the editor's top picks for the week ended March 9.
Anne Freier, Amanda Kelly, Koen Pijnappels and Esben Svendsen contributed to this report. The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. London time. Some external links may require a subscription.
