David Crow

Wednesday

David Crow

Setanta: the Gordon Brown of sports broadcasting

From our UK edition

David Crow says the Irish-based football channel — like the Prime Minister — looked a winner during the boom years but failed to attract fans and will struggle to survive You have to hand it to Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan, founders of sports broadcaster Setanta. Three weeks ago it was hard to find anyone who thought their firm would still be afloat today. Analysts pointed to annual losses of £100 million; the Scottish Premier League complained of missed rights payments; deadlines loomed for £35 million of fees due to the English Premier League. Fears were reinforced when Deloitte was lined up as administrator and Setanta’s call centre refused to sign up new subscribers, while its website announced ‘technical difficulties’.

Wednesday

David Crow

The British Bill Gates finds a formula for bad times

From our UK edition

David Crow meets Mike Lynch, the computer scientist whose firm, Autonomy, makes software that knows how humans think — and can spot when they’re committing fraud The plush Piccadilly offices of Autonomy are decorated with complex mathematical equations, written in buzzing neon lights and frosted onto glass doors. Although the formulas underpin technology that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago, they were first penned by an 18th-century vicar, Thomas Bayes, who spent his life trying to prove the existence of God through mathematics. ‘He never succeeded,’ Autonomy founder and chief executive Mike Lynch tells me, ‘although he probably has an answer by now.

Wednesday

David Crow

Rumours of the death of music are exaggerated

From our UK edition

David Crow says the record industry’s attempt to clamp down on illegal downloads is belated and befuddled — but the good news is that live music is thriving again Back in the late 1990s when the music download revolution was gathering pace, sentimentalists predicted the death of music. Those who spent their youth in rented flats littered with LPs before moving to mortgaged houses furnished with neat racks of CDs felt that free and illegal MP3 files would cannibalise the industry. But the huge irony of this revolution is that it has led to a resurgence in live music. CD sales fell by 10.6 per cent in Britain in 2007 — forcing artists to return to the stage. Last year saw more music festivals than ever before; live music revenues were up 8 per cent on 2006.

Wednesday

David Crow

Microsoft’s Yahoo bid ends well — for Google

From our UK edition

David Crow says personal animosities played a major part in the failed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo — to the benefit of their most potent online competitor When Microsoft made its unsolicited $44 billion bid for Yahoo in February, a match looked distinctly possible. Like Beatrice and Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing, it seemed that the two were ready to put years of sniping and barbed flirting behind them and forge a powerful union. As a pair, they could have given the all-dominant Google a run for its money in online advertising, an industry which could be worth $80 billion by 2010. All didn’t end well, however, and the marriage — at least for now — is off.