Music Choice Europe Sold For $4.85 Million

Music Choice Europe, the digital music company backed by Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB that was once worth more than $380 million on the stock market, has been sold for just $4.85 million, to a group of individual investors.
Much like its U.S. namesake, it provides music channels on cable and satellite TV, and online.

The company went IPO in 2000, at the height of the boom. Sky is the biggest shareholder in MCE, with a 36 per cent holding after the listing, while the original investors in the business, Time Warner and Sony, now have 16 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.

As well as the inability to garner significant advertising sales, MCE said yesterday that its other revenue source – a subscription paid to it by TV companies for carrying MCE channels – was also drying up. Margot Daly, MCE’s CEO, who will stay on under the new owners, said that the company now had new opportunities to “gun for” in broadband and mobile platforms.

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