Yorkshire-based outside broadcast company Televideo has paid more than a million pounds for rival OB specialist CBF Media, writes John Oates
Yorkshire-based outside broadcast company Televideo has paid more than a million pounds for rival OB specialist CBF Media, writes John Oates.

The deal will give the combined company a turnover of about £5m. Paul Scivill remains managing director of Televideo, while Mike Bryden stays on at CBF Media.

Scivill said: 'We are competitors in a tight market and the deal is a good commercial fit - our peaks are not CBF's peaks. We do a lot of stuff at weekends, it does more mid-week.'

Televideo specialises in football for the BBC, BSkyB and MUTV (Manchester United TV) among others. CBF's clients are both broadcasters and corporate companies, with sports work including horse racing.

Vicki Betihavas, director of sales and marketing at rival outside broadcast company Visions, said: 'The deal between Televideo and CBF makes sense. Like all companies, Televideo would wish to expand, however, in a market which is oversupplied, with companies pursuing the same "bits" of business, consolidation is inevitable. What will be interesting is what happens to the rest of the market in the next 18 months.'

Responding to suggestions that the market may face a slump even after a particularly successful 2002, Scivill said: 'I've been in this business for 20 years and I've not had an easy year yet. The ITV Digital collapse hurt us in some areas but overall our turnover remained the same because we expanded elsewhere. But for smaller companies, consolidation has to be the way forward.'

Scivill added that the deal should be good news for Televideo customers 'They should get better service in peak periods because we won't need to bring in so many freelancers or to subcontract equipment.'

Televideo employs 18 full-time staff and up to 90 freelancers. CBF has 12 full-time staff. All staff will retain their jobs.

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