ITV (LSE: ITV) is selling its 70 percent stake in JFMG, the company that manages radio spectrum for outside-broadcast events, to transmitter company Arqiva for £1 million. It’s the latest example of what the broadcaster called its “programme of non-core asset disposals”. It sold its stakes in the broadband businesses of Liverpool and Arsenal football clubs last year for sums reported to total over £40 million and is this month reported to be considering flogging Friends Reunited.
JFMG coordinates spectrum used by those planning events for TV, radio, theatre, live music, movies, conferences and corporate events. Event organisers can lease spectrum from the company. Ofcom had planned to auction some 800MHz spectrum from the digital dividend sell-off for the wireless microphones that many of JFMG’s events depend on. But it this month decided to hand the spectrum instead to mobile broadband operators, causing some in JFMG’s industry to fret that equipment worth an estimated £18 million will cease operating (via BBC News).