As expected, an investment group led by cellular phone pioneer Craig McCaw will provide bankrupt sat-phone operator Iridium with a new financing scheme that will keep the company in business for at least half the year. McCaw's Eagle River Investments will provide $74.6 million in financing, giving Iridium more than enough money to operate beyond Feb. 15. On that date, Iridium's primary investor, Motorola, reportedly would have stopped carrying the company. Motorola has said in the past that it wouldn't fund Iridium unless the sat-phone operator could win new partners. Motorola said its equity participation won't expand beyond the $740 million charge it reserved at the end of December for Iridium. If the McCaw plan is approved by bankruptcy court officials, Iridium should be able to operate through mid-year. During that time, Iridium is expected to complete its restructuring plan. Through the deal, McCaw's group also has the option to purchase all of Iridium's assets. In November, McCaw bailed out ICO Global Communications, another satellite-based company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August. McCaw also leads the development of the Teledesic satellite broadband platform.

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BSkyB Aims For All Screens

Knowing that its roll-out of digital TV is going better than planned, British Sky Broadcasting is making the jump into Internet and data services. The U.K. satellite broadcaster announced this week that it will spend 250 million pounds ($403 million) on PC-based Internet products and the delivery of data and information to mobile phone customers. Under its plan, BSkyB plans to further develop skysports.com and news and entertainment offering sky.com. BSkyB unveiled a number of deals to get its interactive offerings off the ground. It made strategic investments in two Internet companies and formed a partnership with mobile phone operator BT Cellnet. The move into interactivity follows BSkyB's success with digital television. Sky Digital now serves around 2.6 million subscribers. CEO Tony Ball said the company may have up to 5 million signed up for the platform by the end of the year. He added that BSkyB's analog service should be shut down in 2001. All of that news came along with BSkyB's financial results for the period ending Dec. 31. BSkyB reported a pre-tax loss of 61.5 million pounds for the first half of the company's fiscal year, compared to a profit of 53.2 million pounds for the same period in 1998.

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DirecTV Delivers In-Flight Fare

DirecTV and LiveTV will help deliver up to 24 channels of television to passengers of jetBlue Airways. The in-flight entertainment service begins in mid-March. Through the offering, each passenger can view DirecTV programming via personal flat-screen monitors installed in each seatback and individual remotes built into the armrest. The DirecTV package features channels such as ESPN and ESPN2, Bloomberg Television, CNN Headline News, ZDTV, The Weather Channel, The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel and others. LiveTV provides turnkey in-flight entertainment services focused on the narrow body commercial aircraft market.

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Gemstar-TV Guide Set March Vote

Gemstar and TV Guide will hold separate meetings for their respective shareholders on March 17 for a vote on the two companies' merger proposal. Gemstar, which has the StarSight interactive program guide, will hold its meeting in Tokyo. TV Guide will hold its meeting in Tulsa, Okla. Board directors for both companies have approved the merger. In a filing with regulators, the companies said if they need to terminate the merger due to shareholder resistance, or if there is an unsolicited third-party offer, there would be a $409 million breakup fee.

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PROGRAMMING: DBS Scores With PPV