This month’s item of Snippet news was released on 30 June just as we are preparing to publish the July edition of Aimzine. Our selected company is Motive Television, which we covered in Aimzine earlier this year. Click here to read our original ‘Refocused for exciting digital opportunity’ article.

On 30 June Motive released their final results for the year to 31 December 2009. These showed that losses had reduced in 2009 to £1.0 million from £1.5 million. Cash in hand was quoted at £220,000. On the face of it, things at Motive look bad and the headline numbers give the impression that the company is just about to run out of cash.

However, the accounts relate to 2009 when Motive was in the Television Production business. These businesses, apart from one that is doing rather well, have now been disposed of.  Also, post the year end Motive raised £400,000 in a placing and will receive £204,000 from the sale of its share in the Brown Eyed Boy production company.

The exciting point that caused us to highlight Motive today was the mention of prospective sales for Motive’s Bestv product. Here are two extracts from the Chairman’s statement which show the considerable opportunity for Motive:

‘The Group has already commenced discussions with a number of major broadcasters in Central Europe and the USA.  A technical pilot scheme is underway at Nova TV in Prague, Czech Republic.  Nova TV is part of CME, the biggest broadcaster in Central Europe, and the contract for the pilot allows for the extension of the service to all of CME's 110 million TV homes.  In the USA the group is planning technical pilot schemes for major broadcasters in two markets.

‘The sales cycle for BesTV® is long (approximately six months), given the need for senior executives at broadcasters both to review the technical specifications and also to design, create and test the consumer proposition.  For many broadcasters, this is their first venture into video on demand and whilst Motive provides support and services, the launch of VOD to consumers requires several months of planning.  Accordingly we expect to start earning revenues from BesTV®  implementations later this year.’ (Aimzine’s emphasis)

Revenues from BesTV® implementation later this year

It would seem likely that the CME contract (should Motive win it) will be a huge contract for this AIM tiddler! Motive has a market cap £2.5 million. Note that Motive’s shares are fairly illiquid and tend to react to small trades.

As always, the purpose of this Snippet column is to highlight an interesting situation worthy of further research. Motive is a tiny company and any investment here, at this stage, must be considered as high risk.

Postscript: After I had completed the above article I spoke to Mick Pilsworth, Chairman of Motive Television. I made the following notes from our conversation:-

Apologies that these comments are in note form due to time constraints.

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Written by Michael Crockett

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