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Burma’s military junta says it believes information technology, particularly satellite TV, “is a decadent threat that undermines nationalism and has warned the people to avoid satellite TV programmes.”
BBC Monitoring, quoting the local Irrawaddy website, reports that on Tuesday, the junta-controlled newspapers in Myanmah/Burma, The New Light of Myanmar, Myanma Alin and The Mirror, published a commentary blasting satellite TV.
"In reality, satellite [TV] programmes are particularly designed to wield influence, making use of media and arts," the newspapers said. "Today, certain countries are brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of their targeted countries by inciting political problems, instigating mass demonstrations, and demoralizing the characters [sic] and undermining the nationalistic sense of the people through decadent programmes."
The article was titled "We should not continue to allow decadent satellite programmes," in the English-language daily The New Light of Myanmar, and "Don't Continuously Water a Poison Plant!" in the Burmese-language newspapers, Myanma Alin and The Mirror.
The article said that watching satellite TV in Burma "should have been remedied" because "many of those channels [on satellite TV] can demoralize the people, hurt national spirit and patriotic spirit [sic], and arouse emotional feelings."
TV programmes received through a satellite receiver include news stories that "are against the government policy as well as the sense that may hurt national culture, customs, traditions and character of the people," the article claimed.
If the government disregards and ignores the problem, the nation and the people will face evil consequences, the article said, claiming that the Chinese government prohibits Chinese citizens from watching satellite TV programmes and many countries prohibit and control such broadcasts to protect their national interests.
Soon after the crackdowns on mass demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in September 2007, the junta attempted to control citizens' watching satellite TV, in particular the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) as well as the international channels for Al Jazzera, CNN and BBC. In early 2008, the junta ordered a massive hike in the annual satellite TV license fee. At the time, the license fee was increased 166-fold.
As alternatives to the Burmese government's propaganda TV channels, MRTV and Myawaddy, many people in urban and rural areas watch DVB which broadcasts in the Burmese language and provides Burma related news, according to viewer surveys. DVB, run by Burmese exiles, is a "multimedia organization promoting press freedom, democracy and human rights," according to world-newspapers.com.
In recent years, Burmese authorities have tried to counter satellite TV, particularly DVB, by permitting the pay TV, government-controlled channels MRTV 4 and MRTV 5. Both channels are managed by the Ministry of Information. Audiences can access international news broadcasts, music and movie channels. News from international broadcasts is censored.
Most teashops in urban areas have satellite TV receivers and people who cannot afford to buy a receiver watch satellite TV programmes at teashops. Journalists in Rangoon say teashops with satellite TV get more customers. To reach a larger audience via satellite TV, the Washington-based Voice of America (VOA) Burmese Service reportedly has plans to expand its programmes from radio broadcasts to satellite TV in the Burmese language.
© Rapid TV News 2009
War has broken out between Italian public broadcaster and Rupert Murdoch-backed Sky Italia. RAI is cancelling its encryption deal with Sky Italia, which scrambled satellite transmissions as far as Sky Italia receivers were concerned.
The RAI-Sky contract has six months left to run, but the cancellation comes just weeks after RAI teamed with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Mediaset cluster of channels to launch Tivu, a ‘Freesat’ operation that sets the two network operators up in direct competition with Sky.
At the moment Mediaset’s contractual obligations with Sky are being honoured, but it is widely anticipated that this deal too will soon cease. Both RAI and Mediaset have been seen as enjoying the extra coverage and convenience of Sky’s distribution.
As a direct result of this RAI action Italian homes with satellite equipment cannot access RAI’s channels via the Sky Italia set-top box, and must now buy a Tivu receiver in readiness for the official launch in June. Sky Italia has 4.7m subscribers.
Complicating the issue is that Sky uses the NDS-developed VideoGuard Conditional Access system, while Tivu has selected a rival system from Irdeto.
© Rapid TV News 2009
KabelKiosk, Eutelsat’s German direct-to-cable platform, is taking television channels from TV group ProSiebenSat.1 on board its free-to-air bouquet.
Sat.1, ProSieben, kabel eins, N24 and 9Live have been added to the basic package. Together with channels operated by RTL group, which joined the platform last year, KabelKiosk now carries all the large German commercial broadcasters.
Cable head-ends are served through capacity on Eutelsat’s 9° East orbital position. KabelKiosk’s basic package, comprising 30 commercial broadcasters, will soon be expanded to 50 channels. Additionally, an HDTV package and digital video library will be added this year.
KabelKiosk supplies more than 250 cable companies, which altogether reach 2.8 million households, with digital TV channels.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Satellite distribution specialist GlobeCast will use next month’s Dubai CabSat to launch a new African DTH platform
Hot on the heels of the failure of Gateway’s DTH bouquet, GlobeCast is attempting something a little different in the shape of a wholesale service. “The new platform is the first (free) Ku-band DTH platform with coverage over sub-Saharan Africa, providing broadcasters with the opportunity to reach households across the continent,” says GlobeCast.
GlobeCast is starting modestly and has one dedicated transponder on a satellite that facilitates uplink from Europe and is compliant to distribute services to IPTV or terrestrial network head-ends.
The new platform, which is an alternative to the pay TV bouquets in sub-Saharan Africa, responds to a strong demand for free-to-air Ku-band coverage of this crucial region. Several African broadcasters are already in contact with GlobeCast to secure positions in this coveted space and extend their audience to 56 African countries, says the operator.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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Portugal has just got a new 24 hour news channel called TVI 24, operated by Spanish company Prisa's Media Capital. The channel will launch officially on February 26 at 9pm, exclusively on ZON TV Cabo.
The new channel claims to be different from its competitors in its dynamic and innovative attitude in the way it treats the news according to José Eduardo Moniz, TVI's general director. The channel will fight for a rigorous and objective journalism by offering the tips so the viewers can get their own conclusions.
TVI 24 has different news blocks as well as magazines on sports, economy, culture, ways of living, science, fashion and Nature as well as debates and interviews. In these interviews it will count on the presence of Portugal's most important politicians such as Augusto Santos Silva and Nuno Morais Sarmento.
At the same time as the broadcasting channel a website will be launched www.tvi24.pt (http://www.tvi24.pt/) which will be the new entry door for the information the broadcaster aims to be leader in. This website also wants to be the leading website of Portugal's internet information in general.
On its side ZON TV Cabo has shown itself "enthusiastic and at the same time anxious" for the launching of the new channel. Luís Lopez (pictured, above), the channel's CEO, highlighted the importance of the new service for the reinforcing of the diversity of channels in the programming schelude of ZON TV Cabo.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Last night was supposed to be the night when all of the USA’s main broadcast stations switched off their analogue signals, and depended entirely on digital transmission. At the end of the day – or night – just 421 stations went dark. The rest now have just a couple of months until June 12 to switch off.
A total of 641 stations have now gone dark, some 36% of the nation’s total. However, the 421 number was somewhat larger than the anticipated total of just a week ago when the National Association of Broadcasters was talking only of some 368 stations making the switch.
There is a ‘half-way house’ date of April 18 when the Federal Communications Commission expects another bundle of stations to switch off.
However, this staggered pattern is leaving some viewers confused. Indeed, there’s another potential date of March 14 that some stations have been granted as their ‘darkness’ date.
Meanwhile, all the stations that still remain transmitting in analog have to meet FCC rules & regs requiring them to carry extra public information commercials alerting viewers that the sands of analog time are fast running out.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Chris Forrester 17-02-2009 (livecall:17-02-2009)
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Eutelsatʼs Hot Bird 9 craft, pictured, left, has
been commercialised at 13 deg East.
Eutelsatʼs Hot Bird 9, launched just before Christmas, has entered commercial service. It went live at 4am GMT time on Feb 17. The new satellite will work alongside HB6 and HB8, and replace HB7A.
Hot Bird 7A will move to 9 deg East and will be re-branded as Eurobird 9A where it will take over the work currently being done by Eurobird 9 (20-transponders worth) and add an additional 18 much-needed transponders to the 9 deg East slot.
Eurobird 9 will continue its orbital mission at “another location” says Eutelsat, somewhat enigmatically.
Hot Bird 9 has a payload of up to 64 Ku-band transponders and is the second in Eutelsat's new generation of HB craft, and follows HB8 which was launched in 2006. These high-capacity spacecraft have the dual mission of renewing Eutelsat's resource at its premium video neighbourhood at 13 degrees East and boosting Eutelsatʼs overall back-up capacity.
Eutelsat also has a very strong order book of new (and replacement) satellites for its manifest. Including Hot Bird 10 launched last week and still undergoing in-orbit testing, it has 6 craft on order including an anticipated order for Atlantic Bird 4R. AB-4R is the proposed craft to replace the lost W2M (which failed in January following its Dec 20 launch).
© Rapid TV News 2009
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German health channel Deutsches Gesundheitsfernsehen (DGF) has abandoned satellite distribution and is available with immediate effect via its website www.dgf.tv (http://www.dgf.tv/) only.
According to the Hamburg-based broadcaster, the move will serve the consolidation and further development of the brand, the continued distribution of health-related programmes and viewers’ increasing interest in readily-available content to download. The channel, which was launched on April 1 2007, screens advice series, talk shows, reports and scientific programmes covering health, nutrition, prevention, exercise, research and naturopathy.
Distribution via Astra (19.2° East) was terminated on February 10. At the time, a spokeswoman said that the interruption was only temporary due to a technical rearrangement and that the channel would be available as usual on Astra within a few days.
The development indicates that the advertising-financed free-to-air channel has been hit hard by the reduction in advertising revenue caused by the economic crisis. With the termination of its satellite distribution, DGF has rid itself of a significant expense, but also a large portion of its audience. It remains to be seen how long the channel can hold out as a web-TV service.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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KabelKiosk, the channel and service platform operated by Eutelsat for cable operators, will transfer its entire offer to the orbital position 9° East, terminating its previous distribution via 8° West.
Through the new satellite Eurobird 9A, considerably more capacity will soon be available at 9° East. With the move, Eutelsat is laying the cornerstone for the further expansion of KabelKiosk this year, including new free-to-air and pay-TV channels, HDTV services and a digital video library.
On March 1 Eutelsat will offer all KabelKiosk channels which until now have been distributed on 8° West in parallel on Eurobird 9A. The dual distribution will end on May 31 when the signal on 8° West is switched off.
In order to inform cable operators and installers of cable networks about the technical parameters of the new satellite position and the expansion plans, KabelKiosk is conducting a nationwide seminar tour in March.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Barry Maloney of Balderton Capital, a major investor in Irish pay-TV sports operator Setanta, has heavily criticised the English Premier League for permitting what he described as its “predatory pricing” policy. The news emerged as it became clear that BSkyB would and could not permit sub-licensing of its soccer TV rights to Setanta.
Setanta has suffered a 50% cut in the number of premiership soccer matches it can cover from the 2010 season. Maloney said: "A football match that ends 5-1 does not suggest two evenly matched, equally competitive teams. The Premier League auction process has failed to introduce the fair competition that the European Commission intended. Sky's market dominance has allowed it to bid a predatory price for football rights – a price based not on economics, but on its desire to damage its competition. We will lobby every single group and regulator with an interest. This affects all sports – it's not just football," said Maloney.
Setanta’s biggest shareholders include Balderton Capital, Doughty Hanson and Goldman Sachs, and its advisers at Close Bros and Goldman Sachs are in crucial talks to establish a new direction for the business now the sports landscape has changed so dramatically. The group now has to prove to its investors that its business model is sustainable – a far from easy challenge.
© Rapid TV News 2009
German pay-TV operator Premiere could lose documentary channels Discovery Channel and Animal Planet from the beginning of April.
A Premiere spokesman confirmed to news magazine Focus that he “couldnʼt guarantee” both channels will remain on the platform. TV-guide magazines have already been advised to inform their readers of the possible retreat in their March editions.
According to information received by Focus, the uncertainty is due to contractual negotiations which determine how much Premiere pays for the services per subscription and year. The position of the contract partners is thought to be hardly compatible.
The threatened decrease in channels could be connected with the sobering financial statement which Premiere CEO Mark Williams is expected to present today (Monday Feb 16) in Munich. According to the report, in the fourth quarter of 2008 Premiere again suffered stagnating turnover and subscription figures. Additionally, average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) did not increase.
Analyst Sonia Rabussier from investment bank Sal. Oppenheim advises shareholders to sell their Premiere shares, as she believes the broadcaster will not break even until 2012.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Successful launch of Express-AM-44 and Express-MD-1 satellites
The AM-44 telecommunication satellite has been successfully launched by a Proton-M rocket from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Express-AM-44 satellite, dedicated to the Russian Satellite Communication Company (RSCC), was launched with its Express-MD-1 co-passenger on board a Khrunichev satellite.
The Express-AM-44 satellite is designed to provide digital TV and radio broadcasting, telephony, data transmission channels, videoconferencing services and Internet access. The satellite will be also used to deploy communication networks, via VSAT technology.
The AM-44 carries 16 actives transponders in Ku-band, 10 in C-band, and 1 in L-band. It is equipped with 4 antennas requiring high technology know how: three steerable antennas for C and Ku-band as well as a L-band network antenna. It weight about 2.6 tons at launch, have a 6 kW electrical power end of life and will be positioned at 11° West.
The Express-MD-1 satellite is designed to provide TV, voice and data transmission and radio broadcasting services over an area spanning Russia and most of the CIS countries. It will be positioned at 53° East.
The Polish DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat is making its offer available free of charge for a period of up to six months.
Subscribers who sign a 29-month contract to receive its Mini Max package will be able to receive it free of charge for six months, while those who commit to 24 months will have the first three months free of charge.
The latter will also be available to those opting for a 29-month contract for the Family, HBO, Relax Mix, Relax Mix+HBO, Super Film and HD packages, while signing a 13-month contract for the Family and more comprehensive packages will guarantee one month free of charge.
Digital decoders are being made available to buy for PLN99 (€21.4) or PLN79 for the duration of the contract, while HD decoders cost PLN199 (PLN99) and those with a hard disk PLN499 (PLN199).
The news comes as alongside reports that Cyfrowy Polsat gained more subscribers in January than 12 months earlier. However, no exact figure has been made available.
Fault hits 90,000 Sky+ HD boxes
Up to 90,000 Sky+ HD boxes are to be replaced after a manufacturing fault was identified in a batch of units manufactured by Pace, it has been confirmed.
The problem first came to light on Digital Spy on Wednesday, when some Sky customers reported being called by the pay TV operator and advised of a fault that could impact the long term performance of their Sky+ HD box.
When contacted by Digital Spy for comment, Sky's high definition team posted on the forum: "Pace has told us about a manufacturing fault that can affect around 90,000 of the first boxes supplied by Pace. The fault was resolved in Paceʼs subsequent supplies of boxes.
"To be 100% clear, itʼs nothing to with a faulty component; the problem relates to the way that some of the boxes were assembled. It doesnʼt raise a safety risk or prevent them from being used as normal until we exchange them, but in the longer term it could lead to the failure of the box.
"Weʼre proud of our Sky+HD product and weʼre not happy about customers having boxes that donʼt meet our quality standards. So we want to swap all of the boxes in this batch.
"We started calling the affected customers earlier this week to fix an appointment for one of our engineers to come and install a free replacement box. Because of the number of boxes, it will take us about three months to contact everyone, so there is no need to be concerned if we havenʼt called you already. The box can continue to be used as normal until we come to replace it.
"To make up for any inconvenience, we will give all affected customers three monthsʼ free subscription to our HD pack (worth £29.25) when we replace their box."
Further details about the precise nature of the fault have not been released.
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German commercial broadcaster RTL wants to transmit its channels via DTT in Stuttgart from mid-2009. As well as free-to-air channels RTL, RTL II, VOX and Super RTL, the package will include pay-TV services Passion and RTL Crime, marking the first time pay-TV channels will be available via DTT in Germany.
Teletext is to cut up to 16 jobs after turning over some editorial and administrative functions to the Press Association.
The company said that the cuts will be made following a "review of editorial costs and efficiencies" as it prepares "for a digital-only future".
PA will produce Teletext's entertainment pages and handle viewer enquiries that are currently handled by duty editors.
"In the current economic climate we have to ensure that we are delivering editorial services in as efficient a way as possible and these changes will expand our existing relationship with the Press Association, while retaining other external specialists to keep the distinctive character of our various entertainment magazines," said Teletext editor-in-chief John Sage.
Last month, Ofcom questioned the need for a public service teletext licence beyond 2014, and permitted Teletext to dramatically cut the number of national and regional news pages it publishes
Parent company Viacom sees 69% loss
Can Paramount's upcoming film slate push Viacom's profits up?
Viacom, the owners of MTV, Paramount Pictures and the Rock Band franchise, has announced a massive 69 per cent loss in profits.
The loss is being put down to redundancy payouts – 880 jobs were cut in December – and a write-down of assets.
The loss equates to a $387 million year-on-year, with profits down to $173 million (£120 million) from $560 million (£350 million) the same time in 2008.
Poor DVD sales
Viacom is putting the profit slump down to a decline in advertising and a slowing of DVD sales, with Viacom President Philippe Dauman saying the company's fourth-quarter results "reflect the realities of a challenging economy."
In 2008, the company had successful DVD releases of Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull, but still saw a 6 per cent dip in the home entertainment market.
There was some good news regarding the cinema revenue. Paramount saw 28 per cent jump in revenues to $350 million (£240 million). The company is hoping that its 2009 film slate will also perk things up – with the likes of Star Trek, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and "GI Joe all coming out this year.
TVN24 has plans to use a virtual studio in mid-March 2009 which would appear in some programmes, such as the "Political Scanner". This will allow to diversify the set. Next step for TVN24, also planned for March, is the introduction of 16/9 picture format.
TVN24 singnal in 16/9 format is already available on Hot Bird 7A (13E) satellite, it is encoded in Conax CAS7.
Technical parameters:
Hot Bird 7A (13°E)
tp. 10 (11,393 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC: 3/4, DVB-S)
ID: Test
PID V: 522
PID A: 750
PID PCR: 146
SID: 4321
Two channels should appear soon in Poland - Funspot and Mood Channel. Program company will distribute these channels. Program has recently signed a contract with Accedo Broadband, a provider of interactive content to approximately 4 million IPTV customers in 25 countries worldwide.
Funspot is a channel with interactive games, available in several categories: puzzle, quiz, arcade, logical games, strategy, cards - a total of more than 100 titles. Most of these games are offered in HD quality. Mood Channel is a library of live pictures in Full HD.
FilmBox movie channels package may soon enrich an offer of Cyfrowy Polsat, the largest Polish digital platform. Cyfrowy Polsat is the only digital satellite platform which doesn't offer a package of 4 FilmBox channels: FilmBox, FilmBox Extra, FilmBox Family and Filmbox HD.
This situation will change very soon. SPI broadcaster negotiates this issue with Cyfrowy Polsat. Broadcaster wants a rapid increase of its coverage because later this year SPI will launch three new movie channels, including Kino Polska HD.
From the beginning of 2009 thematic channels produced by CANAL+ Cyfrowy have a wider viewer range. Distribution on the Cyfra+ platform and cable networks has been widen. All channels produced by CANAL+ Cyfrowy are available only on the Cyfra+ platform and selected cable networks.
In 2008 CANAL+ Cyfrowy channels has achieved a 40% increase in subscriber base and from 1st of January 2009 all Cyfra+ subcribers have acces to stations produced by CANAL+. Now CANAL+ Cyfrowy channels reach to 3 and more million households (Cyfra+ and cable networks):
ale kino! – reaches to 2,9 mln households
Planete – 3,48 mln households
ZigZap / Hyper – 2,88 mln households
MiniMini – 3,91 mln households
Kuchnia.tv – 2,68 mln households
Domo – 1,45 mln households
Up to 30th of June 2009 Discovery HD will be available in Cyfrowy Polsat free of charge to all users of platform's HD decoders. From 1st of July to watch Discovery HD subscribers will have to pay 6 PLN per month. Discovery HD is available on channels 80 and 115 in Cyfrowy Polsat.
First Discovery HD channel was launched in the U.S. in 2002. Since then, it has appeared on 23 international markets. Today, Discovery HD reaches more than 21 million subscribers worldwide, including almost all U.S. households with HDTV receivers. According to a survey, Discovery HD is the most frequently watched high definition channel from all of the existing HD stations in United States.
Eurosport and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) have signed a two-year deal. Starting on the 9th of February at 9 PM, wrestling fans will be able to watch two WWE programmes on Eurosport - 'This Week in WWE' and 'WWE Vintage Collection'. Shows will be available in Eurosport's all European territories excluding the UK, that is 200 million viewers and 58 countries across the continent.
‘This Week in WWE’ is a weekly recap show produced exclusively for Eurosport. Magazine offers most important matches and segments from three weekly WWE shows - RAW, SmackDown and ECW. For nearly two years now Polish fans can also watch a 45-minute versions of RAW and SmackDown on Extreme Sports Channel.
‘WWE Vintage Collection’ is a show hoster by 'Mean' Gene Okerlund with classic WWE matches from 70s, 80s and early 90s. Viewers will such a wrestling legends as: Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart, Legion of Doom and Demoilition.
WWE programming on Eurosport and Extreme Sports Channel is prepared by people from WrestleFans.pl portal. Andrzej Supron, Pawel Borkowski and Rafal Tomasiak are WWE commentators on Eurosport.
TVN CNBC Biznes for free on the Internet
From now on TVN CNBC Biznes programmes are available on channel's website. Station decided to put all their productions there. In addition, a satellite transmission of this channel is encoded in the Conax, Seca Mediaguard 3 as well as Viaccess 3.0 systems while access to the content on the Internet is free of charge.
This is the first channel from TVN group that has taken such a step. The only "problem" is a 30-second advertisement block before each clip of TVN CNBC Biznes material.
TVN CNBC Biznes website - www.tvncnbc.pl (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.tvncnbc.pl)
Kino Polska with new graphics in March
At the beginning of March 2009 image of Kino Polska channel will be refreshed. Changes will include the introduction of a new logo and graphics. Subscribers will also have access to a refreshed website of Kino Polska. The changes are made to ensure a modern and dynamic look.
Kino Polska is the first and the only TV channel that shows only Polish movies. It is also the first private television station with Polish capital only as well as the first and only thematic channel with a regular block of the Polish independent "off cinema". Kino Polska started a regular transmission on 20th of December 2003.
Channel's website - www.kinopolska.pl (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.kinopolska.pl)
Five more arrested over CCTV blaze
Beijing police have arrested five more people allegedly linked to a spectacular fire that destroyed a building belonging to the China Central Television (CCTV), official media told AFP on Thursday. The five were accused of helping to transport fireworks to the construction site of CCTV’s new Beijing headquarters and helping those who lit them flee police, Xinhua news agency said.
The illegal fireworks display on 9 February started a blaze that lit up Beijing’s skyline and consumed a nearly-completed building that was to house the Mandarin Oriental hotel. A Beijing firefighter was killed fighting the blaze.
Police earlier arrested 12 others suspected of causing the blaze, including Xu Wei, 50, who was in charge of construction at CCTV’s new site. The gutted building sits next to the newly-built CCTV tower, a futurist structure that served as a symbol of China’s modernisation during the August Beijing Olympics. The tower, scheduled to open in October, was not damaged in the blaze.
Rose Major 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
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Spanish TV broadcasters have received a boost with news the government is planning to change a law which limits companies to having stakes of less than 5% in two different broadcasters.
Vice-president Teresa Fernández de la Vega justified this measure by saying the outcome of the decision should be "to reinforce financially the TV companies which are affected by the advertising downturn and at the same time to allow their capitalization and synergies".
The new law establishes that the same person or entity can have more than 5% in more than one TV company on condition their average share of the broadcasters in which it is present is not higher than 27% of the total share. The law also allows the merging of the broadcasters, provided that they do not own more than 27% of share and that the existence of three private national broadcasters with a different content philosophy is maintained.
However, the new law prevents the same company or person from having rights over a slice of the public radioelectric spectrum, either on their own or by means of significant shares, superior to the technical capacity of the national coverage multiplexes and a regional multiplex.
As for the public broadcasters the new law establishes some limits. In the case of the national public broadcaster RTVE the government won't be able to book or give to the public broadcasters more than 25% of the radioelectric spectrum space. In the case of the autonomous and local TV channels this limit will go up to 50%.
As for the participation of persons from non-EU countries, these will abide by the reciprocity principle (ie they can invest here if we can invest there) as long as it is not applied under a retroactive principle.
Finally the new law establishes the obligation for the national DTT broadcasters to put together their contents for at least one satellite distributor so those citizens who cannot access terrestrial coverage can do so via satellite.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Rose Major 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
A range of Disney movies and TV series will be available for mobile users in Korea to download from March following a deal with SK Telecom.
Disney-ABC International Television (Asia Pacific) has agreed to stream its content, including full-length features, to SK Mobile subscribers. It is the first such deal Disney has agreed outside the US and Canada.
Rob Gilby, Disney-ABC’s managing director in the region, said: “Korea’s highly advanced digital society and mobile phone culture makes it a priority market for us to launch this first-time service internationally, and SK Telecom’s pioneering development across multiple digital platforms makes it a natural partner.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
Chris Forrester 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
As we reported recently, Germany seems to want to try again with DVB-H, buoyed by the apparent success of DVB-H services to mobile phones in neighbouring Austria (90,000 users).
German mobile operator Mobile 3.0 last year handed back its licence to operate a DVB-H system. One industry observer says it is quite possible that Mobile 3.0’s rivals might combine to create a business model.
“Austria is definitely a pioneer in mobile TV in Europe,” according to 3 Austria’s CEO Berthold Thoma. “If only countries such as France, Germany and Great Britain would adopt DVB-H technology, there would be more devices that support DVB-H.”
A special committee has been formed to examine investor interest – perhaps itself a struggle these days. But with the Solaris Mobile satellite about to be launched in just 4 weeks, and with its cargo of potential DVB-SH frequencies, perhaps a service will have better luck this time around.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Rose Major 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
India’s DTH operators paid Rs346 million (US$7 million) in licence fees for 2008, up from just Rs20 million in 2004.
The DTH licence fee is currently 10% of each operator’s gross annual revenues, although the government is considering lowering the fee to 6%, it was revealed last week.
Dish TV, as the leading operator paid the most, at Rs147 million. Tata Sky paid Rs131 million, Sun Direct Rs66 million and Big TV just under Rs2 million.
Last week, the information and broadcasting secretary, Sushma Singh, told a local conference that a reduction in the fee from 10% to 6% was on the cards. The DTH operators have been lobbying for a reduction with costs spiralling as each seeks to have a competitive advantage over rivals.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Chris Forrester 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
According to local reports Russia’s anti-monopoly office has forbidden a plan which would have seen Disney link with Media-One Holdings to create a national, free-to-air, channel across the nation
Russian officials say the plan has been blocked because of “false” and inaccurate data from the companies backing the venture. "The documents, presented to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service of Russia, included false information," the agency said. "The anti-monopoly body takes the decision to refuse applications if the relevant information they contain turns out to be false," the agency added in its statement.
In December Disney said the new network would have launched later this year and carried Disney and locally-produced content. Additionally Disney would have benefited from the licensing and merchandising of its products as well as a rise in brand awareness.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Rose Major 22-02-2009 (livecall:22-02-2009)
Four major one-off costs in its fiscal half-year, plus investment in a high definition service, have hit the bottom line of News Corp-backed Sky TV New Zealand. But the company claims it is otherwise buoyant.
Net profit after tax for the six months to Dec 31 2008 was NZ$42.6 million a decreased of 16.7% on the previous year. As well as the one-off operating costs, Sky NZ also conceded advertising revenues at its free-to-air channel Prime were down considerably, dropping 11.9% to NZ$12.6 million.
Operating costs increased by 14.6% to NZ$261.9 million. Contributing factors were the marketing costs associated with the launch of the high definition platform, MySkyHDi in July 2008; coverage of the Rugby League World Cup in November 2008; an expensive new talent show, the NZ$4 million New Zealand’s Got Talent on Sky’s free-to-air channel Prime which aired during the Olympics to try to shore up Prime’s viewership against TVNZ; and the All Black rugby team’s tour of the Northern Hemisphere.
But the extra costs seem to have helped, with the higher operating costs also partially attributable to increased subscriber numbers and promotional discounts given for new subscriber installs. Sky added 10,493 new subs in the half-year to reach 759,069, compared with a net gain of 9,708 for the comparable period. The period after the reporting date has been even more positive, the company said, with 11,703 additional subs as of Feb 12, compared with 6,798 over the same period last year.
The investment in the HD platform also seems to be paying off, with 51,482 new MySkyHDi subs at the end of 2008, with a “significant number” migrating from the standard-def platform.
Total revenue increased by NZ$17.6 million to NZ$346.3 million.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Four major one-off costs in its fiscal half-year, plus investment in a high definition service, have hit the bottom line of News Corp-backed Sky TV New Zealand. But the company claims it is otherwise buoyant.
Net profit after tax for the six months to Dec 31 2008 was NZ$42.6 million a decreased of 16.7% on the previous year. As well as the one-off operating costs, Sky NZ also conceded advertising revenues at its free-to-air channel Prime were down considerably, dropping 11.9% to NZ$12.6 million.
Operating costs increased by 14.6% to NZ$261.9 million. Contributing factors were the marketing costs associated with the launch of the high definition platform, MySkyHDi in July 2008; coverage of the Rugby League World Cup in November 2008; an expensive new talent show, the NZ$4 million New Zealand’s Got Talent on Sky’s free-to-air channel Prime which aired during the Olympics to try to shore up Prime’s viewership against TVNZ; and the All Black rugby team’s tour of the Northern Hemisphere.
But the extra costs seem to have helped, with the higher operating costs also partially attributable to increased subscriber numbers and promotional discounts given for new subscriber installs. Sky added 10,493 new subs in the half-year to reach 759,069, compared with a net gain of 9,708 for the comparable period. The period after the reporting date has been even more positive, the company said, with 11,703 additional subs as of Feb 12, compared with 6,798 over the same period last year.
The investment in the HD platform also seems to be paying off, with 51,482 new MySkyHDi subs at the end of 2008, with a “significant number” migrating from the standard-def platform.
Total revenue increased by NZ$17.6 million to NZ$346.3 million.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Spanish mobile TV platform ‘Digital+ móvil’ has added 5 channels from Chellomedia. Odisea, Canal Cocina, Decasa, Historia, and Bio are the new services.
Odisea broadcasts factual programming, Cocina handles cookery, Decasa looks after the home and well-being, while Historia and Bio are j-v channels with A&E Television Networks.
Eduardo Zulueta, MD at Chello Multicanal, said: “This deal is great news for Digital+ mobile viewers, who will now be able to access an even broader genre of TV channels via their mobile devices. The strategic utilization of new technologies to meet consumer needs is of importance to our growth. We are delighted by the confidence shown in our portfolio by Digital+móvil.”
Chello’s channels are also available on Spanish mobile phones services from Vodafone and Movistar.
Chello Multicanal operates 8 channels in Spain and Portugal, and is part of the European content division of Liberty Global.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Middle East pay-TV operator Showtime Arabia has added BBC Prime, the BBC’s main entertainment-based service, effective March 1. BBC Prime is also available on the Orbit platform.
Showtime Arabia will include the channel as part of its basic tier. The channel from BBC Worldwide provides audiences with a diverse mix of the very best programming from both the BBC and independent producers in the UK.
BBC Prime, a 24 hour channel, will be available free of charge to all Showtime Family, Movies, Premier and Platinum subscribers, presenting a mix of entertainment shows from award-winning comedies and dramas to ground-breaking documentaries and lifestyle series offering ideas on cooking, fashion, gardening and interior design.
The channel says it opens a window to a wider world with its wealth of BBC natural history and documentary programming and is the home of the UK's most talked-about dramas such as Eastenders, Spooks and Waking the Dead, plus perennial comedy favourites and offbeat smash hits, including Absolutely Fabulous and Little Britain.
Marc Antoine d'Halluin President and CEO of Showtime Arabia said, “We are very happy to extend our relationship with BBC Worldwide by offering BBC Prime to our subscribers. The new channel will complement the wide range of British must-see programming available on Showtime including Sky News, BBC Lifestyle, and the full and exclusive coverage of the English Premier League.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
MTV Networks is launching a version of its children’s channel Nick (Nickelodeon in international markets) for viewers in German-speaking Switzerland.
Nick Schweiz (Nick Switzerland) will be available daily from April 1 between 05:00 and 20:15 CET on the broadcast slot of music channel VIVA Schweiz. With internationally successful series such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar and Dora The Explorer along with Swiss in-house productions like NICKerbocker, the channel targets children aged between 3 and 14 years.
With the move, MTV Networks aims to establish the first children’s channel in Switzerland. Until now only the German version of Nick was available, screened each morning on MTV Deutschland’s broadcast slot on Swiss cable networks. By moving NICK from MTV to VIVA, MTV will again be available 24 hours per day in Switzerland. At the same time, MTV will be localised by adding programmes produced for the domestic Swiss audience. Until now, MTV and Nick only offered advertising windows in Switzerland, but no tailor-made content for Swiss viewers.
MTV Schweiz and Nick Schweiz/VIVA Schweiz are available in analogue and digital on the networks of the largest Swiss cable company Cablecom as well as on smaller cable networks. Advertising slots are marketed by IP Multimedia Schweiz.
© Rapid TV News 2009
London’s Financial Times uses an old slogan from the (then) News Corp-owned conditional access supplier NDS: “Staying in is the new going out,” as the headline to a generally upbeat story about BSkyB. But there is some caution in the piece.
The FT says of Sky: “In spite of charging almost £50 a month for a full package of channels, the satellite broadcaster is still signing up new customers at a healthy rate.” And many of them are taking its high-definition service, which costs even more, says the FT. “Clearly, the public is willing to pay for distraction from the misery of the slump.”
Sky, says the FT, “must be confident that this trend will continue”, although cautions that BSkyB’s share price when compared to the rest of the market and media stocks in particular is now near a 5-year high. “That puts the uptrend since October - which saw the broadcaster surge two thirds from its low - in jeopardy. In fact, on a longer-term view, the shares' multi-year bear market remains intact. This suggests that we may be in for further aggressive downside before too long,” says the FT.
But there’s a contrary view, which implies that with the possible exception of its purchase of 17.9% of commercial network ITV (which stopped arch-rival Virgin Media from merging with ITV), BSkyB rarely puts a foot wrong. While some analysts argue that Sky has over-paid for its recent Premiership soccer rights, and that the credit crunch would damage its forward sales, and that there’s no longer any growth potential from British viewers….. and so forth, all the pointers suggest the opposite is true.
In other words, its customer numbers improve every quarter, it has diversified into broadband and telephony, and its award-winning Sky+ box is now in some 50% of its subscriber homes. Even Sky’s share of the struggling UK ad-market is increasing. “January and February saw advertising revenues contract and March will be difficult, right up to late Easter, but beyond that, things will improve. The first quarter will probably be the worst of the year. But in all honesty, TV ads are cheap. There aren't very many things you can buy for 1985 prices - aside from banking shares. And so we expect to outperform the market in terms of advertising revenue in 2009,” says finance director Andrew Griffith in Friday’s Investors Chronicle.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Digital television in Austria is making headway via satellite and terrestrially, but continues to show low acceptance amongst cable households, according to a digitalisation report presented to the Parliament.
The report predicts that in two years’ time virtually no more households will receive analogue television terrestrially or via satellite. By mid-2008 47% of the 3.4 million TV homes were already receiving digital television – 17% more than at the end of 2006. The remaining 53% still relied on analogue reception.
The main increase was in the number of digital-satellite households. This was followed closely by digital-terrestrial television (DTT). By June 30 2008, at total of 535,000 DTT receivers had been sold. DTT coverage, which stood at 90% of households in mid 2008, should rise to 95% by the time the last analogue transmitters are switched off in early 2011.
Cable remains the problem child with 39% of TV households being analogue cable households while only 3% have opted for digital cable television. Media authorities KommAustria and RTR say this is due to the attractive offer available in analogue and the fact that digital value-added services such as video-on-demand and pay-per-view seem to provide insufficient incentives for viewers to make the switch – either because they don’t know enough about them or because of their additional costs. The media watchdogs see high-definition television as a possible driving force for the digitalisation of cable networks.
Cable operators face increasing competition from IPTV packages distributed by telecommunications companies on their ADSL broadband networks. AonTV, operated by Telekom Austria, was already reaching 50,000 households by mid 2008.
Meanwhile, mobile television signals via DVB-H cover more than 50% of the Austrian population – a leading figure Europe-wide – but the report did not contain data pertaining to what extent the offer was actually used.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Nagravision, as expected, has confirmed it will provide conditional access to Italy’s new Tivu-sat system. It is somewhat strange that a self-proclaimed ‘free-to-view’ bouquet of Italian public broadcast networks needs to encrypt its programming, and will certainly disappoint Italian expats living outside the country, who – until now – had enjoyed unfettered access to their programming from home for years past.
Tivu-sat goes live in June, and will contain Italy’s publicly-supported networks from national broadcaster RAI as well as channels from Mediaset, the commercial operator ultimately owned by the Berlusconi family.
A statement from Nagra said: “Channels available on the new Tivu Sat set-top box are the same as the ones viewed free today on DTT set-top boxes. Channels include RAI 1, RAI 2, RAI 3, RAI 4, CANALE 5, ITALIA 1, RETE 4, LA7, BOING, IRIS, along with many others., The Tivu Sat channels will be scrambled with Nagravision and decoded with smartcards to enforce the rights of sports and movies suppliers, thus ensuring that content shall not be viewed outside of the Italian territory.”
It is estimated that up to two million families may require the Tivù Sat set-top boxes as a consequence of the upcoming analog switch off. The retail price of the smartcard, though not currently defined, is expected to remain low, while covering the cost of the cards. No subscription fees will be charged to the consumer and there is no expiration date on the smartcard.
"The analog switch off is coming, and yet, millions of households will require support and services to keep their analog sets receiving signals," said Carlo Stramaglia, Head of Nagravision Italy. "It's an honour to be selected for this ambitious project and to play a key role in keeping services available to these families."
Tivu is a joint venture between Mediaset (48%), RAI (48%) and Telecom Italia Media (4%). The main focus of this JV is to be the entity that will drive the transition from the terrestrial analog broadcast system to the digital one. Tivu will act as the "umbrella" brand for all the analogue national and regional broadcasters that are currently migrating to the new digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) system. Tivu will also provide the satellite service called "Tivu Sat" that will allow users, living in the Italian territory that will not be covered by the DTT signal, to enjoy the DTT TV channels using a satellite set-top box.
© Rapid TV News 2009
German pay-TV operator Premiere will buy back satellite platform Premiere Star. An agreement has been made with all fellow shareholders, who hold a total of 40.2%, for the gradual buyback of their shares.
Premiere wants to make the payments over the next four years from July 2009 until July 2013 with the largest amounts being paid in 2012 and 2013. Financial details were not revealed.
“The Premiere Star channels are an important building block in our programming strategy as well as a valuable part of our content offer and are therefore part of Premiere’s core business,” CEO Mark Williams said in Munich.
Premiere Star was launched as a 100% subsidiary of Premiere in September 2007. Since then nine further shareholders have come on board: HypoVereinsbank (10 per cent%), Turner Broadcasting System (8.5%), Avenue Capital Group (6.5%), EM.Sport Media (5%), Medienengagement East (3.6%), tmc Content Group (3%), Atlas Ventures (1.1%) and Wellington Partners (1.1%). The platform’s managing director Wolfram Winter holds 1.4%.
Premiere Star currently distributes 18 thematic channels for a monthly fee of €19.99 via Astra (19.2° East) for DTH households in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. In contrast to Premiere, which has been focussing on exclusive channels and content, Premiere Star bundles channels which are also available in competing pay-TV packages, for example Unitymedia’s arenaSAT or Kabel Deutschland’s Kabel Digital Home.
According to industry sources, the new Premiere management wants to concentrate on a broad offer rather than a line-up of exclusive channels which, with regards to carriage feeds, is more costly for the broadcaster. It is speculated that the buyback of Premiere Star, as part of the revised strategy, could pave the way for the platform’s channels to be integrated into Premiere’s main package.
Premiere spokesman Torsten Fricke declined to comment: “Today’s announcement only means that Premiere Star’s shareholding structure will change – not more and not less.” He added that this was not a statement regarding strategic development or other changes.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Peter Chernin is leaving News Corp and the Fox Studio. Chernin had been in post for 12 years, and had worked for Murdoch for some 20 years. His contract expires on June 30. Here’s Rupert’s response memo to News Corp staff in which he outlines his future, and stresses that News Corp now has more than $5bn in cash in the bank. Murdoch says nothing as to Mr Chernin’s successor.
“Dear Colleagues:
“Today, we are announcing that Peter Chernin, our President and COO, will not be renewing his employment contract. Peter will be taking up the opportunity to start a new motion picture and television production venture with Fox. Many of us who have worked with Peter over his 20 years with the company can attest to his leadership, his diligence, and his wisdom. I can also testify to Peter’s friendship, dedication, and honesty. He has been a close colleague and an ally to me for many years.
“While Peter has distinguished himself at News Corp, he has also, increasingly and tirelessly, circled the globe in support of Malaria No More, which has achieved nothing short of remarkable results. Let us all wish him the best of luck, and the greatest success, as he embarks on this new chapter of his career, both as a professional and as a role model for an executive who gives back.
“As you all know the downturn we are operating in is more severe and global than anything we have seen before. No company is immune to its effects. I want to take this opportunity, today, to write to you about how we will manage such an important leadership transition, and why I am convinced that today our company is not only well-positioned financially and competitively, but is on the cusp of a new phase of growth. Remember, we began priming ourselves for a weakening economy over a year ago. We have managed expenses and capital expenditure prudently, and strengthened our balance sheet. Following the partial sale of NDS, we will have over five billion dollars in cash, and this year we should exceed $3.5 billion in adjusted operating income.
“In the past, we have met downturns with vigor, often departing from the herd. We have emerged much stronger.
“Achieving our ambitions will require change and renewal. So throughout 2009, I will continue to work closely with all of our companies to make sure that we are organized and resourced in the best20way to take advantage of this extraordinary point in time. We will press our advantages and invest in our great franchises. And, of course, we will keep our eyes on big prizes, some of which may arise only once in a generation.
“Across News Corp. we have a broad and deep reservoir of extremely able executives. Over the years we have accomplished great things. People understand, and have acknowledged, our entrepreneurial spirit as well as our doggedness; our willingness to take risks, our contrarian investment style; and our commitment to long-term development and shareholder value.
“Many of you have told me how hungry you are to work more closely across our companies. Many of us have been frustrated by the things that can get in the way of that. From systems that don’t talk to each other to incentives that struggle to capture the opportunity and aspiration of our total group. These obstacles are obvious to us all. There will be a streamlined management structure between our Los Angeles-based business units and the rest of the company. Peter and I will be communicating more on this over the next few months. For the time being, of course, the talented executive team at the Fox Group will continue to report to Peter.
“Now is also an ideal opportunity to streamline and enhance many of the corporate and administrative functions of the business. There will be cost savings as a result, but the more important aim is to be leaner so that we can better leverage our collective talent and expertise. For instance, and beginning immediately, H.R. functions throughout all our units will report to Beryl Cook in New York as well as their division heads. Beryl reports directly to me.
“We have worked hard to develop and advance the best among us. The renewal of great companies begins within themselves. Pursuing an edge through superior talent is a priority. This will be a key focus for us in 2009.
“In the coming months, I will be reaching out to you with new questions, and with new plans.
“We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered. Many people will be under extreme pressure and many companies mortally wounded. Our competitors will be sorely tempted to take the easy beat, to reduce quality in the search for immediate dividends.
“Let me be very clear about our company: where others might step back from their commitment to their viewers, their users, readers and customers -– we will renew ours.
“The direction of the business now and over the next few years will define the character of our company for decades.
“We have always thrived on change and challenge. This was true when we began building a newspaper business in Australia. Just as it was when we created BSkyB and developed a fourth U.S. network, the Fox Network, when conventional wisdom dictated that there was room for only three players. It was true when we launched Star, now the leading network in India, and the Fox News Network and Sky Italia.
“The best things we have done, and there are many examples, have defied conventional wisdom, often in the teeth of fierce opposition and near universal disbelief in our capabilities.
“Over the past 12 months I have spent time with you in India and China, in Italy and the UK and many other countries. We have brought Dow Jones into the fold, extended our influence in Europe, and been at the center of reporting the arrival of a new American president and the impact of the global financial crisis. We’ve told extraordinary stories, in theaters around the world and on page and screen from Mumbai to Malibu.
“Our own international reach is a profound strength. We have intelligent, creative and highly motivated colleagues around the world who are ambitious for themselves, for their countries, for our customers and for our company. The result is that where others simply seek distribution, we are building durable businesses at scale. We are also creating large franchises in marketplaces that will grow at a faster pace in the coming years and, increasingly, our businesses are based on direct customer relationships.
“We must always be acutely aware of our responsibility to shareholders, and to create real value for them. This is entirely consistent with, and in many cases inseparable from, the enormous social value we have created over the decades. We provide information and entertainment to billions, enabling them to improve their lives and those of their families. There is genuine value in the values of our company – these are values that are even more important in a world confronting so much today.
“We believe in communities. The very idea of community is broad, and encompasses interests that cross national, ethnic and demographic borders. We are all members of many different communities, whether it be of people who are passionate about Hollywood films, or care about living in a healthy environment, or use a local jobs website, or trade commodities in Chicago and London, relish soccer whether in China or Nigeria. These communities are our communities, as they read, evaluate and create everyday.
“That is why, most of all, I believe in the community that is our company.
Rupert Murdoch”
© Rapid TV News 2009
EUTELSAT DOUBLES ITS BROADCASTING RESOURCES AT 9 DEGREES EAST WITH
DEPLOYMENT OF THE EUROBIRD™ 9A SATELLITE
Paris, 24 February 2009
Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) today announces the entry into commercial service of its EUROBIRD™ 9A satellite at 9 degrees East. Redeployment of the satellite was made possible with last week’s entry into service at 13 degrees East of HOT BIRD™ 9, which released EUROBIRD™ 9A (formerly HOT BIRD™ 7A) for its new commercial mission to support the rapid pace of growth at Eutelsat’s 9 degrees East broadcast neighbourhood. It will replace EUROBIRD™ 9 at this position, doubling operational resources from 20 to 38 transponders.
The smooth transfer of 175 television channels and 25 radio stations onto EUROBIRD™ 9A was completed at 01.00 GMT this morning by Eutelsat’s control centre, working closely with broadcast clients and providers of uplink services.
Opened in May 2007, Eutelsat’s 9 degrees East neighbourhood has, over a period of one year, seen a two-fold increase in the number of programmes it broadcasts with the launch of new TV-programme bouquets such as Hello HD from Hungary, Platforma DV from Russia, and Roots Global, which is aimed at Indian communities across Europe. With its close proximity to Eutelsat’s premium HOT BIRD™ neighbourhood, it is possible to watch channels from both neighbourhoods with a single DTH dish equipped for dual-feed reception.
The 9 degrees East neighbourhood is also developing into a key location for delivering channels to cable operators via the KabelKiosk service operated by Eutelsat’s German subsidiary.
Following an action initiated by competitors Free and SFR, Paris’ Court of Commerce has ordered France Télécom, Orange’s mother company, to “stop tying the subscription to Orange Sport to the sale of a triple-play offer.” In clear terms, Orange must make its premium channel available to all French TV platforms, unexclusively.
Saying such a practice was leading consumers away from competitors, the Court pronounced a three-month €50,000 constraint for each day of delay if the decision is not implemented during the coming month. Orange is expected to appeal the decision.
Orange Foot, now called Orange Sport, was launched last August after Orange won the rights for three lots of the French football League One for which it paid €203 million. Only Orange triple-play subs can watch the matches.
France’s leading telco group is currently experiencing bad times. Besides the loss of iPhone exclusivity at the beginning of this month, the group is also under investigation from the Conseil de la concurrence about its exclusive content offers.
Recently, Canal+ CEO Bertrand Meheut denounced the fact that Orange was tying sales of sport and cinema channels to its broadband service. Finally all Orange premium channels are under scrutiny as they worry both IPTV rivals and Pay-TV group Canal+.
© Rapid TV News 2009
French network M6 has decided to postpone the launch of its new 8pm news bulletin to September 7. The French private channel, whose investment in this programme would amount €5 million, said this decision is led by the current economic situation.
According to reports, ad revenues linked to this news edition would not have meet the network’s forecasts. M6 prefers remaining cautious in the light of the January and February results. Over the first two months of 2009, ad revenues decreased 9%.
Last week, TF1 group also announced record ad revenue losses. France’s leading private network reported total revenue of €2,595 million, down 5.3 % in 2008. This includes a 4.1 % fall in advertising revenues, with a 6.1% peak reduction in Q4. That was the worst advertising result since 2001.
TF1 CEO Nonce Paolini has already announced a €60M cost reduction plan, that includes drastic cuts in programming costs.
© Rapid TV News 2009
German antenna and transmission specialists Kathrein is buying TechnoTrend GmbH. The company, based near Munich, will be absorbed into Kathrein subsidiary Gorler Telekom.
“The new company TechnoTrend Gorler GmbH brings Kathrein also a new area of business – the innovative DVB receiver technologies,” emphasises Prof. Anton Kathrein, who heads up the company. "Offering innovative digital receivers, we will in future use the potential of both companies on a worldwide scale. The TechnoTrend brand will continue to exist and be integrated in our international sales activities. And we will concentrate the know-how and development capacities available in the Kathrein Group on this field in the new company in order to create more vigour.”
One of the managing executives of TechnoTrend Gorler will be Thomas Gerlach, former CEO of TechnoTrend GmbH. The development and sales of digital set-top boxes will continue to be carried out at the existing TechnoTrend sites in Erfurt and Unterfoehring near Munich. After prior restructuring measures, the employees of the former TechnoTrend GmbH will be offered jobs in the new company. Gorler Telekom has taken over major parts of the TechnoTrend GmbH assets and in particular all relevant patent rights. Under the new name TechnoTrend Gorler GmbH and with several of the TechnoTrend GmbH staff they will enter the market without delay.
“With this takeover we are sending out a positive signal in economically difficult times and we are securing skilled jobs in Thuringia and Bavaria,” explains Prof. Kathrein.
Kathrein is a company operating on the international market in antenna and communications technology. The Kathrein Group, at the top of which is Kathrein Werke KG, currently incorporates 58 subsidiary and associate companies, including four production facilities in Rosenheim and a further twelve production sites on five continents. The group employs a workforce of over 6,500. Turnover in 2008 was in excess of €1.3bn. Two thirds of this is generated abroad, says the company.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Disney-owned sports broadcaster ESPN is reportedly facing higher costs of TV rights, amid falling ad-revenues. Currently ESPN’s portfolio of channels generates some US$4.1bn in operating income to Disney’s coffers.
Last year ESPN paid about US$2.2bn for assorted rights ranging from NASCAR coverage to (US) National Football League (NFL) games. The Wall Street Journal says ESPN is paying extra to hold onto its traditional coverage rights.
For example, ESPN has had to cough up almost double last year for this season’s NFL coverage, and generally TV rights are costing broadcasters about 20% more – with most experts predicting that the credit crunch is having no affect on the prices charged.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Ukrainian media regulator - the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting has allowed four Russian channels broadcasting in the area of his country. Kanałte These Zoopark, Ocean-TV, Phoenix Cinema + TV, and Topshop.
1 November 2008 lifted a ban on the presence on the Ukrainian market of Russian channels: Channel One, RTR-Planeta, Ren-TV and International TVts with Channel One, and Ren-TV have only a provisional license.
Ukraine has not agreed in advance to the provision of the channel due to the advertising and "rusyfikację" country. The truth is that Ukraine is still a lot of people speak Russian, especially in the east of the country, and many older people have never learned the Ukrainian language.
French satellite operator Eutelsat has a problem. Its telecommunications satellite Eurobird 9A, which began its work on Tuesday morning, 24 February 2009, is not available in the European part of Russia, like its predecessor, Eurobird 9, which was replaced by a new satellite.
Currently, viewers in Russia's satellite record very weak signal, or its total absence from the position 9 ° E and are looking for the cause of the problem.
Eurobird 9A services all over the already-a satellite Eurobird 9 In position 9 ° E there were situations in which certain operators, in spite of hiring capacity, can not properly transmit their signals through the satellite. The problem lies in the incorrect configuration of the satellite.
The situation of the most affected Platform Platform for HD and DV. The operator of these services put on its website that in the next few days is the necessary configuration finished Eurobird satellites 9A. This should lead to the adjustment range for the western part of Russia.
* Source: Sun-digest.com
TVP (Polish Television) made some unexpected changes on its transponders on Astra 1KR satellite (19,2E). One of the transponders was switched to DVB-S2 and all TVP channels were transferred to MPEG-4. On DVB-S2 frequency there are 11 SD channels and 1 HD - TVP HD. At the same time, TVP HD is no longer available in DVB-S.
Four channels on tp. 53 (10,773 GHz, pol. H, SR: 22000, FEC: 5/6, DVB-S):
- TVP 1 (517/700/517/17105, encoding: Videoguard)
- TVP 2 (518/710/518/17106, encoding: Videoguard)
- TVP Info (519/720/519/17107, chosen programmes encoded in Videoguard)
- TVP Sport (520/730/520/17108, encoding: Videoguard)
TVP HD is no longer available on tp. 53. Transonder 59 (10,862 GHz, pol. H) has been switched to DVB-S2, SR 22000, FEC 5/6, modulation 8PSK.
Full package of TVP channels is available in MPEG-4 on the released transponder:
- TVP 1 (512/650/512/7100; encoding: Videoguard)
- TVP 2 (513/660/513/7101; encoding: Videoguard)
- TVP Info (514/670/514/7102; chosen programmes encoded in Videoguard)
- TVP Sport (515/680/515/7103; encoding: Videoguard)
- TV Polonia (516/690/516/7104; FTA)
- TVP Historia (517/700/517/7105; FTA)
- TVP Kultura (518/710/518/7106; FTA)
- Test3 - Belsat TV (519/720/7107; FTA)
- INT6 - feed channel (520/730/520/7108; encoding: Videoguard)
- Test1 (521/740/521/7109; encoding: Videoguard)
- Test2 (522/750/522/7110; encoding: Videoguard)
- TVP HD (530/850/530/7130; encoding: Videoguard)
This new form of transmission (in MPEG-4) can be used to facilitate the distribution of these channels for DVB-T transmitters. So far, the signal has been sent to the test multiplexes by fibre.
* source: Inf. w?asna
It has yet to be formally announced but Eutelsat has reportedly picked China’s controversial Long March rocket to launch a new satellite. The United States forbids the use of any US-made components on Chinese rockets.
The US rules mean that China, for the best part of 10 years, has been limited in the services it can offer and its clients have been drawn from the minor tier of operators such as Nigeria, Venezuela and some Asian nations.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Eutelsat craft is entirely built from non-US sourced components by Thales-Alenia, a Franco-Italian joint-venture.
The newspaper reports that Eutelsat will save about 40% of the $100m or so launch costs by using the Chinese system. The satellite is reportedly due for launch later next year.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Freesat’s technology offer is beginning to improve. While there are now a growing number of appealing receivers able to deliver – and record – HDTV, Panasonic says it will combine a Blu-ray recording device with built-in Freesat tuners.
Panasonic’s snappily-named DMR-BS850 has all the bells and whistles needed for satellite reception, plus Firewire and the BD-live function, with a half-Terabyte hard drive. Its twin-Freesat tuners means users can watch one channel while recording another.
Freesat’s latest data shows that some 250,000 homes are turning in to Freesat signals, and MD Emma Scott says this is terrific in barely 9 months of activity. “Our research shows a third of viewers watch more programming once they see it in HD. It’s an evolution in quality, like going from black and white to colour.”
But perhaps an even more appealing attraction will take Freesat boxes to a completely new level. Panasonic, at the London launch of its Blu-ray/Freesat combo let slip that the BBC’s massively popular iPlayer functionality will be added to Freesat devices later this year using its built-in Ethernet port. Panasonic spokesman Matthew Billing says the iPlayer would arrive once a sheer “lack of manpower” at the BBC had been overcome. “The iPlayer will appear on Freesat this year,” he confirmed.
© Rapid TV News 2009
International technology company NDS considers the new generation of common interface (CI), CI+, to be safe, but too expensive. “The CI+ consortium has announced a royalty regime that seems extraordinarily expensive,” CEO Abe Peled (left) told German industry publication VDI-Nachrichten. “We think that for the same money that a CI+ module would cost, you could get a reasonably good set-top box.”
Peled stated that NDS was a “big supporter” of the DVB standard CPCM (Content Protection and Copy Management) which enables similar functions to CI+ without the cost associated with a separate module. “You can also achieve the same effect as intended for CI+ with Simulcrypt, which we have successfully demonstrated.”
Peled cited the US cable card, which NDS has supported from the outset, as a good example: “This is comparable to CI+ but the US cable companies tried to move to a different solution of embedded CI instead of a separate module.”
According to Peled, NDS does not support the incumbent CI modules because the interface between the module and the box was not secure. “For CI+ we have no security concern, but it is expensive.” He added that, however, “we support CI+, if our customers request it”.
Meanwhile, NDS has won Middleware contracts from TeleColumbus and PrimaCom. NDS will supply its MediaHighway product to manage the cable operator’s set-top boxes. NDS says MediaHighway now has a leadership position as the “pre-eminent” supplier of Middleware in German pay-TV.
TeleColumbus and PrimaCom are already using NDS’ VideoGuard conditional access system. TeleColumbus and PrimaCom are grouped together and are Germany’s third-largest cable operator with some 3.5m homes.
Markus Schmid, CEO of Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, explained: “Following our choice of NDS VideoGuard, we now have also selected its MediaHighway middleware in order to benefit from an end-to-end solution with NDS as one of our main technology partners. NDS middleware offers many advantages to us, fulfilling the core requirement for centralised and efficient management of our STB population, currently being deployed in many independent networks which have widely varying headend technology. Based on these two world market-leading solutions from NDS, we look forward to introducing the next generation of digital services to enhance the TV experience for our subscribers – and provide a best-in-class technology infrastructure for our content and programming partners.”
Yves Padrines, Vice President, Business Development at NDS and General Manager NDS GmbH, said: “We are proud to announce that with Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, one of the leading cable groups in the German market has decided to select MediaHighway middleware to enhance their businesses and we look forward to supporting the Group in its upcoming initiatives.” He continued: “This announcement further strengthens the position of NDS and MediaHighway in the German market. We are gratified that Germany’s pay-TV innovators have entrusted NDS technology to help them deliver a superior viewing experience to their audiences.”
NDS sees strong growth potential in the German market: “We believe that Germany is a fantastic market for pay-TV via satellite and cable,” Peled told VDI-Nachrichten.
“As consolidation among the operators moves on, investment in new technologies makes sense,” said Peled. “We are convinced that viewers will increasingly select new features such as HDTV or hybrid personal video recorders, with the result that pay-TV will offer them a more engaging TV experience than just free-TV. US and UK figures show that subscriber numbers do substantially increase thanks to HD,” he explained.
NDS plans to strengthen its market position mainly through technological innovations, continuing to invest in new technologies: “We will particularly focus on hybrid set-top box technologies that can connect the viewer to both broadband and TV content, and our next generation middleware, that supports these hybrid devices,” Peled said.
Peled added that the company is also investing in the field of targeted advertising with its new solutions portfolio NDS Dynamic. “This area will evolve over the next five years and become increasingly interesting with the growth in the number of broadband-enabled boxes deployed. With viewers enabled to receive targeted ads that are relevant to them, for example localised ads for people living in Munich or Hamburg, the free-TV channels will also want to participate proactively in pay-TV because it allows them to do more effective advertising.”
NDS offers encryption system VideoGuard and middleware MediaHighway, amongst other solutions. In Germany, the company has won pay-TV operator Premiere, cable companies Kabel BW and Tele Columbus and IPTV operator Arcor as customers.
© Rapid TV News 2009
John Porter, CEO of Australian pay-TV platform Austar, said yesterday that 2009 would be “a challenging year for everyone” but added that the subscription TV business was “a marathon, not a sprint.”
In a statement accompanying Austar’s full year 2008 results, Porter said that “even if growth slows compared to 2008, we will continue to build our earnings for the years to come. One of our greatest opportunities is the depth of knowledge we hold about our market. We understand the challenges facing regional Australia, we understand the likes and dislikes of our customers. Through that deep understanding, we will continue to adjust our product, our promotions and our marketing to make sure that we still meet our earnings requirements but are as flexible as possible to meet the needs of existing and potential customers.”
Austar would still achieve double digit EBITDA growth in 2009, Porter asserted. EBITDA growth in 2008 stood at 20%, rising to A$209 million. That reflected, said the company, an 11% increase in revenue to A$632 million but only a 4% increase in poerating expenses to A$141 million. Profit was up 7% at A$114 million.
Porter said: “We believe that the key to success in this current environment is prudent investment in growth, while focusing on cost control and continual improvement in how we operate our business. EBITDA growth of 20 percent while keeping our operating cost increases to four percent is evidence of our ability to achieve operating leverage.”
Subscriber numbers rose by 51,484 to 720,270. Of these, 72,719 – 12% - take the MyStar PVR service which launched in February 2008, exceeding expectations.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Spain's satellite operator Hispasat has hosted in Madrid, over two days, more than fifty professionals from the main companies and organizations of the European audiovisual sector during the VIII European HDTV Meetng, supported by the European Commission.
Participants included SES Astra, the BBC, CARTV, EBU, Eutelsat, Impulsa TDT, Mediaset RAI, PT Comunicaçoes, Premiere, RTVE, Sky Italia, Sogecable, Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales, SVT, TV3 and ZDF.
Executives debated the future both of high definition TV in the continent and of new technologies such as 3D and ultra definition TV (Super High Vision).
During these meetings the participants highlighted the importance of HDTV in the present economic situation since this technology maintains a "strong" appeal for European economic development. Numerous European operators also presented their own progresses in the HDTV field.
Since its beginning Hispasat has represented Spain's HDTV Forum in the corresponding European Forum. The satellite operator prides itself on the innovation and the quality services provided by HDTV and 3D TV as differentiating elements placing satellite solutions at the forefront.
Hispasat already transmits several HD channels on Sogecable's pay TV operator Digital+ and Portuguese operators ZON TV Cabo and Meo Sat. Also the company is working on other HD projects such as Proyecto Palco HD co-financed by the country's Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Turkey’s leading media mogul is Aydin Dogan and he has heavily criticised the nation’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing Mr Erdogan of muzzling negative comment and becoming increasingly intolerant of critical voices.
Dogan Holdings controls 3 mainstream TV channels, as well as partnering CNN in the CNN-Turk news station. Dogan also own 7 newspapers including Hurriyet and Milliyet, as well as 28 magazines.
Mr Dogan’s history with the ruling AK Party is strained, given that he was also hit with a massive $500m fine recently for alleged tax avoidance, which is denied and being contested. Dogan says the fine was out of all proportion to what was a minor and routine tax examination.
“Mr. Erdogan came to power using democracy. He is a product of democracy, but he can accept democracy only for himself," said Aydin Dogan, speaking to the Wall Street Journal yesterday. "He cannot accept side components of democracy such as free media."
Dogan said seven of his companies are being investigated by tax inspectors. Relations with the government, he told the WSJ, first "went haywire" early last year when his media outlets reported on the business dealings of Mr. Erdogan's son and family members. Dogan's newspapers started digging into a criminal case in Germany involving a Turkish charity accused of funneling funds to Mr. Erdogan's AK Party.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/cultural-es.jpg
Spain's national public broadcaster RTVE is working hard to set up the country's first cultural channel to be called Cultural.es. A DTT channel created by the country's Ministry of Culture and RTVE, the channel will start tests in April with official transmissions set to begin a year after, coinciding with national analogue switch off.
The new channel will offer all about Spain's cultural activity and it will not only be transmitted in Spanish but in the country's other official languages, Vasque, Catalan and Galician.
RTVE will manage the channel and it will include in its yearly budget the necessary amounts for its running either from its own activities or from other collborators such as cultural associations.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Foxtel CEO Kim Williams yesterday echoed words from his counterpart at Austar earlier in the week, saying that the months ahead “appear confronting for the country and Australian business generally and this will inevitably provide Foxtel with challenges to maintain its growth momentum.”
While subscriptions rose 7% last year to reach 1.449 million at the end of December, (1.591 million including wholesale customers), Williams said the platform would need to offer new services to respond to the current challenges. These would be added progressively during the year, he said.
“The services will include a range of new channels, enhanced ways to navigate the Foxtel universe of channels and the introduction of Foxtel by Broadband. Foxtel’s broadband offer will allow subscribers to watch Foxtel on-line, exclusive events as well as shows from Foxtel’s most popular channels.”
Financially, Foxtel remains strong with leverage of 1.8 times EBITDA, no debt falling due until mid-2012 and a strongly hedged position against the fall in the Australian dollar.
EBITDA for the half-year to the end of 2008 was A$196 million, an increase of 19% on the same period the previous year. Revenue was A$908 million, up 13%, with subscription revenue up 11% to A$762 million.
Foxtel said that despite the economic climate, new subscriber additions were in line with the same period in 2007 with churn 0.2% lower at 13.3%. Nearly 45% of subscribers take the top pack and over one-third now take Foxtel iQ, with two-thirds of new subs in the half-year taking an iQ subscription. However, Foxtel HD+ signed up only 85,000 subscribers in the half-year.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Cyfrowy Polsat unveils HD/receiver strategy
By Chris Dziadul | February 27, 2009
The Polish DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat has outlined its plans for this year.
Speaking to Wirtualne Media, its president Dominik Libicki said that the service would introduce a five-channel HD package in the next few months.
At present the HD channels Cyfrowy Polsat offers are found in SD packages.
Libicki added that the platform would also introduce a HD receiver with a hard disk this autumn.
UPC hits Polish digital ton
By Chris Dziadul | February 27, 2009
UPC’s digital cable rollout in Central and Eastern Europe has reached another milestone, with its Polish service reaching 100,000 subscribers.
Launched last May, it was reported only earlier this week to have ended 2008 with 79,100 subscribers.
Kudelski launches OpenTV takeover bid
By Julian Clover | February 27, 2009 | 09:27 UK
The Kudelski Group is looking to cement its relationship with OpenTV through a $127 million (€99.63m) bid for the outstanding shares in the company.
The Swiss conditional access provider has held voting control of the San Francisco middleware and advertising solutions company since November 2006. Sales teams have already begun to work in tandem and Kudelski says the transaction would provide for better integration of solutions and services to customers. “Efforts to improve efficiencies and service delivery are vital to both the Kudelski Group and OpenTV in today’s economic environment,” the company said in a statement.
The $1.35 per share cash offer is based on a 35% premium on OpenTV’s closing share price on February 26. Kudelski will fund the purchase through third party debt.
It is anticipated that OpenTV will now form a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the proposal. Kudelski has stressed that while it wants to reach a definitive agreement as soon as possible it has no intention of disposing of its controlling stake should the bid be unsuccessful.
Announcing its 2008 financials, Kudeslski said some of the Group’s largest accounts had now moved to its new model, representing some 25 million smart cards, and having a strong effect on the 2008 results. One company to have adopted the new model is the US DTH operator EchoStar, where although the model contributed positively to revenues, it did have a negative effect on Group 2008 margins.
Kudelski reported a Group operating profit of CHF18.5 million, as revenues grew by 20.4% in constant currency to CHF1 billion.
Cyfrowy Polsat with a new contract with Eutelsat
* 2009-02-28 11:58:32 / Janusz Sulisz
* Last update: 2009-02-28 19:30:39
* Source: Cyfrowy Polsat / tvpolsat.info
26 February 2009 year, the Board Polsat Digital has signed a multi-year agreement with satellite operator Eutelsat. It is the subject of hiring a satellite transponder capacity on the Hot Bird 9 (13 ° E). The value of the contract is denominated in euros and in the duration of a contract, converted to USD at the rate 4.5678 PLN for 1 euro published by the National Bank of Poland on 27 February 2009, will amount to 124 million €.
Terms and Conditions do not differ from market standards used for these types of agreements. The agreement was regarded as significant, therefore, that its value exceeds 10 percent. revenue for the last four quarters of turnover.
Cyfrowy Polsat currently manages the following transponders on the satellite Hot Bird 9 (13 ° E):
Hot Bird 8 (13 ° E) tp. 74 (12.188 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)
Hot Bird 8 (13 ° E) tp. 78 (12.265 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC = 3 / 4)
Bird 8 Hot (13 º E) tp. 79 (12.284 GHz, pol. H, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)
6 Hot Bird (13 º E) tp. 132 (11.158 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)
Arabsat plans a new satellite every year
By Robert Briel | March 1, 2009 | 11:53 UK
Arabsat announced it plans to launch a new satellite every year until 2012. The operator will announce plans with its next two planned satellites, the Badr-7 and Badr-5C during next week’s Cabsat 2009 in Dubai.
Eng. Khalid Balkheyour, Arabsat President and CEO, stated in a statement that “Arabsat will declares its new satellites Badr – 7 & 5 C which their contracts have been signed earlier this month as a step in Arabsat future plans that calls for launching a satellites every year till 2012. It’s also a good chance for Arabsat to cope up with the latest updates in the market of Satellites and Telecommunications and explore the new investments opportunities in the Middle East market. Arabsat will give a presentation, in cooperation with the ASBU, about the joint project of Menos.”
Arabsat operates a fleet opf satellites at the 26 Degree East and 30.5 Degree East positions. Badr-5 is a Eurostar-3000 model with 56 active transponders in Ku-band and Ka-band, Badr-5 will primarily provide full in-orbit back-up capacity both for Badr-4 and Badr-6 at its 26° East position. Badr-7 is also a Eurostar E3000 model, equipped with 36 active transponders in Ku-band aabd will also be placed at the at 26° East.
Conditional access specialist Nagra Kudelski is mounting a take-over bid for middleware company Open TV. Kudelski already has voting control, but not economic control.
Andre Kudeslki, CEO at Nagra, says his company is offering minority shareholders a total of US$127m (€99.6m) for their shares, an impressive premium of some 35% over Open TV’s Feb 26 closing price.
Open TV’s Board will now consider the bid, but most observers expect it to be approved.
© Rapid TV News 2009
The shareholders of troubled German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere have approved a planned capital increase of €412 million. At an extraordinary general meeting in Munich, 99.6% of the stockholders present gave the green light.
The capital increase is expected to be completed in the second quarter. “The approval of the capital increase gives us the opportunity to transform Premiere into a viable and successful company,” said CEO Mark Williams. “Following the recapitalization, we will be able to make the necessary investments in programming, sales and marketing, customer service and technology to achieve the required level of subscriber growth.”
With a re-launch supported by a large-scale marketing campaign Premiere expects to boost subscription sales in the third quarter, hoping to reach the financial profit zone in 2011.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Setanta and ITV stall FA payments
Cash-strapped Setanta and ITV are seeking to renegotiate the payment terms of their £425 million (E474m) rights deals with the UK Football Association for coverage of FA Cup and England international football matches.
According to reports, Setanta has delayed making a payment of £10 million on its £150 million contract while ITV has met its payments so far, but is attempting to adjust the schedule so that less money is paid out in the opening years of its £275 million deal.
The two broadcasters signed the four-year deal for the rights to the matches in 2007, now Setanta is reportedly trying to renegotiate the terms of its deal. Last month it came off badly in the bidding for the rights to Premier League games, losing one of its two packages to BSkyB.
GlobeCast launches African DTH platform
GlobeCast’s African DTH platform has successfully started transmissions on SES Astra’s Astra 4A (Sirius 4) satellite. African broadcaster VoxAfrica is one of the first channels to sign up for the new platform. It is the first Ku-band DTH platform with coverage over sub-Saharan Africa, providing broadcasters with the opportunity to reach households across the continent.
Romania gets E!
Comcast International Media Group (CIMG) has further expanded its presence in Southeastern Europe with the signing of a channel deal for the E! International Network on Romtelecom's Dolce platform in Romania.
Roll out of the high-definition version of Sony Picture Entertainment’s AXN, AXN HD, has started in Korea, following a deal between SPE Networks Asia (SPENA), transmission services provider Globecast and satellite operator Measat.
GlobeCast will pick up the AXN HD channel feed from SPENA’s facilities in Singapore directly to GlobeCast’s Parkview Square facility. GlobeCast will then deliver the signal via its RIBU fibre network to GlobeCast’s Hong Kong teleport for uplink to MEASAT-3’s platform and transmission to the Korean audience, initially via MPEG-4/DVB-S and subsequently moving to MPEG-4/DVB-S2.
AXN has been in operation in Korea since 2005, having first launched on the SkyLife DTH platform in July 2005. It then debuted on Korea Telecom’s (KT’s) IPTV service, MegaTV, in November 2008 along with the official launch of IPTV services nationwide.
AXN Korea is the first among all channels and feeds at SPENA to be migrated to HD. The brand new AXN HD channel in Korea will continue to be available via SkyLife which currently has upwards of 2.3 million subscribers, as part of its HD package; as well as on MegaTV, which has a subscriber base of 800,000 including VOD and linear service subscribers as of January 2009.
GlobeCast’s recent HD deals with MEASAT include The History Channel HD and National Geographic Channel HD.
© Rapid TV News 2009
German technical service provider Media Broadcast will in future transmit films to Kitag Group cinemas in Switzerland via its digital satellite network.
The agreement includes establishment and service provision for the reception facilities in 28 cinemas in Bern, Basel, St Gallen, Lucerne and Abtwil. “Thanks to the most modern technology we will soon be able to receive not only 3D blockbusters of the big major studios via satellite, but also 2D and 3D live events from alternative content segments,” said Kitag’s managing director Philippe Täschler.
Media Broadcast is able to feed the digital film material from rights dealers directly to central servers in cinemas through its pan-European Digital Cinema Distribution Network. The subsidiary of French TDF group recently connected the Hollywood Megaplex cinema group in Austria to its satellite network.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Presenting its 2008 results and posting a strong growth in earnings (EBITDA) in 2009, Vivendi Group, announced slightly upward revenues at Canal+ Group. Total revenues were €4.55 bn, up 4.4% compared to 2007 while pay-TV operations in France increased 2.8%.
Growth, while small, was driven by increased subs to Canal+ and CanalSat. At the end of last year, the pay-TV offer totalled 10.6 million subs of which half is attributable to Canal+ and half to CanalSat. Canal+ subscriptions remained strong, comparable to those reported in 2007 with roughly 600,000 new individual subs in mainland France. In 2008, Canal+ converted around 350, 000 analogue subscribers to its digital offer and transferred nearly one million TPS subs to the CanalSat platform.
The churn rate on both Canal+ and CanalSat was 14.7%.
Canal+ Group’s other revenues grew significantly, up 13.8% to €701 million due mainly to international operations. Canal+ Poland recorded portfolio growth exceeding 310,000 new subs to 1.4 million.
Commenting on those results, CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said Vivendi SA could be interested in new pay-TV acquisitions but has not found the appropriate target. But he refused to express himself about an interest in Spanish platform Digital+, being sold by owner Prisa.
Vivendi’s total revenues reached €25.3 bn, up 17.2% with an adjusted net income of €2.7 bn, up 8.4%.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Poland steps up DTT trails
By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:32 UK
The Polish transmission company TP Emitel will start undertaking enhanced DTT trails in Kraków and environs from this Friday (March 6).
According to the company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the incumbent telco TPSA, it will be employing a stronger transmitter than previously, located in the Kraków/Krzemionki region, to distribute the public channels TVP1, TVP2, TVP Info, TVP Sport and TVP HD.
Poland has been undertaking DTT trials for several years and is expected to finally launch a full service this autumn.
History expands Romanian carriage
By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:55 UK
History has increased its presence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by launching on UPC in Romania.
The 24-hour channel, which is being broadcast in English with full Romanian translation, already operates in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Montenegro.
TVN 24 tops Polish thematic chart
By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:14 UK
News-based TVN 24 remains by far the most popular thematic channel in Poland.
Data produced by TNS OBOP for Wirtualne Media shows that the service claimed an audience share of 3.17% among viewers aged 4+ in February, as opposed to 2.94% a year earlier.
Disney Channel was in second place (0.98%), followed by AXN and Mini Mini (each with 0.8%), Jetix (0.73%) and Eurosport (0.69%).
TVN 24 was also the most watched thematic channel in the 16-49, with a share of 1.61%. It was followed by AXN (1.19%), Discovery and Disney Channel (0.91% each) and HBO (0.88%).
ITV Local to close
By Julian Clover | March 4, 2009 | 08:59 UK
ITV is to close its broadband delivered news and information service ITV Local. Instead the network will concentrate on its video on demand content including ITV.com.
ITV Local was launched in early 2007 after a year-long trial in the South East region. Its closure comes after the BBC Trust rejected separate plans for a local online video service that keeps the market in the hands of the increasing number of local newspapers building online video content.
Earlier this month ITV reduced its local output to nine regions following permission from the regulator Ofcom, saving the broadcaster £40 million in 2009. ITV is planning total cost savings of £155m in 2009, rising to £175m in 2010 and £245m in 2011. Drama production is being scaled back and the Leeds studios, responsible for the production of Heartbeat and The Royal are to close.
The broadcaster confirmed it would sell the online school reunion site Friends Reunited and that it was considering the options for the SDN terrestrial multiplex operator.
ProSiebenSat.1 suffers from SBS write-off
By Robert Briel | March 4, 2009 | 08:45 UK
A write-off to the tune of €80 million has pushed the results of German based broadcasting giant ProSiebenSat.1 into the red. The broadcaster acquired SBS Broadcasting in 2007 for €3.3 billion.
Interest payments on loans associated with the SBS purchase also influenced the results of the company, whose regular TV business is under pressure.
The company said in a press statement: “The reduction in revenue is the result of problems with acceptance levels after the launch of a new sales model for the German TV advertising market. In addition, the economic uncertainty significantly reduced advertisers’ willingness to invest during the second half of the year, both in Germany – the Group’s core market – and in the rest of Europe.”
On the basis of preliminary figures for 2008, the ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s consolidated revenues came to €3.054 billion. Recurring EBITDA (EBITDA adjusted for one-time effects) reached €674.5 million. Reflecting the first full-year consolidation of SBS, revenue growth was equivalent to 12.7% (2007: €2.710 billion). This calculation includes the SBS business for the full year, with a contribution of €1.076 billion in revenues (July-December 2007: €547.0 million).
“I am taking office as CEO of a company that has shown great strength in difficult situations during 2008. Far-sighted business decisions have been made, and important operating and strategic goals have been achieved. The German family of stations increased its audience share significantly, in spite of the Olympics and the European Soccer Championships. The reorganization of German Free TV and the German Sales House will be completed successfully by mid-2009,” said Thomas Ebeling, CEO of ProSiebenSat.1, in a statement.
The major strategic goals included the reorganization of German Free TV and German Sales House; European playout center built; technical outsourcing and the sell-off of the Scandinavian C More premium TV operations.
Portugal rejects bids for 5th channel (http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200903033280/portugal-rejects-bids-for-5th-channel.html)
Portugal's broadcasting authority ERC has rejected the only two bids submitted in answer to the tender for the fifth free-to-air terrestrial TV broadcaster.
ZON Multimedia has had its bid rejected due to a lack of technical and human resources, the authority said. Mediaset's Spanish national private TV channel Telecinco has also had its bid rejected, in this case due to a lack of economic and financial viability, the ERC said.
The two bidding groups have now some eight days to answer the decision, with a final decision due to be taken at the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Portugal's DTH market registered growth of 4.5% in Q4 last year in relation to the previous quarter according to latest data from regulator ANACOM. The country's DTH market now stands at 21% of pay-TV.
In particular the Northen region leads the figures with 192,000 dishes followed by the Centre region with 169,000 and the Lisbon area with 66,000.
The study also highlights the decrease in cable subscribers, down 0.7% in relation to the previous quarter. And finally the report underlines a progression of 36% in the clients of other telecommunication technologies, especially fiber optic networks.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Euronews adds Turkish from 2010 (http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200903033269/euronews-adds-turkish-from-2010.html)
Euronews is to launch a Turkish-language version in January next year. Euronews is linking with Turkish Radio Television (TRT) and TRT will be a shareholder in the channel.
Euronews’ Turkish-language version is the ninth version on air over greater Europe. From the launch date, the news channel will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on Euronews' satellite network all over the world to more than 253m households in 142 countries. Euronews will commercialize the new version to Turkish-speaking people around the world, particularly in neighbouring countries of Turkey: North of Cyprus, Caucasus and Central Asia, and also to Turkish communities in Europe especially in Germany.
In addition, Euronews in Turkish will be distributed all over Turkey by TRT to be available on all distribution networks: analogue and digital terrestrial network, cable, satellite, IPTV, mobile etc. TRT will make Euronews available to 100% of TV households which represents more than 17m Turkish homes.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Digital TV Labs to test for CI Plus
By Julian Clover | March 5, 2009 | 10:48 UK
Bristol-based Digital TV Labs has been awarded the contract to be the world’s first approved test centre for the CI Plus (Common Interface) Specification.
CI Plus is the extension to the DVB Common Interface designed to facilitate secure pay-TV services over third party networks. The award was made by CI Plus LLP, the former CI Plus Forum, backed by Sony, SmarDTV, Samsung, Philips and Neotion.
“The benefits of CI Plus are many, both from receiver manufacturer – including Integrated Digital TVs [IDTVs] of course – and operator perspectives,” explained Keith Potter, CEO, Digital TV Labs. “The industry is beginning to see increased legislative pressure, particularly in the cable sector, for operators to open up their networks. For pay-TV service providers it will also allow reception on a greater number of devices and will enable better security support for HD content.”
Although there has been enthusiasm for CI Plus from operators including the Netherlands and Germany, the latter faces difficulties in fully implementing the concept should *** continue to disapprove of anything other than embedded conditional access.
Conax in buoyant mood
By Chris Dziadul | March 5, 2009 | 11:19 UK
Conax secured 58 new customers in 2008, while its card deliveries were 40% up on the previous year.
All told, the content security company now delivers solutions to over 300 digital TV operators in 78 countries around the world.
Commenting on the results, Geir Bjørndal, the company’s EVP Sales & Marketing, said the company was well positioned to tap into a market that is likely to see the number of digital TV households double from today’s 350 million by 2013.
He added that Conax experienced 68% growth in India in just one year and is now the market leader in Latin America.
Fashion TV extends coverage
By Chris Dziadul | March 5, 2009 | 11:06 UK
Fashion TV has finally made its debut in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, two months after its expected launch.
According to HN, the channel is on air for 24 hours daily and employing a single stream, reaching 680,000 homes in the Czech Republic and 350,000 in Slovakia.
As previously reported in Broadband TV News, the licence for Fashion TV in the two countries is held by a company named Carolinas Corporation.
The majority (70%) of the channel’s output is international, with the remainder produced in-house.
Canal Digital cements new TV2 deal
By Julian Clover | March 5, 2009 | 10:43 UK
TV 2 DenmarkCanal Digital has made a new agreement with Denmark’s quasi-commercial channel TV 2. From April 1 TV 2 will be broadcast as a digital channel on Canal Digital’s satellite platform for the first time.
“Our new agreement with TV 2 makes it first and foremost easier for our customers, especially when switched off the analogue signal on 31 October. Next, the agreement strengthens our satellite platform, said Jens Arnesen, managing director, Canal Digital Danmark.
“The agreement with Canal Digital TV 2 is a natural extension of similar agreements in the satellite field,” added TV 2’s Financial Director Peter Norm “The expected EU approval of TV 2’s plan will enable us to collect subscription payments from 2012 and although the agreement with Canal Digital will run until 2016, it will in this situation be renegotiated.”
Although the majority of Danish Canal Digital subscribers could already access TV2 through the platform’s hybrid DTT receivers the platform wants to ensure easy access to the channel.
The agreement also means that all viewers will be able to tune into the eight regional TV channels, regardless of where they lived.
TV5 gives up analogue in The Netherlands
By Robert Briel | March 5, 2009 | 08:27 UK
International French language broadcaster TV5 Monde has given up analogue distribution in The Netherlands. Ziggo, the country’s largest operator with 3.2 million homes connected announced it will stop analogue carriage of the channel and relocate it to basic digital.
The move is part of a scheme to bring down the number of basic analogue channels to 30 across the Ziggo network in order to make more room for digital television and other services. At the moment Ziggo has 1.1 million digital homes and the number is growing.
Last year, the number two operator in the country, UPC, removed TV5 Monde from both its analogue and digital tiers citing disagreement about the conditions of carriage of the channel. The channel remains freely available on satellite as an FTA channel on Astra and Eutelsat Hotbird.
New Russian DTH platform launches
By Chris Dziadul | March 5, 2009 | 08:18 UK
Russia has yet another DTH platform following the official launch of Raduga TV.
According to Parabola, the service is distributed by ABS 1 at 75 degrees East and offers subscribers a wide variety of both Russian and international channels, including all the Viasat services.
As part of a promotional offer until the end of April, it is being offered for R250 a month for a payment of six months in advance.
Raduga TV is operated by GTSS in association with DalGeokom. It employs Irdeto conditional access.
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A year ago CTC Media, which specialises in broadcasting within Russia, was riding high with its share price at an impressive $31.75, benefiting from a booming Russian economy and strong advertising demand. That has now all changed.
CTC Media’s share price is now about $3.40 (but it has been even lower) although an investor note from Morgan Stanley gives some reasons for optimism. Nevertheless, the bank’s view is that the appetite for foreign investors to invest in Russian equities and companies has diminished.
CTC operates in a very competitive Russian market with 18 other TV channels. The two largest are effectively government-controlled which means that they may operate in a less cost conscious manner through a downturn. This could lead to a loss of market share for CTC, argues Morgan Stanley. CTC Media also reports its results (it is listed on the NASDAQ) in US Dollars.
That CTC Media has to make some cuts was inevitable. The Russian Rouble is down significantly against the Dollar (25%), and while only 20% of CTC’s operating expenses are in Dollars, there’s obviously a problem when 100% of income is generated in Roubles. The company has trimmed staff by 20%, and this, plus other belt-tightening, has helped bring the company back on an even keel.
But there are challenges ahead, says the bank’s note, with Russian advertising now suffering from the downturn, and likely to overall fall some 15% this year. However, the bank says: “Given its pricing advantages and national reach, we expect TV’s share of advertising will actually increase during this downturn from 55% to 60%, which we see as a long-term ceiling. In US dollar terms, we therefore look for a 61% and 3% contraction in the TV ad market in 2009 and 2010, respectively.”
Morgan Stanley is concerned by the acquisition of the DTV channel in Russia, and the C31 network in Kazakhstan, and in particular the amounts paid for the two stations, which with the benefit of hindsight were “extreme”.
“The $395m paid for DTV now represents 61% of CTC’s market capitalization. Through cost cutting we expect C31 to breakeven in EBITDA terms in 2009 and 2010 with modest profits by 2011. Assuming a 20% drop in content costs, we factor in a drop in EBITDA at DTV from $26m in 2008 to $20m in 2009 and $22m in 2010. This represents a margin of 39%,” says the bank’s note. Morgan Stanley also suggests that a write down of some $400m may be needed because of the high price paid for the recent acquisitions.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/windows_7.jpgNext week’s DVB World show in Berlin will see a demo from Microsoft of its new HDTV Windows Media functionality which is part of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.
Microsoft is partnering with Philips-founded semi-conductor company NXP to develop a new TV tuner that will operate within Windows, based on the DVB-T2 transmission standard.
“The prototype,” says a statement, “which comprises all major functionality of NXP’s upcoming DVB-T2 one chip solution and is designed for the Windows 7 release of the Microsoft operating system, paves the way for consumers to enjoy HD digital-terrestrial TV services on a Windows PC. With a TV tuner based on NXP’s technology, Windows Media Center users will be able to watch, pause, and record live HD TV wherever there is a HD DVB-T2 service.”
Commercial chipsets and software drivers based on the prototype are expected to be made available to PC OEMs and other tuner manufactures towards the end of this year.
DVB-T2 enables more channels, including HD services, to be broadcast. The UK is likely to be the first country to deploy DVB-T2 services with analogue switch-off already underway and the launch of Freeview HD in the autumn of this year.
“The PC is increasingly becoming a screen for watching television,” said Renaud Bordelet, Group Manager, Windows TV Europe, Microsoft. “Through this collaboration with NXP we ensure consumers will be able to use Windows Media Center to enjoy DVB-T2 services, such as Freeview HD, on the PC. DVB World is the first time we have demonstrated accessing a DVB-T2 broadcast in HD with Windows Media Center and we look forward to our OEM partners bringing the experience to consumers.”
Rolf-Dieter Gutsmann, Product Marketing Manager PC Video Systems, NXP Semiconductors, said: “Leaps in technology innovation are made possible when companies can combine their expertise, and we are particularly happy to have joined forces with Microsoft to support DVB-T2. NXP, building on its leadership in DVB silicon tuners and demodulators, is proud to show the first demonstrator of its DVB-T2 solution for the PC. DVB-T2 is an upcoming terrestrial transmission format which will start a new era of multimedia enjoyment, enabling superior quality of broadcast video on the Windows PC. OEMs will facilitate network operators to expand their range of coverage with cost effective hardware for PC tuner solutions.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/murr_tv.jpgMurr TV (confusingly known as MTV in the Lebanon) says it will go back on air at the end of March. It closed in Sept 2002 following a government ban. The channel’s web-site talks of it representing the silent majority of Lebanese and of transmissions recommencing on March 31.
“It will be a voice to serve freedom, and air the voice of the silent majority of all sects, regions and parties," said Michel Gabriel Murr, the station’s chairman and GM. "We will not be [backing any political group], and we will be neutral and realistic about all topics, from traffic lights to defence strategy."
A general election is scheduled for the Lebanon in June. It is not yet known whether transmissions will be limited to the station’s terrestrial output or whether it will go on to return to satellite broadcasting.
© Rapid TV News 2009
New Zealand broadcaster TVNZ has reportedly bought into Hybrid Television Services, the Seven Media Group venture to sell TiVo in Australia, for A$15 million (US$9.5 million).
Seven is looking to sell up to two-thirds of its 100% stake in Hybrid, with the deal apparently offloading a third to TVNZ, which is a state broadcaster but funded partially by commercials. TVNZ is one of the key players in New Zealand’s satellite and terrestrially-delivered Freeview digital TV platform.
A report on Australian online news and commentary service Crikey claims a deal has already been done and TVNZ wants to launch TiVo in New Zealand. The box would be marketed as picking up the Freeview platform. In Australia, there is no monthly subscription fee for the TiVo service.
PVR products are already on the market in New Zealand, marketed as MyFreeview boxes.
Seven Media Group, which is itself a joint venture between Seven Network and private equity house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), is under financial pressure. Seven recently wrote down its investment in the company to zero as the group labours under a pile of debt brought in when KKR purchased the stake back in 2006. Asset sales are clearly on the agenda to reduce some of that debt.
© Rapid TV News 2009
One month ago the sale of broadband supplier Tiscali’s UK assets seemed a certainty, and expected to take place by about now. But the further erosion of Sterling’s value against the Euro has placed the deal in jeopardy. Tiscali boss Mario Rosso now seems to be saying the deal is almost impossible to pull off.
A year ago Tiscali’s UK assets were worth around £600m. Carphone Warehouse made a bid of £450m for Tiscali’s British assets, a price which now seems extremely generous. The BSkyB ‘bid’ is reportedly to have been less than £450m. Tiscali, as well as being a poorly regarded broadband supplier, is perhaps better known as the owner of the Video Networks/Home Choice service, which has struggled since inception.
However, Tiscali’s share price has tumbled 83% over the past year and trading in its shares was suspended Friday Mar 6. A Board statement from Tiscali said: "Given the time frame of the negotiations with BSkyB for the disposal of certain UK assets of the Tiscali Group, which have not resulted in an agreement to date, due to the worsening of the market environment in which the potential buyer also operates, the Board of Directors has acknowledged that it is de facto impossible to proceed with the above mentioned negotiations."
Tiscali has also asked its bankers to suspend its interest payments due this week, and will be placing what it describes as a “new plan” to its Board on March 27. Long term debt stands at €500m, and it has payments to meet this week (on March 11 and 13 for a total of €11m).
© Rapid TV News 2009
BSkyB is to further invest in 3D production and could even be offering a 3D service within the next twelve months according to a senior Sky staffer.
“We have the luxury to be able to test and trial 3D,” said Chris Johns, Sky’s chief engineer/broadcast strategy. He told a London conference on March 6 that with 61 Hollywood movies likely to be released in 3D over the next 18 months, plus Sky’s end-to-end control over its own programming making, there was now the “capability for homes to see 3D by year-end”.
However, first priority in Sky’s ‘vision of the future’ is to build its own archive of material, and Johns said services like its Arts Channel, as well as sports and general entertainment would receive 3D investment. He told delegates at the UK’s Digital Television Group (DTG) annual conference that Sky would be experimenting with different 3D systems, but favoured a simple and cost-effective technology route as being the most likely. While not ruling out so-called ‘active’ glasses, Johns suggested that at the moment these systems were too expensive. “And screens must be widely available,” he stressed. “Our aim is to refine 3D techniques and TV production and build a content library over the coming year.”
Johns said the aim was not to concentrate on delivering 3D to the big screen, or similar closed environments, but to the home for everyday usage. “We cannot move to a different platform and ask consumers to buy new set-top boxes,” he said. “We want to use the current set-top box without significant modifications to be ‘3D Ready’ as well as ‘HD Ready’.”
“Sky is in a unique position,” he said, “and we want to deliver the First Generation of 3D and I envision it will be glasses-based in some form, and to get the impetus going for that first generation and to be ready for other generations which will happen in 5, 6 or 7 years time.”
The DTG announced it was creating a special 3D working group and consultancy division for the technology.
© Rapid TV News 2009
SES Astra is threatening to exit the Spanish market because it claims the government is favouring Hispasat in the DTT signal distribution. Astra claims Hispasat is taking advantage of its privileged relationship with Spain's government to develop its terrestrial business.
Spain's main audiovisual signal distributor telco Abertis Telecom is Hispasat's main shareholder.
Astra also claims this situation goes against more efficient services in the last parts of the DTT coverage such as satellite. At the same time the satellite operator criticises the government for preventing other competitors in the DTT satellite distribution market such as the case of DTT over satellite to cover those areas without terrestrial coverage.
Finally, Astra critizices the financial support for terrestrial technology by the different regional governments by saying this goes against the principle of technological neutrality.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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Mexico’s main broadcaster Televisa saw its profit grow 2% in 2008 in spite of the general advertising downturn in the media world, to 7,803 million pesos (more than €400 million).
The positive figures continued in Q4 last year when the company saw its revenues rise 18.8% compared with the same period in 2007.
Among the company's divisions responsible for these positive results were Televisa's cable business, its telecommunications business, its free-to-air television and finally its satellite TV division.
Televisa's debt amounted to some €2,000 million last year.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Police in the town of Natanz in Esfahan Province, Iraq, have confiscated satellite dishes and equipment.
BBC Monitoring, in a report sourced from Iranian TV, said some 200 dishes and reception equipment were seized by police from Barzud Base in the town of Natanz. The BBC reports that video shown on state-run TV showed “hundreds of dishes” scattered on a pavement.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Bravia TV sets to take e-cash payments
RFID readers embedded in remote control handsets
The new Bravias can suck e-money off a mobile phone
Using a TV for surfing the web has always been pretty much a bust, but the imminent rise of downloads direct to TV sets looks a sure bet for online media success in the living room.
The only problem might be how to pay for movies rented through that channel. Typing credit card numbers in through a remote just isn't going to appeal to folk, while subscription packages won't suit everyone.
RFID the key
Over in Japan, Sony already has a possible answer in the shape of a range of new Bravia TV sets with remote controllers that can process e-cash payments.
The KDL-series Bravias will go on sale in Japan in April complete with RFID FeliCa chip readers embedded in the remotes. Thanks to the popularity of RFID cash in Japan – whether in phones or in standalone cards – the Bravia models could prove tempting.
Next steps
So far, Sony has managed to get two e-cash providers onboard, but the rest are sure to follow.
Once that happens, selling and paying for just about anything through the TV will become as natural as flipping channels.
RTR-Planeta expected to resume broadcasting in Tajikistan soon
The administration of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company (VGTRK), which owns the RTR-Planeta Channel, has agreed to a 50 percent increase in the fee paid to Tajikistan’s open joint-stock company Teleradiocom for technical services, the Teleradiocom director general Suhrob Aliyev said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, they have received a letter from the VGTRK administration, in which they say that thy have considered Teleradiocom’s request for increasing the technical service fees by 50 percent and are ready to sign a broadcasting contract for 2009. “Today, we are sending a letter to them, asking to send the signed contract as soon as possible in order to resume broadcasting,” Aliyev said.
Teleradiocom terminated RTR-Planeta broadcasting in the country on 2 March because of lack of a broadcasting contract for this year. RTR-Planeta is an international 24-hour general channel in Russian available throughout the world via cable and satellite.
Swedish media company Modern Times Group will merge its broadcasting assets in Bulgaria into a single entity. In a press release, the company said it has reached agreement with Apace Media Plc to merge part-owned Balkan Media Group Limited into Modern Times Group subsidiary Nova Televizia. The Swedish company has owned 50% of Balkan Media, with Apace holding the remainder, since March 2007 and completed the 100% acquisition of Nova Televizia in October 2008.
“This change will substantially simplify the ownership structure of our operations in Bulgaria and is in line with our overall media house strategy,” Modern Times chief executive Hans-Holger Albrecht said.
Following the non-cash transaction, Modern Times will own 95% of the enlarged Nova Televizia group and will continue to fully consolidate the results of the combined operations, the company said, while Apace will own 5% of the merged entity.
The assets being transferred from Balkan Media include Diema, Diema Family, Diema 2 and MM channels in Bulgaria, as well as Albanian language channel ERA TV in Macedonia. Nova Televizia operates the Nova TV channel, which is Bulgaria’s second most watched television station.
Text of press release by Paris-based satellite network provider
GlobeCast has announced that its African DTH [direct-to-home] platform has successfully started transmissions on SES Astra’s Astra 4A (Sirius 4) satellite. African broadcaster VoxAfrica is one of the first channels to sign up for the new platform which provides sub-Saharan Africa’s widest and most powerful coverage.
VoxAfrica called on GlobeCast to provide capacity and distribution its programming to Africa. The new platform on Astra 4A, located at 5 East is the first Ku-band DTH platform with coverage over sub-Saharan Africa, providing broadcasters with the opportunity to reach households across the continent.
GlobeCast has contracted one transponder on the satellite that facilitates uplink from Europe and is compliant to distribute services to IPTV or terrestrial network head-ends.
The new platform, which is an alternative to the pay TV bouquets in sub-Saharan Africa, responds to a strong demand for free-to-air Ku-band coverage of this crucial region. Several African broadcasters are already in contact with GlobeCast to secure positions in this coveted space and extend their audience to 56 African countries.
The Malaysian government has said it may be able to subsidise the bulk of the cost of switching to digital broadcasting, the New Straits Times reports.
Information Ministry Secretary-General Kamaruddin Siaraf said yesterday that viewers in Malaysia would not face the burden of paying more for digital transmissions if the government assumed responsibility for the system. “If the ministry is allowed to take the lead, we may subsidise the bulk of it, which would be the cost of replacing the transmitters.”
He was commenting on a statement by Abdul Rahman Ahmad, CEO of Malaysia’s biggest media company, Media Prima Berhad, that the industry cost of converting from analogue to digital could exceed US$270 million. Although Media Prima welcomed the proposal to switch to digital broadcasting, it expressed concern about the extra cost to the people and the industry.
Consumers are required only to purchase a set-up box to be fitted to television sets to receive digital signals once the digital system is in place in 2012. “We estimate that the set-up box will cost between RM300 (US$80) and RM500 (US$135) and that it would be a one-off purchase with no monthly charges,” Mr Kamaruddin said.
UPC Broadband has announced a major reorganisation and streamlining of its operations in Central and Eastern Europe.
It will see the regional management group overseeing six operating businesses in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic closed down on March 31.
From then, the businesses in question will report directly to Gene Musselman, president and CEO of UPC Broadband.
Musselman has also been appointed the interim MD of UPC Hungary.
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com
UPC goes for Fashion
By Chris Dziadul | March 9, 2009
Fashion TV has been added to the digital cable offers of UPC in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
It is being made available in the basic packages in both countries.
Fashion TV made its debut in the Czech Republic and Slovakia last week, initially to a combined total of just over 1 million homes.
Next generation of Freeview unveiled
Monday, March 9 2009,
Specifications for the next generation of Freeview have been published by the Digital TV Group, the UK's industry association for digital TV.
The new book of specifications takes into account plans to launch HD services as part of a development plan that uses the new DVB-T2 transmission standard and MPEG-4 compression to increase the digital terrestrial platform's capacity. It specifies HD standards for subtitles and interactive services, adds an automatic rescan function so that consumers do not have to manually retune boxes to receive new services, and also introduces a broadband return path to enable two-way interactivity.
"The launch of HD services on Freeview is a landmark in UK broadcasting and I am intensely proud of the role the DTG and its membership are playing," said Richard Lindsay-Davies, director general of the DTG. "The DTG was established by the industry over a decade ago to protect consumers and safeguard the reputations of distribution platforms and receiver manufacturers.
“This has been achieved by defining the detailed interoperability specification for UK DTT, and by the development and implementation of test specifications and test regimes to measure product conformance against brand requirements. I am delighted that the expertise we have gained creating the robust open standards that have helped Freeview reach 65% of UK homes can now be applied to DVB-T2 services, which will offer four channels of free-to-air HD programming and firmly establishing the UK as a world leader in DTT services. "
Lindsay-Davies added that the new specification would "ensure that Freeview HD receivers will meet levels of compliance achieved previously only on vertical or lower volume proprietary tandard platforms".
Sky proposes to develop C4 pay channels
Monday, March 9 2009,
Sky has issued a stinging rebuke to Channel 4's claims that its funding model is fundamentally broken and said it is disappointed that the Government has not considered the multichannel sector's contributions to public service broadcasting.
In a submission responding to communications minister Lord Carter's suggestion that a second public service broadcaster be formed around the core of Channel 4, Sky said that the channel's model is not broken because despite the advertising downturn, "Channel 4 has a strong balance sheet and has accumulated sufficient financial reserves to see it through the current recession".
Sky criticised Channel 4's decision to invest in "unprofitable non-core commercial activities", of which it said "most... have been poor any any reasonable standard, and would not have been allowed to proceed in an organisation with a more disciplined financial ethos". It said Channel 4 had accumulated losses of £270m over the last ten years from these investments, which include the now-axed plans to launch digital radio services.
It called on Channel 4 to come up with its own proposals for "self-help" and suggested that it spend some of its cash reserves, eliminate loss-making commercial ventures and rebalance its programme spend away from US imports and redirect the funds to UK production.
Sky also said that Channel 4 needed to diversify its revenue source out of a complete reliance on advertising.
"Channel 4's decision to exit from subscription channels in 2004, when it declined to renew carriage agreements with Sky and other pay TV retailers for its E4 and FilmFour channels, was a strategic mistake that has left it more exposed in the current downturn," it asserted. "Based on our experience of supporting third party channel partners, we would be prepared to work with Channel 4 to create a profitable suite of pay channels that will complement and provide financial support to its core free-to-air public service network."
Sky said that the government should take into account its £1bn investment in UK programme production across its channels and the £300m it pumps into joint-venture channels with A&E, Discovery, Nickelodeon and Disney.
"Given this track record, we are surprised that there has been very little consideration of the potential opportunities that pay television affords by Ofcom and Government in the wider policy debate about the future funding of public service content," Sky said
Ad joy for TVP, Viva Polska
By Chris Dziadul | March 9, 2009 | 07:27 UK
February was an extraordinarily good month for ad income for the Polish public broadcaster TVP and the thematic channel Viva Polska.
Data produced by TNS OBOP for Wirtualne Media shows that TVP’s first channel secured revenues of PLN119,370,152 (€25,41,421) and its second PLN79,146,961, or 16.9% and 23.8% more than in the same month in 2008.
Viva Polska, on the other hand, posted PLN26,383,855, a year-on-year increase of 143.1%.
The biggest falls in ad revenues among the main broadcasters were at TV Puls (-21.8%) and Polsat (-12.3%), and 4fun TV (-39.4%) and TVN24 (-16.1%) among the thematic channels.
France uncovers “large number” of illegal retransmissions
By Robert Briel | March 9, 2009 | 08:19 UK
In France, the media authority CSA has uncovered a “large number” of illegal retransmissions during the analogue switch-over process. In many cases, these unlicenced transmitters are used as gap-fillers to improve reception of the terrestrial analogue broadcasts. In many cases, the transmitters were set up by local municipalities
According to local press reports, these transmitters will have to fit into the national frequency plan or must cease transmissions. The CSA said the national digital coverage plan calls for 95% reach of the “historical” terrestrial channels at a national level; or 91% at a departemental level. But the authority also said that for the “new” FTA channels, potential reach will be less. People wanting to receive these channels will have to switch to satellite reception, where services such as TNTSat offer all the FTA terrestrial channels.
The CSA also found illegal retransmissions of four Catalan channels from neighbouring Spain in the Catalan part of the country, around the city of Perpignan. Until recently, these retransmissions were tolerated, but the analogue transmitters have been switched off on February 19th. Meanwhile, the Catalan government has requested official permission to include these rebroadcasts in the digital terrestrial frequency plan.
Pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB has heavily criticised Channel 4 for “wasting” £270m on a slew of failed businesses. BSkyB made the allegations in a letter to the UK government’s Communications Minister, Lord Stephen Carter. Channel 4 has widely let it be known that the advertising downturn means it is facing a funding gap of some £150m in the next few years.
The cash crisis is so severe that Channel 4’s bosses have volunteered drastic cuts in their own (perhaps generous) salaries and bonuses. Kevin Lygo, C4 director of television and content, has cut 25% from his basic £750,000 salary and said he will not take a bonus this year. Last year his total remuneration package was more than £1m. C4 has cut staff by 15% already, and has trimmed its £620m programming budget by £40m.
BSkyB’s letter forms part of its submission to Lord Carter’s UK Digital Report. The full report is due in early summer. Sky says that C4 is in a much stronger financial position than many of its commercial broadcasting rivals, and has cash reserves of £425m, and argues that C4 should quit many of its unprofitable ventures, and instead create new sources of revenues. Those could include a portfolio of paid for channels which Sky would offer to viewers.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Greece catches IPTV fever
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The Greek broadband provider Hellas online (HOL) is launching a new IPTV service. It features access to the main Greek free-to-air channels, news, information, music, children’s and sports drawn from around the world and – for the first time in Greece – HD content.
The company says its VOD offer features hundreds of titles. There is also a significant amount of entertainment and sports content available free of charge.
Hellas has chosen the Microsoft Mediaroom middleware to drive its functionality that includes automatic recordings from the 14-day electronic programme guide. It is also possible to display photographs from the local network directly onto the TV set. The IPTV decoder is manufactured by Motorola.
HOL, which is part of the Intracom Holdings group, is one of the largest providers of fixed telephony services in Greece.
Separately, On Demand Group (ODG), a subsidiary of SeacChange International, has announced details of the VOD and SVOD content line-up for the incumbent telco OTE’s new IPTV platform.
It will include blockbuster movies from major Hollywood studios including Disney-ABC-ESPN Television, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.
SES Astra has announced that it will be moving the Astra 2C satellite from its current orbital position at 28.2 degrees East to 31.5 degrees East to take over the mission of Astra 5A, which is no longer in service.
Astra 2C will be moved to 31.5 degrees East in April and remain there for approximately one year. In the meantime, the services transmitted via 28.2 degrees East will continue to be broadcast from the other satellites co-located at this orbital position.
Astra 2C will be able to operate 24 BSS transponders at 31.5 degrees East, thereby continuing the commercialization of this orbital position.
Following the launch of Astra 3B in the fourth quarter of 2009 and its subsequent deployment, another in-orbit satellite will be moved to 31.5 degrees East, permitting the return of Astra2C to 28.2 degrees East and to enhance capacity at this orbital position.
Ferdinand Kayser, president and CEO of SES Astra, said in a statement: “The move of Astra 2C demonstrates our strong commitment to develop 31.5 degrees East into an important position, especially for Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time our fleet flexibility allows us to redeploy Astra 2C at 28.2 degrees East after the launch of Astra 3B in order to serve the growth in the UK market, particularly coming from High Definition (HD) broadcast services.”
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The Portuguese language documentary channel Canal Odisseia is set to launch in Angola and Mozambique on the pay-TV platform Multichoice Africa, it was announced by Chellomedia.
Canal Odisseia is a documentary channel from Chello Multicanal offering a mix of cross genre programmes through in-house & co-productions, and acquisitions. The channel presents documentaries on nature, current
affairs & social issues, people & places, travel, arts, science & technology.
Odisseia is available on pay TV, cable and satellite in Portugal and Spain, and reaches six million homes. Odisseia joins its sister channel, Canal Panda, on the Multichoice platform. Canal Panda, Chello Multicanal’s Portuguese kids’ channel, which was launched on Multichoice Africa in August last year.
Satellite operator SES is shortly to move its Astra 2C craft from 28.2 deg East to a new home at 31.5 deg East, taking over the mission formerly carried out by Astra 5A which is no longer in service.
Astra 2C will be moved to 31.5 deg East in April 2009 and will remain there for approximately one year. In the meantime, the services transmitted via 28.2 degrees East will continue to be broadcast from the other satellites co-located at this orbital position. Astra 2C will be able to operate 24 transponders at 31.5 deg East, “thereby continuing the commercialization of this orbital position,” says SES.
Following the launch of Astra 3B later this year and its subsequent deployment, another in-orbit satellite will be moved to 31.5 deg East, permitting the return of Astra 2C to 28.2 degrees East and to enhance capacity at this orbital position.
Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES Astra, said: “The move of Astra 2C demonstrates our strong commitment to develop 31.5 degrees East into an important position, especially for Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time our fleet flexibility allows us to redeploy Astra 2C at 28.2 degrees East after the launch of Astra 3B in order to serve the growth in the UK market, particularly coming from High Definition (HD) broadcast services.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
International technology company NDS has won a significant contract in Switzerland from Kudelski's Nagravision. The country’s largest pay-TV operator Teleclub will in future encrypt its digital subscription package on cable networks in VideoGuard.
For existing subscribers Teleclub will continue to use Nagravision, the system developed by Swiss company Kudelski, in simulcrypt mode for the time being. New set-top-boxes will be equipped with VideoGuard from the outset.
With Teleclub’s decision to adopt VideoGuard, NDS has achieved a landmark coup: The company has not only won its first contract in Switzerland, but also snatched away one of its arch rival’s customers in its home country.
At the same time, NDS has strengthened its market position in German-speaking Europe. Its existing customers comprise Premiere, Kabel BW, KabelKiosk/Tele Columbus/PrimaCom, Arcor and Telekom Austria. NDS and Teleclub want to commence deployment of VideoGuard over the next few weeks. The pay-TV broadcaster currently has more than 80,000 subscribers on cable networks.
“We are more than proud to announce that Teleclub, one of Europe’s true pay-TV pioneers, having started operations back in 1982, has chosen to entrust VideoGuard conditional access (CA) to secure its premium pay-TV programming and protect its service revenues,” said Yves Padrines, vice president, business development at NDS and general manager of the company’s German subsidiary NDS GmbH.
With Teleclub, NDS has signed up CA agreements with a total of six major pay-TV platforms in German-speaking territories, Padrines added. “We look forward to supporting Teleclub in its upcoming initiatives to deliver to subscribers the pay-TV services they want.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
France’s Assembly is this week examining the new anti-piracy law project that plans to prevent illegal use of cultural works on internet and to set up retaliation measures. Supported by Minister of Culture Christine Albanel, this reform project was passed last October in Senate. But the plan to cut the internet subscription of pirates after two warnings is still under debate among deputies.
Some denounce the plan to disconnect repeat offenders as infringing civil liberties. At the same time, the French government is also pleading for the development of an attractive legal and cultural offer (music and movies). Majority party UMP estimates that illegal downloads are mostly responsible for the 50% fall of music sales in France over the last five years. According to a recent poll, 37% of French internauts acknowledge having practised illegal downloads or using pirated contents.
To encourage the development of new legal offers, French Ministry of Culture is going to propose that the media chronology be changed so as to reduce to four months the video delay between the movie theatrical release and the video (DVD and VoD) release. It takes currently six to seven months.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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Universal action and suspense 13ème Rue has topped Médiamétrie’s bi-yearly Mediacabsat survey that measures the audience of 90 channels. It reached a 1% marketshare on susbcribers vs 0.8% six months earlier. However, traditional market leader Eurosport (TF1), whose ratings are now measured daily like other channels like Paris Première, RTL9, LCI and TV Breizh, is not subscribing anymore to Mediacabsat.
French TV viewing reached 3 hours and 47 minutes between September 2008 and February 2009 and was ten minutes above the national average in cabsat households. Among these households, the marketshare of cabsat and DTT channels reached 39.4% over the period (vs 38.4% in 2007-2008). This broke down to 29.9% for theme channels, 6.5% for DTT channels and 3% for local, regional and foreign channels.
M6 women’s channel Téva came in second position with a 0.8% marketshare, up 0.1% over one year. It is followed in third place by kids channel Canal J (Lagardère Active) that tied with Comédie ! (Canal+), Disney Channel, Jetix (Disney) and Série Club (M6 and TF1). They all reached a 0.7% market share, down a significant 0.3% for Canal J over one year, but up 0.1% for Comédie !, 0.2% for Disney Channel, 0.4% for Jetix and stable for Série Club over the same twelve-month period. Jetix’ significant leap among kids channels is a good way to bow out as new Disney boy-oriented channel Disney XD will replace it as of April 1.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Following the promulgation of the new broadcast law by President Sarkozy, French private networks TF1 et M6 have announced they will progressively introduce a second ad break into movies and magazine programming.
TF1 started yesterday during the broadcast of a daytime TV drama while M6 will introduce a new ad slot as of March 15 in access and prime-time magazines Capital, D&Co and Zone Interdite.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Radio no-no for UPC
By Chris Dziadul | March 11, 2009
UPC is no longer required to offer radio stations as part of its cable offer in Slovakia.
Medialne reports that the country’s Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission (RVR) has ruled that the operator is exempt from must-carry rules for radio stations in its basic offer.
In the regulator’s view, the exemption should apply as cable is not used as the principal mode of reception of radio services in Slovakia.
UPC is the leading cable operator in Slovakia and currently has around 30,000 subscribers receiving its digital TV service.
Cyfrowy Polsat to expand portfolio
By Chris Dziadul | March 11, 2009 | 10:01 UK
The Polish DTH platform Cyfrowy Polsat is to acquire an 11% stake in the telco Sferia for almost PLN54 million (€11.47 million).
According to PB, the move represents a consolidation assets controlled by the entrepreneur Zygmunt Solarz-Zak and is being made possible by a share issue at Sferia.
It also represents part of a strategy to offer integrated multi-play services.
Cyfrowy Polsat is the leading provider of DTH services in Poland, with over 2.7 million subscribers.
2010 commercial launch for Freeview HD
By Julian Clover | March 11, 2009
DVB WORLD – BERLIN. The BBC is aiming to have its terrestrial HD service up and running in time for the 2010 World Cup with Freeview looking to target the upmarket ABC1 groups that have found the Freeview+ PVR so attractive.
Cheryl Sloan, director of strategy and new product development, Freeview, said that of the 14 million HD Ready sets already in the market, 26% were already in Freeview homes, this she said represented “low hanging fruit”.
“It’s looking like we should be able to reach 30-40% of the population by 2010 in time for the World Cup in that year,” said Graham Plumb, head of distribution technology, BBC Distribution. The anticipation is that boxes could be priced around the £100 mark.
Plumb said there had been some hard decisions along the way, particularly concerning the use of the 1080p standard, the so-called “Full HD”. “It was a brisk and painful debate, but we decided if we looked at it they would not be able to launch in time, so we if we had of included 1080p we wouldn’t be able to launch in time, although the receivers will be able to upscale.”
Describing the benefits of the DVB-T2 technology that will be used to deliver the UK’s HDTV service, Plumb said he was anticipating capacity savings of 50% on DVB-T. The Crystal Palace main transmitter switched on by Arqiva on February 20, joining the Guildford transmitter that had been on-air since June 27 last year.
Panasonic, Pace, Humax, Sony, Sidsa, NXP and ST Microelectronics are all participating in the tests.
The past few months have been tough at pay-radio outfit Sirius-XM, with talk of bankruptcy, debt-burdens, and most especially the near-collapse of the US auto market with all that means for ‘new’ subscribers to pay-radio. Sirius-XM’s pro-forma results showed some useful improvements.
First, the company added 82,945 net new subs during the pre-Christmas quarter, and ended 2008 with subs up 10% y-o-y at 19m (17.3m at end of 2007). Revenues were also up 16%, taking quarterly revenue to $622m against market expectations of $615m. The pre-Christmas quarter was the first when both the Sirius and XM portions were trading together. As to 2008’s numbers the business had pro-forma revenues of $2.44bn.
Not that all worries were eliminated. For example, in the same quarter year 2007 the two – then rival – broadcasters added 1.1m new subs, so this past quarter’s 82,945 is a concern. Churn was up slightly, from 1.7% in 2007 to 1.8% in 2008. Digging a little deeper into the subs numbers it is clear that the company lost about 131,000 subs who had bought and installed sat-radio receivers in their existing cars. But the company gained about 218,000 subscribers whose radios came installed in their new cars. The company has often said that it is in so many more new cars compared with the past that even with slowing car sales, its subscriber numbers will continue to improve.
In February Sirius-XM was 40% acquired by Liberty Media, which helped bail out Sirius-XM with a $500m infusion to help pay off debt obligations.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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M6 Group has announced operating income down 17.8% in 2008 at €194m. Net result group share reached €138.4 million last year down 17.9% vs last year.
While M6 Group consolidated revenues were almost stable in 2008 at €1.35bn, the group explained the decreasing results in relation to “the decline of M6 Network contribution due to the Euro 2008 broadcasting costs.” M6, like TF1, acquired the rights for €50 million each. “Excluding sports event, the cost of programming as well as other operating expenses were under control,” M6 added.
M6 network contribution to EBITA amounted to €137.8m, down 29.9% with programming costs standing at €347m, Euro 2008 included. Digital channels confirmed their role as “growth drivers” with a strong increase in EBITA contribution to €18.9m compared to €0.3m in 2007.
DTT channels reported their “first profitable year”. Diversification and audiovisual rights contribution stood at €42.3m, slightly down compared to 2007.
© Rapid TV News 2009
On Demand Group, part of Seachange Int’l, has won the VOD and subscription VOD contract from OTE, Greece’s Hellenic Telecoms Organisation, for its upcoming IPTV service.
OTE’s FilmExpress transaction VOD (TVOD) service includes blockbuster movies from major Hollywood studios including Disney-ABC-ESPN Television (WALL-E, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,), Universal Studios (Mamma Mia, The Incredible Hulk), Paramount Pictures (Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), and Warner Bros. (Sweeney Todd, Batman: The Dark Knight), plus a selection of library titles from the above studios including Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Disney-ABC-ESPN Television), The Bourne Identity (Universal Studios), Forrest Gump, (Paramount Pictures), and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner Bros.). Subscribers to the service can select a movie of their choice for a 24-hour rental period with full DVD-like features including control to pause, fast forward, rewind or watch over again.
OTE’s FilmClub subscription VOD (SVOD) service includes a wide range of TV series from CBS (Sex and the City, Star Trek: Enterprise), HBO (The Sopranos, Entourage), HIT (Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine), Lions Gate (Mad Men, The Kill Point), and Warner Bros. (ER, Babylon 5), as well as documentaries from National Geographic. The SVOD service also includes library movies from HBO, Lions Gate, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., and hundreds of international and local music videos from EMI, Universal Music and Sony Music. Subscribers will also receive more than 30 digital broadcast channels.
Tony Kelly, CEO of ODG said: “We are very pleased to be able to provide a compelling TVOD and SVOD offer to OTE for its IPTV launch. The range of movies, TV series, kids programming, documentaries and music videos will help to underpin the successful launch and regular and sustained viewing of VOD in Greece.”
On Demand Group provides services for customers such as Virgin Media, Kabel Deutschland, Unity Media, Telekom Austria and others. ODG is Virgin Media TV’s content management partner for their successful VOD service in the UK, which is the largest VOD service outside of North America with over 50m views per month.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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TV broadcaster MTV Networks can go ahead with the launch of its children’s channel Nick Jr. in Germany after anti-media concentration commission KEK gave the green light.
With entertainment and educational programmes, Nick Jr. will target pre-school children aged 3 to 5 years. The channel, which will be available on digital pay-TV platforms, will be launched later this year, although an exact date has not yet been set. An MTV Networks spokeswoman said that this would be dependent on the course of negotiations with platform operators.
Nick Jr., which was launched in the USA in 1988, is already available in various European countries including the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands. In mid-January MTV Networks announced the channel’s market introduction to Germany.
© Rapid TV News 2009
News Outdoor, News Corp’s outdoor billboard business in Russia, has been hit with a $31m claim from Russia’s Federal Tax Service. The bill is very much disputed by News Corp.
According to Mosnews, News Outdoor allegedly engaged in activities other than outdoor advertising in 2006, and therefore had no right to claim tax benefits available to such advertisers. As a result, Federal Tax Service says that News Outdoor now owes the tax authorities 247 million roubles in income tax, and 679 million roubles in VAT, together making almost 14% of News Outdoor’s turnover in 2007-2008.
News Outdoor is reportedly going to file an appeal, and says it can prove that its Russian business was working within the law. However, it is somewhat stymied because Russia’s Interior Ministry is still holding onto documents seized in a complaint against the Murdoch-owned company. Last September News Outdoor’s Russian offices were raided by investigators from the prosecutor general’s office and accused of receiving illegal discounts on Moscow billboard advertising from 2002 to 2007, says Mosnews. The claim was later rejected by a Moscow court.
Rupert Murdoch is on record as saying he was concerned about further investments in Russia.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Package RTL World Astre 3A
AAKTUALIZOVÁNO - on satellite Astra 3A (23.5 ° E), unexpectedly discovered a packet with the German RTL World thematic channels RTL - namely RTL Crime, RTL Living and Passion.All of these stations at the time of publishing the text broadcast free-to-air, so it can (and can) tune all satellite viewers who receive programs from this position.
Station RTL Living is intended not only women but also men. Index consists of the lifestyle magazine, docu soap, programs about cooking, garden, and magazines about the construction and travel. RTL Crime appeals mainly for men. Broadcast channel is composed of domestic and foreign series on the theme of crime. Passion is the first German digital thematic channel dedicated to a never-ending series, telenovelám and romantic series.
RTL Living, RTL Crime and Passion are paid channels and therefore free of the stations broadcasting on the 23.5 ° E is only temporary and is not yet clear whether these stations broadcasting on the 23.5 ° E is temporary or permanent (at 19.2 ° E are the same programs are coded and included pay-TV platform Premiere and Arenas).
RTL World package is transmitted to the satellite Astra 3A (23.5 ° E), the frequency of 12,689 GHz, vertical polarization, SR 6111, FEC 3 / 4, DVB-S.
Image for article: package RTL World Astre 3A
RTL Crime, service ID 12010, video PID 200, audio PID 201 RTL Crime, service ID 12010, video PID 200, audio PID 201
RTL Living, service ID 12030, video PID 210, audio PID 211 RTL Living, service ID 12030, video PID 210, audio PID 211
Passion, service ID 13207, video PID 2070, audio PID 2071 Passion, service ID 13207, Video PID 2070, audio PID 2071
Eutelsat is ordering a new satellite, dubbed W3C, to replace the W2M craft lost after in-orbit problems occurred in January. The new satellite will come from Thales Alenia Space, and should be launched in Q3/2011.
The decision to build a replacement also has Eutelsat having to change some of the upcoming missions and locations. The original plan for W2M was for it to replace well in advance Eutelsat's W2 satellite. As a result of this January problem, Eutelsat decided that the W3B satellite, which is already one year into construction, will replace W2 from the middle of 2010, raising available capacity at 16 deg East to 56 transponders from its current manifest of 27 transponders.
W3B, says Eutelsat, had the dual mission of accompanying the expansion and in-orbit redundancy of Eutelsat's 7 degrees East position and to ensuring a solution for continuity of service in the event of the loss of W2M, W2A or W7. The W3C satellite will now assume this double mission of boosting by more than 50% available capacity at 7 degrees East, or ensuring - if required - Ku-band continuity of service for future satellites, namely W2A, W7 or W3B.
Scheduled for launch in third quarter 2011 and equipped with 56 transponders, W3C will be based on the Spacebus 4000 platform of Thales Alenia Space. Its co-positioning with Eutelsat's W3A satellite will expand capacity at 7 degrees East from 44 to 70 transponders. The co-positioning of both satellites underscores Eutelsat's objective to transform 7 degrees East into a flagship position, repeating the multi-satellite strategy pursued at 13 degrees East which has enabled the Hot Bird satellites to develop into the leading neighbourhood worldwide for the number of channels broadcast.
With optimised coverage of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, the W3A satellite at 7 degrees East already broadcasts close to 200 television channels and carries professional video and data services. The additional resources will enable Eutelsat to support expanding business of existing customers, notably broadcasters now launching their first HDTV channels.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Hong Kong's i-Cable crashed to a net loss of HK$111 million for 2008, compared with a profit of HK$183 million in 2007. The company characterised the Hong Kong pay-TV and telecoms markets as “a war of attrition”.
Revenues fell, both overall and in its pay-TV division, down 10% to HK$2,080 million overall and down 15% for pay-TV to HK$1,355 million. Pay-TV subs actually rose 4% to 917,000 from the previous year-end figure of 882,000.
Operating profit fell from HK$545 million in 2007 to HK$277 million, with network and other operating expenses up from HK$419 million to HK$487 million. Selling, general and admin expenses also rose markedly, up from HK$390 million to HK$423 million.
Operating profit from i-Cable’s pay-TV division was down from HK$179 million to just HK$6 million.
In a results statement, the company said: “Within the Pay TV market, competition remained intense. Our main competitor [PCCW’s Now TV] has been following our lead to launch local channels that focus on news and entertainment in order to chip away at our leadership in these areas. The Group will continue to invest to solidify our edge.
“With the markets becoming saturated, it is a war of attrition for both broadcasting and telecommunications services with the players trying to poach subscribers from one another via aggressive pricing, enhanced content and service quality. But the Group's strong balance sheet and low cost base will put us in a good position to stay competitive in a harsh environment.”
The operating environment for the year ahead would remain bleak under the “prevailing macro-economic climate” but i-Cable claims it has now braced itself for “subsequent waves by better equipping ourselves. The Group has acquired premier and attractive contents; is building up a new defence system against piracy; and gearing up for delivering new services such as High Definition TV.”
These initiatives will not take effect until the second half of the year but the company is hoping to be “back on a recovery track” when the economy turns around.
However, a new report from Paul Budde Communication casts doubt on the company’s resilience. The report, which examines Hong Kong’s mobile, telecoms and broadband sectors, states that having lost its leadership position to Now TV, i-Cable could be in for worse times.
“In a densely packed market with over 2 million TV households, PCCW ended 2008 with nearly 930,000 video subscribers in Hong Kong with a paying base of 670,000…Besides losing its historic market share edge, i-Cable may start shedding subscribers during 2009,” says the report.
© Rapid TV News 2009
A motion filed on March 12 to the Delaware Bankruptcy Court argues that Worldspace has submitted incorrect information to the Court, at least as far as its Washington HQ lease might be concerned. The claim comes from Worldspace’s landlord at 8515 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC.
Worldspace hasn’t paid the rent on its HQ offices since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October. Worldspace owes the landlords $195,512 to the end of March. Worldspace has asked the Court to permit the delayed payment for another 90 days.
Worldspace told the Court that until it knew who the successful bidder was for Worldspace’s assets they could not determine whether the Headquarters lease will be assigned to a buyer. This is not true, say the landlord’s lawyers. We now know that the successful bidder was a Noah Samara-owned business, Yenura Pte Ltd, and the March 9 ‘sale’ of Worldspace’s assets specifically excluded the HQ lease. In other words “the lease is not being included as part of the sale,” argue the lawyers, cheekily adding that “[Worldspace] obviously does not to intend to reorganise and continue its business since it is selling all of its assets needed to operate…and thus has no need to retain the HQ lease.”
The Motion adds: “The lease is no longer an important asset of the estate since it is not being sold [to the new Worldspace owners]. Indeed, in light of the fact that [Worldspace] has sold all of its assets and must be ceasing business operations leads to the inevitable conclusion that the lease is not required for any plan of reorganisation.”
© Rapid TV News 2009
Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB’s CEO (and former CFO) told the Financial Times that his pay-TV subscribers were trading down a little. Asked what 2009’s recession looked like in terms of its own business, Darroch said “It's difficult to predict exactly - 2009 is going to be a difficult year for the consumer environment.”
Darroch confirmed that “so far” pay-TV income had proved to be “pretty resilient” to the downturn and that through 2008 Sky had grown at a slightly faster rate than 2007. But he was cautious on what might be happening to subscribers and Sky’s top tier bundles.
Asked whether subscribers were “trading down”, Darroch admitted this was happening “a bit… Right across our business what we are seeing are more marginal pressures and we are certainly seeing more customers come in at a basic level and a bit more pressure in terms of downgrades. Conversely, though, we're also seeing customers taking more services from us. One of the things we are seeing is that TV remains central to people's lives. They are consuming more TV than ever before.”
He told the FT – and perhaps referring obliqely to the current dilemma at Tiscali - that Sky had no need to buy another Internet company. “We've worked hard over the past few years to assemble the distribution assets we think are going to be competitive for the long term, and that is why we acquired our own broadband network three years ago. If there are opportunities we will be open-minded, but there is not really anything we feel we need to do,” he said.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Echostar’s DISH Network has added another cluster of “national” (as distinct from local-into-local) HD channels to its portfolio – and promises more for this Spring.
On March 12 Dish launched HD feeds of Showtime Showcase HD, SHO2 HD, The Movie Channel HD and BET J, expanding its national HD count to 128 channels. In addition, DISH Network also announced that it will add BET, Comedy Central, CMT, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike TV and VH-1 in HD this spring.
"We are excited to add new national HD channels to our growing programming line-up," said Dave Shull, SVP of programming for DISH Network. "Our subscribers are asking us for more HD, and we're responding by continuing to launch new local HD markets and new national HD channels, making DISH Network the best value in the pay-TV industry."
Showtime Showcase HD, SHO2 HD and The Movie Channel HD are located in the Showtime Unlimited package, available for just $12.99 per month. BET J is part of PlatinumHD, which can be added to any programming package for $10 per month. Existing DISH Network subscribers who upgrade to HD programming will receive PlatinumHD free for the first three months.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/hope_channel.jpgChristian broadcaster Hope Channel has commenced transmissions in Germany. The 24-hour service is available free to air on Astra (19.2° East) in APS’ digital package on the frequency 12.149 GHz H (SR 27,500, FEC 3/4). A live-stream on the website at www.hopechannel.de is also offered.
The programmes, oriented around Christian values, cover areas such as health, family, education, advice and spirituality. The TV station, which was granted a broadcasting licence in January by media authority LPR, is backed by the church of the Seventh Day Adventist. Programmes are produced by German association “Stimme der Hoffnung“ (Voice of Hope), which already operates the radio station Hope Channel Radio, also available via Astra.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Sarajevo-based Bosnia Herzegovina TV-1 (BHTV1) switched off its transmissions on Friday night, admitting that it could not meet Eutelsat’s satellite transmission bill of almost €1 million.
BBC Monitoring carried a report saying BHTV1 said it owed €924,000 to Eutelsat, and that transmissions were being curtailed. “Because of the announced switch-off B-H's diaspora will not be able to receive B-H TV One and B-H Radio One. Also, B-H Radio-TV programmes will not be able to reach significant part of B-H's territory, because 38 land transmitters that receive the signal via satellite will be out of operation as of midnight tonight. This practically means that around 270,000 citizens in B-H will be left without B-H TV One reception and 82,000 without B-H Radio One,” said the station.
“As of tomorrow, Bosnia Herzegovina will be the only country in Europe that does not provide its public broadcaster with satellite transmission.”
“The B-H Council of Ministers announced that, at a session on 19 March, it would analyse ways of settling B-H Radio-TV's debt. B-H TV One and B-H Radio One programmes will continue to be available via www.bhrt.ba website,” said the station.
© Rapid TV News 2009
According to a report from Screen Digest the Blu-ray market is suffering from a shortage of replication factories. European consumers bought a total of 37.8m Blu-ray (BD) discs last year. This includes both straightforward video titles and games (for PS3 players). However, when you include the number of movies (and extra video content) that needed an extra disc the number of actual discs is significantly more.
Screen Digest reckons that this year a total of some 85.7m actual discs will be needed, helped along by rising BD hardware sales. By 2010 demand will top 150m total discs, touching 250m by 2011 and topping 300m during 2012.
There is also a material shift taking place in what consumers are buying. Last year, says the report, games accounted for 72% of consumer transactions. The volume of games discs will increase this year some 35%, but the percentage of games vs videos sold will fall to 43%.
There’s another shift happening. Traditionally most games are created on single layer 25GB discs. Screen Digest says its research shows that most videos are being released on the larger BD50 discs.
And there’s not enough factory replication about to handle this year’s anticipated volumes. In Europe alone the pattern during 2008 was such “that the BD replication lines operational by the first quarter of 2009 could, if running all year at maximum capacity, have been sufficient to meet these manufacturing requirements with no additional investment.”
But this is not the whole story. BD demand is highly seasonal which means that some 30% of pressing lines are largely redundant through much of the year. Last year 25% of European BD sales occurred during the first half of the year, with 60% happening in the pre-Christmas quarter. This pattern will happen again in 2009, suggests the study.
Therefore, despite Europe’s current 59 production lines for BD, Screen Digest says another “minimum” 18 further production lines will be needed to be made operational in readiness for this second half/2009, in order to handle the Q4 seasonal demand.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Two major investors in Irish-based pay-TV sports broadcaster Setanta have written off the value of their investment stakes in the broadcaster. Doughty Hanson, which owns about 20% of Setanta and investment bankers Goldman Sachs (5% stake) have reportedly written down their stakes to zero valuations.
Setanta is said to be reviewing its business strategy following the English (soccer) Premiership awarding 5 out of a possible 6 bundles of TV soccer rights to BSkyB, leaving Setanta with just 50% of the already meagre cluster of matches it currently transmits. The new rights package kicks in with the 2010-11 season.
London newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that Setanta is reviewing its assets and options, which include possibly reducing its existing coverage of boxing and rugby.
While the two investors might only be making prudent accounting provision for their Setanta valuations, it does not mean that Setanta has zero value. However, raising more cash to acquire other rights might now be even more difficult with positive sentiment ebbing away.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Eutelsat is ordering a new satellite, dubbed W3C, to replace the W2M craft lost after in-orbit problems occurred in January. The new satellite will come from Thales Alenia Space, and should be launched in Q3/2011.
The decision to build a replacement also has Eutelsat having to change some of the upcoming missions and locations. The original plan for W2M was for it to replace well in advance Eutelsat's W2 satellite. As a result of this January problem, Eutelsat decided that the W3B satellite, which is already one year into construction, will replace W2 from the middle of 2010, raising available capacity at 16 deg East to 56 transponders from its current manifest of 27 transponders.
W3B, says Eutelsat, had the dual mission of accompanying the expansion and in-orbit redundancy of Eutelsat's 7 degrees East position and to ensuring a solution for continuity of service in the event of the loss of W2M, W2A or W7. The W3C satellite will now assume this double mission of boosting by more than 50% available capacity at 7 degrees East, or ensuring - if required - Ku-band continuity of service for future satellites, namely W2A, W7 or W3B.
Scheduled for launch in third quarter 2011 and equipped with 56 transponders, W3C will be based on the Spacebus 4000 platform of Thales Alenia Space. Its co-positioning with Eutelsat's W3A satellite will expand capacity at 7 degrees East from 44 to 70 transponders. The co-positioning of both satellites underscores Eutelsat's objective to transform 7 degrees East into a flagship position, repeating the multi-satellite strategy pursued at 13 degrees East which has enabled the Hot Bird satellites to develop into the leading neighbourhood worldwide for the number of channels broadcast.
With optimised coverage of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, the W3A satellite at 7 degrees East already broadcasts close to 200 television channels and carries professional video and data services. The additional resources will enable Eutelsat to support expanding business of existing customers, notably broadcasters now launching their first HDTV channels.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/star_trek_city_on_edge.jpgParamount listed the show as Episode 28, and the show was first aired on April 6 1967. But there was something special about Star Trek’s “The City on the Edge of Forever” that clicked with the public and critics. Written by Harlan Ellison, he is now suing CBS Paramount TV for 25% of the net receipts from merchandising, publishing and other income from the show. What made the episode so important?
The show has Captain Kirk and his pals interfering with the time-space continuum, and ‘leaping’ back to New York during the 1930’s Great Depression. The episode also featured Joan Collins who played a Salvation Army-type helper at the 21st Street Mission.
Ellison’s action alleges that Paramount has “earned millions” exploiting the show since it was first shown, and that “Paramount has not accounted to Ellison or paid him for such exploitations as it is required to do under the 1960 minimum basic agreement and 1966 Amendment." Speaking to a trade magazine, Ellison said “I'm doing it for the 35-year-long disrespect and the money!"
Some other fascinating facts about “Edge of Forever”: It won instant critical acclaim, getting onto TV Guide’s 100 greatest TV episodes of all time. Ellison’s original script (although altered by the time the show went into production) won the WGA’s best dramatic 1-hour script of the season. William Shatner said it was his favourite Trek episode. The show was produced for $250,000, compared with the usual $185,000 per episode.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Conax is having a good year, especially in India where it is claiming 68% growth over the past year. Conax, owned by Telenor of Norway, says it is now the World’s third-largest supplier to the global content security market. Conax made the statement ahead of its exhibit at the Convergence India show, which opens today (March 18-20) in New Delhi.
In India, Conax says it is “trusted by major operators such as Dish TV, WWIL and Digicable, and is also successfully working with various other cable operators and content providers. Showing growth of 68% last year, Conax continues to strengthen its market position.”
Conax’ core offering, Conax CAS7, provides operators with highly secure content protection built on Conax’ 15 years of security experience and strong anti-piracy record. Conax security solutions are non-proprietary and based on an open licensing policy for set-top box (STB) manufacturers.
“Conax’ pioneering strategy has been an important factor for our success and growth in the region. A key element is Conax’ strategy and ongoing policy for development of non-discriminatory, non-royalty relationships with 100’s of STB vendors. In fact, the Conax strategy has encouraged STB providers to offer operators a rich selection of quality consumer devices and competitive pricing alternatives for all market segments,” said Geir Bjørndal, EVP Sales & Marketing, Conax.
“In today’s competitive digital TV market, digital broadcasting operators and content providers are looking to specialist solutions, like Conax, to secure their platforms and premium content. What makes Conax unique is that Conax focuses on content protection only, providing all other services through a strategic network of best in class partners,” confirmed Bjørndal.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/axn_hd.jpgOne of the most anticipated high definition TV channels in Portugal is AXN HD which will launch on pay TV operators ZON TV Cabo and Meo from April 6.
AXN HD will occupy ZON channel 61 and will be offered to ZON BOX cable subscribers taking the Clássico and Funtastic packages. It will also be part of the satellite offering from the operator, in the packages MAX TVCine, MAX and Total.
Meo will also integrate AXN HD into its satellite and IPTV offerings, while also inaugurating AXN's standard-definition version in Meo Satélite’s basic package.
Aside from AXN HD, ZON TV Cabo announced the arrival of four more new channels to its offering from April 6.
New HD channel, Brava HDTV, will offer opera, dance and concerts as a premium channel for €4.99 per month. The channel will be offered to subscribers in the Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra and Margem Sul do Tejo areas.
Also from April 6 the clients of the satellite TV operator subscribing to the packages Max TVCine, Max, Total and Base and those to the cableoperators with the Clássico package with digital boxes and those with the Funtastic package will start receiving Sony Entertainment Television.
Other ZON news is the addition of children’s channel Animax which will be distributed in the Funtastic package on the Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, and Margem Sul do Tejo's networks; and last but not least the addition of the English-language Russian channel Russia Today in the Clássico and Funtastic packages for subscribers also on the above networks.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Competition is ramping up in the French IPTV market, with two operators offering free access to Canal+ premium channels for short promotional periods.
IPTV penetration in France is world-leading, with some 5.6 million IPTV subscribers by October 2008. There are three major operators, Iliad’s Free, Neuf Cegetel and France Télécom’s Orange TV, the first two of whom plan the free Canal+ bouquet.
For two weeks, ending March 23, Free is letting all subscribers view the Canal+ bouquet of Canal+, Canal+ Sport, Canal+ Cinéma, Canal+ Décalé and Cinal+ family. From March 23 to April 2, Neuf Cegetel is mounting a similar offer.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/sesastra.jpgSatellite operator SES Astra’s Spanish market grew 14% last year for its digital services. This growth means that of 2.6 million Spanish homes using digital-satellite technology, 1.9 million got their signals from Astra.
The operator has a market share of 73% in Spain.
SES Astra is also a pioneer in the distribution of HD contents in Spain, through Sogecable's satellite pay TV operator Digital+. Also in Europe the company is leader in this market with nearly 70 HD channels on its fleet.
Finally SES Astra transports nearly 2,500 analogue, digital, radio stations and interactive services on its satellites.
© Rapid TV News 2009
The Philippines will be adopting Europe’s digital transmission DVB standard for its future broadcasting needs. The decision, anticipated for some time, was confirmed by the nation’s second Technical Working Group (TWG), which further investigated the options available, and ratified the initial study which favoured DVB.
This latest investigation examined Japan’s ISDB standard as well as the USA’s Advanced Television Standard, but came down in favour of the DVB system with the primary reason being the low-cost availability of set-top converter boxes.
NTC Deputy Commissioner Jorge Sarmiento said the TWG also conducted a comparative analysis study on the adoption of either a “single standard” or an “open standard” policy, including the socio-economic aspects of such migration, comments from the broadcasting operators and the cost of the digital boxes.
But the recommendation has yet to be approved by the country’s NTC. “The commission is in the process of studying and deliberating on the different DTT standards that would be chosen for adoption in the country. When approved, the target date of the full implementation would be at the end of 2015,” said Sarmiento.
He added the NTC may move further the December 31, 2015, target date for the mandatory shifting of all analog broadcast to DTT technology. “The technical working group, which includes the NTC, is still not yet sure whether or not to implement on the scheduled date or postpone the 2015 deadline given the socio-economic impact of the implementation,” he said.
© Rapid TV News 2009
The past few years have seen a number of bar owners prosecuted and fined for allegedly showing exclusive sports in their pubs and bars without paying royalties to the likes of BSkyB, Setanta and other rights-holders. A test case is now meandering towards the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and one expert says the case might make “uncomfortable reading” for Sky and other UK rights holders.
The case was transferred to the ECJ by the UK High Court. Trade publication BarKeeper says the case involves a number of British publicans demanding the right to use decoders and cards legitimately obtained and imported into the UK. The publicans argue that decoder cards legitimately purchased in Greece and imported by a distributor do not contravene European law that prevents pirated decoder cards being used to receive satellite TV signals illegally. They believe that under the EU’s free-trade laws, they should be allowed to import the decoders and cards from member states and the legal firm of Denton Wilde Sapte, representing a range of sporting bodies including the UK’s Premier League, believes that there’s a “strong possibility” that the outcome could destabilise BSkyB and Setanta’s right to demand payment for any coverage of Premier League matches in pubs in the UK.
This, say the lawyers, would have disastrous implications for the Premier League’s income from the satellite broadcasters. Any such ECJ and UK High Court finding in favour of the publicans would represent a direct challenge to the licensing of media rights on a territory-by-territory basis and to the willingness of pay-TV operators to pay handsomely for exclusive rights within their markets, commented Alex Haffner, a senior associate with Denton Wilde Sapte.
The Premier League has argued that an ECJ result against this practice would destabilise the market and disadvantage consumers.
For the UK’s publicans, however, a positive result would save them £9,000 a year. “We are watching this case with great interest,” VFI Chief Executive Padraig Cribben, told the trade publication. “However I think a hearing date of this summer might be optimistic. Sky is currently a massive cost to publicans and the return becomes more questionable all the time. The cost has been escalating at a time when the offering is reducing and sterling is working significantly in Sky’s favour. Our discussions with Sky to date have been less than encouraging,” he added, “A successful case in Europe would be of significant benefit.”
The Licensed Victuallers Association (which represents publicans) in Ireland is also watching this case with great interest as it has clear implications for the Irish market also, according to LVA Chief Executive Donall O’Keeffe.
© Rapid TV News 2009
India public broadcaster Doordarshan says it will carry the 2010 Commonwealth Games in HD. The Commonwealth Games broadcasting rules require that the host broadcaster produce an international broadcast feed in HD.
New Delhi, India’s capital city, is the host for the Games (Oct 3-14, 2010) and is reportedly upgrading and modernising its equipment and will be able to relay HD signals to its own citizens and the outside world. Doordarshan’s Chief Engineer R R Prasad said: “The existing technology at Prasar Bharati is being upgraded. DD is also trying to put at least one high-definition (HD) channel on its DTH (satellite) service to enable screening of the Games.”
But the public broadcaster is on a tight timetable. With barely 18 months to go before the event, Doordarshan is only now considering upgrading its analogue transmitters, and obtaining quotes for an upgrade. New HD studios in Delhi and Mumbai are planned along with improved facilities in Chennai and Kolkata.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Italy’s Mediaset will continue to invest in pay-TV as part of a two-pronged strategy which has free TV as the “core” business but pay-TV as a strategic asset for the future.
Mediaset Premium, the company’s pay-DTT offering, saw revenues rise 79% in 2008, to reach €404 million. During the year, the number of active cards rose from 2.1 million to 2.8 million, rising further to reach 3.225 million by mid-March.
New deals have been signed for soccer rights, with the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup) due to join the platform as well as new motor racing, including Grand Prix, coverage. Mediaset also plans an expansion of Premium’s pay-per-view movie offering to help it compete against News Corp’s Sky Italia. To date, over €1.7 billion has been invested in Mediaset’s digital-terrestrial service.
Breakeven for the pay-TV platform is set for 2010, with average revenue per user (ARPU) forecast to rise to €100 by that year. ARPU was up in 2008 to €80 from 2007’s €60.
Overall, Mediaset saw group profit fall 9.4% to €459 million on revenues up a meagre 4.2% to €4.251 billion.
© Rapid TV News 2009
http://www.rapidtvnews.com/images/stories/kindle.jpgFactual broadcaster Discovery Communications has accused Amazon of infringing patents Discovery holds on electronic book technology. The lawsuit claims that the original Kindle, as well as version 2 released in late February, infringes on technology developed by Discovery founder John S. Hendricks, who with two others, received a patent for the invention on November 20 2007.
The technology provides a "secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books," says Discovery. The company says it, and John Hendricks were significant players in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990s. Hendricks' work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books. Fellow patent-holders are Michael Asmussen and John McCoskey.
Joseph A. LaSala, Jr., General Counsel of Discovery Communications, said: "The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems. We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly. Our tradition as an inventive company has produced considerable intellectual property assets for our shareholders, and today's infringement litigation is part of our effort to protect and defend those assets."
Hendricks’ patent (No. 7,298,851) is owned by Discovery, and the broadcaster is asking the US District Court in Delaware for a jury trial.
The technology behind the 55-page patent seems comprehensive, right down to an EPG offering options such as “books you can order” and the supplying assorted themes (History, Romance, Business, etc) as well as listing “Books in your library” with “next shelf” and “previous shelf” options.
Discovery says it does not want Amazon to stop selling the Kindle, but is seeking damages, legal fees and an ongoing licensing deal.
© Rapid TV News 2009
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Cologne-based public broadcaster WDR has started test transmissions on the Eins Festival HD transponder on Astra at 19.2 degrees East.
The Westdeutscher Rundfunk had earlier said it would launch test transmissions in order to prepare for regular broadcasts. For the past year the Eins Festival HD transponder has been used for special HD showcase presentations first during the IFA exposition in Berlin and last Christmas.
At the moment, the German language HD offer on Astra is limited to the free-to-air channels Luxe.tv HD and Annixe HD and the two premium channels Discovery HD and Premiere HD. In the past few days there has been some speculation that ProSiebenSat.1 would resume HD broadcasts and that RTL is also contemplating launching HD; but so far there has been no official word from either of the broadcasters.
The Czech and Slovak pre-pay DTH platform Sky Link is to boost its HD offer.
Digizone reports, quoting unconfirmed sources, that it will introduce Discovery HD, FilmBox HD and History Channel HD on April 1, with testing likely to start a few days earlier.
It already offers Brava HD and Eurosport HD in both countries, along with Nova HD in the Czech Republic.
Sky Link claims a combined total of more than 500,000 customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Tough times for RCS/RDS
By Chris Dziadul | March 19, 2009 | 08:10 UK
Problems appear to be mounting at RCS/RDS, the operator of both Romania’s largest cable network and DTH platform.
ZF reports that a number of leading executives have left the company in recent months, some of them to work at rival companies such as UPC and Romtelecom.
These have recently restructured their businesses and now pose far greater threats to RCS/RDS than previously.
The latest person to leave RCS/RDS is Ovidiu Ghiman, one of the 15 most important people in the company, who has joined Romtelecom.
RCS/RDS has also just suffered a blow in neighbouring Hungary, where it was competing for the fourth mobile licence, the tender for which has been cancelled.
Owing to the current judicial procedures launched by Canal+ Group and competing telcos, France Télécom’s commercial brand Orange announced that it could suspend the sale of its new channel Orange Sport.
This option follows the decision in February of the Paris Court of Commerce asking France Télécom to stop tying the subscription of Orange Sport to the sale of a triple-play offer before March 24. The action was initiated by competitors Free and SFR.
Orange has appealed the judgement but needs to make a choice before next Tuesday, March 24.
Two other options are being studied by Orange : to pay the €50,000 daily fee or broadcast Orange Sport via satellite.
Should the company decide to expand distribution, while Orange may lose out in terms of exclusivity, it could sign up more subs to the channel, which as with all sports channels, is expensive to run.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Global satellite provider Intelsat reported an impressive set of revenue numbers for its Q4 and full-year (to Dec 31 2008) results.
Intelsat reported revenue of $608.8m ($575m in same period last year) and a net loss of $524.2m (loss of $2.57m) for its Q4 ended December 31, 2008. The net loss includes non-cash charges of $326.8m for orbital location impairments and $186.6m for a loss on undesignated interest rate swaps. The company’s EBITDA was a loss of $71.1m
Intelsat’s full-year revenues were $2,364.9m ($2,174m for 2008), which translated into a net loss of $1,198.2m (loss of $886m for 2008).
Making financial sense of Intelsat’s year-on-year position is not easy given that it has gone through a complex financial restructuring over the past two years, and also absorbed PanAmSat during the same period.
Intelsat’s system average fill rate on its approximately 2,125 station-kept transponders remained at 83% at December 31, 2008, the same rate as at September 30, 2008. In Q4, 19 net new transponders were put into service.
Intelsat announced several new launch contracts and its intent to accelerate the build and launch of 3 satellites, increasing the current number of satellites in development to 10, including the New Dawn satellite announced in December 2008.
Included in the 2009 launch program is the Intelsat 14 satellite that will feature a government-related hosted payload known as the Internet Router in Space, or IRIS. The Intelsat 15 satellite is also expected to launch in 2009.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Eutelsat is helping promote 3D at an upcoming Italian conference. The complete end-to-end 3D broadcasting chain will be showcased at the Sat Expo Europe show in Rome from March 19-21 using capacity on Eutelsat's Eurobird 3 satellite.
For the broadcast, a live 3D music performance is being filmed, transmitted and projected in stereo 3D-HD onto a cinema screen and prototype 3D-HD television sets.
Organised by Eutelsat, OpenSky and dBW, the demonstration is reproducing in full the conditions of a live 3D event. The three-dimensional shooting and production is managed by dBW, a Rome-based production company, while OpenSky, which specialises in transmitting digital content via satellite is managing the encoding, decoding and projection.
The three companies have also agreed to combine their resources and expertise in order to be able to provide end-to-end 3D services in Europe, from filming to playout.
The full-scale Rome 3D demo is, says Eutelsat, “a prelude to a radically new way of experiencing cinema and television content. In addition to enabling an audience to share the same level of sensation as in a theatre for a live performance, stereo 3D-HD has the potential to enrich the entertainment offer in cinemas and theatres and transform them into innovative multimedia entertainment centres delivering premium content.”
Eurobird 9A satellite has been transmitting a test 3D channel over the last three months as a test-bed to analyse the performance of screens, encoders and decoders, and to gather experience on the use of 3D content in the home and public locations.
Giuliano Berretta, Eutelsat CEO said: "This new step towards 3D broadcasting continues Eutelsat's longstanding commitment to innovation that opens satellites to a new generation of applications. Early and close collaboration between all actors in the broadcasting chain will be a key success factor for this new broadcasting revolution and we are very pleased to be taking part in the first tests and end-to-end demonstrations in Europe".
© Rapid TV News 2009
US internet television platform Joost has launched a German-language offer. Thirteen media partners such as Suddeutsche Zeitung TV and Welt der Wunder will deliver several hundred hours of German-language content for the service’s debut.
Feature films such as Rush Hour, American History X, Blade and Mr Nice Guy will also be available free of charge in the dubbed German version at www.joost.com (http://www.joost.com).
“We are speaking with all large media companies in the world. Germany is no exception,” Joost CEO Mike Volpi told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “We’re starting with smaller content providers and have to thereby prove to the big ones that we are a valuable partner. I hope that we can then also get their content.”
Joost plans to finance through advertising screened before the videos are played. The advertising revenue is shared between Joost and content providers. The web portal, which was launched in May 2007, is backed by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of internet telephony service Skype and peer-to-peer file sharing platform KaZaA.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Strenghtening its presence in South East Asia, European news channel Euronews has launched in Indonesia and in the Philippines, where it is respectively carried on Telkomvision and digital cable network Skycable.
Available in English in both countries, Euronews was added to the Indonesian offer in Bali and Jakarta, before further development. Broadcast through the basic offer in the Philippines, the channel is now received into 170,000 new homes including Manila. This agreement with Skycable is the first in this country, which has a potential of more than 9 million TV homes.
In Oceania, Euronews is also broadcast now in Papua New Guinea through the Hitron network digital package.
With the new carriage agreements in the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, Euronews now reaches nearly four million homes in Asia and Oceania.
© Rapid TV News 2009
Multiteritoriální Pay-TV Digi TV platform to make substantial changes in the Nagravision conditional access system, which means that pirated excluded income, including the so-called AutoUpdate.
Digi TV is recently the most popular platform on the black market due to the use of the old system Nagravision 2 but also mainly because of the rich menu of attractive film and sports TV channels. This platform is one of the few services that have long nevypořádala black income. Other European platform has moved to a higher version of the coding system, possibly using a different coding system.
Pay-TV service is distributed via satellite, Intelsat 10-02 (1 ° W) and Thor 5 (0.8 ° W) and operates in six countries, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Is gaining viewers thanks to its rich menu of programs for a low price.
The Portuguese IPTV operator Meo has launched nine channels aimed at the main expatriate communities living the country.
The channels offered free of charge in the basic package are Inter + (Ukraine), Channel 1 and Russia Today (Russia), Pro TV (Romania), BNT (Bulgaria) and Phoenix CNE (China).
Three more channels will also be aired unencrypted until June 30, after which they will be only available for a premium fee.
The channels in question - SET Asia, SET Max and SAB TV - are aimed at the Indian community.
Meo added 72.000 new IPTV and DTH subscribers during the first quarter, bringing the total to 384.000.
Pay-TV clients represented 14.5% of the traffic generating lines and 51.1% of ADSL clients.
Around 50% of Meo IPTV clients used the VOD service, consuming on average 2.8 movies per month.
The international children’s channel KidsCo will make its debut on the Greek IPTV service conn-x TV on June 1.
KidsCo is owned by NBC Universal, Cookie Jar Group and Corus Entertainment Inc and already present in a number of key European territories including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Russia and Poland.
Conn-x TV is meanwhile operated by the incumbent Greek telco OTE.
Spain's government will allocate a maximum of €165 million more for public broadcaster RTVE's 2009 budget, so compensating the corporation for the loss of advertisements.
New laws covering the public broadcaster, to be approved soon, anticipate RTVE won't have any more than €1,200 million in incomes and expenses during 2010-2011 although this amount could increase during the following three years. Growth is unlikely to be over 1% a year. From 2014 on, the amount will be even with inflation.
Apart from the State's allocations for RTVE, the government also anticipates a new income model based on a tax for the use of radioelectric services (80%), another on the private TV channels (3%) and one on the revenue of telcos (0.9%). This point has been very controversial because the country's telcos claim they don't have anything to do with the television market.
Included in the measures are a proposal to allow RTVE to commercialize its radio and TV content on the internet by means of a payment for basic packages. The government will also allow the Corporation to offer contents under conditional access in the case of value-added services.
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tmc Content Group, a Swiss media service provider specialising in erotic content, will launch pay-TV channel Lust Pur in Germany on June 1.
The service, which will be distributed on Eutelsat’s direct-to-cable platform KabelKiosk, screens erotic films, series, reports, documentaries and short videos from German and international producers each evening from 8pm to 6am CET. The target group is 20 to 59 year old men, women and couples. In order to meet youth protection requirements, programmes will be accessible before 11pm only after entering a youth-protection PIN. From 11pm the PIN is no longer necessary.
The channel, which until now carried the working title Blue Movie Soft, was granted a broadcasting licence by Berlin-Brandenburg’s media authority MABB. tmc Content Group, in which erotic industry group Beate Uhse holds a stake, already operates erotic channel Beate-Uhse.TV and adult video-on-demand services Blue Movie, Blue Movie Extra, Blue Movie Gay and redXclub.
The Bulgarian DTH platform Bulsatcom has taken another transponder on Greece’s Hellas Sat.
According to Parabola, it will be used to carry two of its existing channels (Film Plus HD and Eurosport HD), along with two new HD channels and some SD services.
Bulsatcom’s current HD offer also includes the channels Hobby TV HD and Music Plus HD. Its main programme packages are named ‘Economy’, ‘Standard’ and ‘Premium’, with the latter consisting of 16 channels, including TV 1000, AXN Sci-Fi and MTV Europe.
Bulsatcom is one of two DTH platforms in Bulgaria – the other being ITV Partner – and the most recent figures available indicated that the two had a combined subscriber total of around 90,000.
MTV Networks will launch its high definition television channel MTV Networks HD (MTVN HD) in Germany on June 3.
The music and entertainment channel, comprised of programmes from MTV, VH1 and NICK (Nickelodeon in the UK), will be available on the IPTV platform T-Home Entertain on Deutsche Telekom’s VDSL broadband network. MTVN HD screens concerts and events such as MTV Unplugged, MTV World Stage and VH1 Storytellers, award shows such as the MTV Video Music Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards as well as footage from international music festivals such as the Roskilde and Oxegen festivals.
To celebrate the channel’s launch live concerts by Scottish band Franz Ferdinand and Swedish rock group Mando Diao will be screened on June 7 and June 21 respectively. On weekends a NICK programme window is offered with cartoons, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar – The Last Airbender and Jimmy Neutron.
Telekom announced at the beginning of March that it would include MTVN HD as part of its IPTV offer from summer. The channel, which was launched in Europe on 15 September 2008, is already available in many countries including France, the UK and Scandinavia.
South African pay-TV is in a mess. Even ICASA, the telecom and media authority, seemingly admits it has got things wrong, especially given that it is to re-advertise the planned pay-TV licence opportunities for the country.
Local reports state that, besides Multichoice, the other licences awarded by ICASA back in 2007 have gone badly wrong. None of the proposed – and newly licensed - services (to the ‘Walking on Water’ religious channel: On Digital Media, which has SES Astra as a junior partner; and Telkom Media) have yet to start transmissions.
Icasa chairman Paris Mashile said yesterday that the regulator would hold a second round of licensing to increase competition in the pay TV market. His announcement, at a breakfast briefing hosted by Neotel and the Mail & Guardian, came despite Icasa's recent statement that it would look at issuing satellite free-to-air licences as an alternative to pay TV, reported IOL Business Report.
David Moore, a media analyst at Africa Analysis, said: "I think Icasa is in a state of turmoil, and needs to pause and re-examine where its focus should be and how best to fulfill its mandate. "It needs to determine a single path to follow, and stick to it," he said. Its handling of Vodacom's listing was "a clear indicator that Icasa staff are not all reading from the same page. This situation just adds to that."
"It is not up to the regulator to decide competition issues. It is up to the market and the proper competition authorities… Icasa should award licenses to as many companies that want one and can reasonably prove that they can survive the market, and then let the market itself decide who sinks or swims. That is how it is done in the free market system."
IOL Business added that the industry has cautioned that the South African market would not accommodate more than two players, given that MultiChoice has already sewn up all content available and is targeting all segments of the market through its different bouquets. Media commentator Sei Mukoma said that if Icasa planned to issue new pay-TV licenses, it should do an intensive market study to ensure that the market could accommodate more operators. "The first round of licenses has not produced anything so far, as none of those licensed operators has launched services."
Mashile said that the new licensees, such as Walking on Water, had been given six months to commercially launch operations. If they failed to do so, the regulator would revoke their licenses. Telkom Media was recently sold to Shenzhen Media and there is still a veil of secrecy on its operational plans.
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The Polish station TV Puls may find a new strategic investor as soon as this June, though not, according to its president and leading shareholder Dariusz Dabski, at any price.
Quoted in Wirtualne Media, had added seven parties had so far expressed an interest in TV Puls, with two having put in bids.
He also said that finance was not the main issue in any deal, as TV Puls, which until last year was backed by News Corp, is aiming to become a leading player in the new Polish digital marketplace and programming was the priority.
TV Puls has secured a slot on the first DTT multiplex, due to make its debut this September, and also has plans to launch two thematic channels.
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The Franco German cultural channel Arte has launched the online video portal Arte Live Web, which offers a selection of music, dance, theatre and other performing arts.
The new portal is free-to-view and will offer both on-demand content and live ‘broadcasts’ of events including the Art Rock festival, which takes place this weekend in Saint-Brieuc and features acts including Birdy Nam Nam and Cold War Kids.
Arte Love Web is available in both German and French and comes in addition to the regular Arte video portal, which serves 2.5 million video requests a month, of which 1.7 million are Catch-up TV streams. The site will offer between 200 and 250 programmes.
Discovery has said it still wants to launch a channel on Freeview this year.
The broadcaster suspended the launch of Quest (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a156024/discovery-suspends-quest-launch.html), its first free-to-air channel in the UK, just prior to the channel's expected launch date of May 14.
It cited "a number of commercial factors" as being behind the "difficult decision".
A spokesperson for Discovery has now told Media Week that despite the "challenging economic environment" the broadcaster is "still committed to launching a channel on Freeview during 2009".
Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and the Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific have signed an agreement in Hanoi on June 19, allowing VOV to use programming services from CNN. Under the two-year deal, VOV can now receive, monitor, record and incorporate excerpts from CNN services such as CNN International, International Newsource and CNN Radio in the news and information programmes to be broadcast on its channels. This includes the video image radio channel known as VOV TV. VOV is also licensed to publish CNN’s news stories on its website.
Ann Chu, director of CNN’s Broadcast Sales & Affiliate Relations, said that this was the first time CNN and the VOV have established cooperative ties and that the Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific plans to sign a similar deal with Vietnam Television. She expressed her belief that cooperative ties between CNN and Vietnamese media agencies will be strengthened in the future.
VOV Deputy General Director Hoang Minh Nguyet spoke highly of the deal, which she said will help improve the quality of radio broadcasts by keeping audiences better informed of what is happening around the world. She also stated that the VOV and CNN will continue to cooperate and share information in many other areas in the future
The Romanian government has authorised the Ministry of Communications to start procedures for the granting of licences for the terrestrial transmission of TV broadcasts in digital format across 80 percent of Romania’s territory.
“Technically speaking, Romania has the necessary resources to implement the terrestrial transmission of TV programs in digital format across 60 percent of the country, but my goal is that we achieve a percentage of 80 percent by the end of 2009,” said Minister of Communications Gabriel Sandu, cited by daily Ziarul financiar. He added that the government has mandated the Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) to initiate the transition from analogue to digital television and implement broadband [sic]radio services nationwide.
According to the strategy paper, no analogue television broadcaster shall remain operational in Romania after January 1, 2012, the date when the transition from analog to DVB-T television services is due to be finalized.
The Greek government has decided to sell as further 5% stake in OTE to Deutsche Telekom.
According to Greek news sources, the move is in accordance with a deal struck last year obliging Deutsche Telekom to buy a further 5% in OTE at €27.5 a share proving the Greek state remains in control of the telco.
As a result of the deal, the state will collect €674 million plus and benefit by over €385 million due to the current OTE share price.
The sale, which raises Deutsche Telekom’s interest in OTE to 30% plus one share, is being strongly opposed by the Federation of OTE employees and PASOK political party.
Separately, it has been confirmed that OTE will participate in €2.1 million FTTH network project.
Virgin Media has removed the three Sky Sports channels from its analogue cable as part of an ongoing shut down of the transmission over its cable network.
The majority of the cable operator's customers currently receive digital TV services, but there remains a small proportion still watching an analogue signal.
A region-by-region programme was launched a year ago to transfer customers receiving analogue services to new digital TV packages.
From the start of this month, this has resulted in the remaining analogue TV users no longer being able to receive Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3 over their existing service.
In a statement, a Virgin Media spokesperson said the change has affected just 0.1% of the firm's TV customers.
"The majority of customers affected by this change will now be able to take advantage of digital TV services including Sky Sports and Sky Movies and enjoy over 165 digital TV channels, access to Virgin Media's pioneering on demand services - with over 4,600 hours of TV including 500 movies - as well as ultrafast fibre optic broadband," said the spokesperson.
According to Virgin, all customers affected by this change were contacted well in advance about the process of transferring to a digital service.
The spokesperson added: "A tiny percentage of customers who may be unable to receive digital cable services in their area will still be able to receive the rest of their analogue TV channels as before.
"Any customers that were paying for these channels will no longer be charged for this service."
Sky turned off its analogue satellite service back in 2001, while the UK's analogue terrestrial transmission is due to be shut down by 2013.
French pay TV operator Canal+ is to offer customers a weekend-only subscription for half the amount it charges for its usual package.
Canal+ chief executive Bertrand Méheut told Le Monde that to assess demand, "Canal+ week-end" would offer a Friday evening to late Sunday night service priced at €15 per month.
6.2m homes take Canal+ and CanalSat with churn standing at 10.6%.
Canal Digital is planning to introduce a new seven-day programme guide for its satellite subscribers before the end of the year.
The new system will go live in the autumn and includes functionality such as Series Link.
Though the market leader with over one million subscribers, Canal Digital was in danger of falling behind rival platforms including Viasat and Get, but it is hoped the new look will bring the Nordic platform up to speed.
Separately, Canal Digital’s cable customers in Norway have already received an upgrade to their guide. The new channel list moves HD channels to the appropriate categories in line with the operator’s pricing policy.
Setanta has been left on the brink of collapse after losing its rights to 46 Premier League matches in the 2009-10 season.
The sports broadcaster failed to make a £30m payment to the Premier League after a rescue package with Len Blavatnik's Access Industries - which already holds a 3% stake in Setanta and controls Top Up TV - fell through.
In a statement, the League said: "The Premier League has been working with Setanta for some time to help them continue as the broadcaster of 46 UK Live Matches for the 2009/10 Season.
"The Premier League, in agreement with Setanta, stipulated that certain contractual requirements had to be met on or before Friday 19 June 2009 to allow the preparations for the 2009/10 season to continue unaffected.
"It is with considerable regret that we announce that Setanta has been unable to meet their obligations. As such the existing licence agreement between us has been terminated with immediate effect."
The League is now readvertising the package of 46 matches. Sky would be able to bid for up to 23 matches, as European regulations prevent it from holding all 46. It is thought that ESPN is interested in acquiring the package.
In a short statement tonight, Setanta said: "The Board of Setanta notes the statement issued earlier today by the Premier League and will consider its options over the weekend. In the meantime, Setanta’s sports channels continue on air."
Setanta is, at the time of publication, continuing to accept new subscriptions on the web.
Access Industries added: "Access believed that this proposal could potentially have secured the future of the broadcaster for its customers, employees and for football, provided certain conditions required to put the business on a long-term viable footing were met.
"Regrettably, despite intensive efforts on all sides over the past few days, and despite significant progress in a number of areas, there remain a number of issues which we have been unable to resolve within the time available.
"We are disappointed not to have been able to make this deal happen. Access remains committed to sports programming and will continue to explore opportunities in this area."
Revamped ESPN channel may show EPL
ESPN may launch a revamped version of its ESPN America channel to show the recently secured Premier League matches, DS has learned.
It was announced on Monday that the Disney-owned firm had acquired the Premier League rights previously owned by collapsed Irish broadcaster Setanta.
Damion Potter, ESPN communications director for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific Rim, described the win as a "huge step for our business in the UK".
He added: "We said we were interested in building our business here; that is exactly what we will do with this acquisition.
"We look forward to working with the Premier League, football clubs and distributors to bring English sports fans high-quality coverage of their favourite teams."
A deal is already in place with Sky to distribute the matches to residential and commercial customers on an a la carte basis.
Meanwhile, the company is also talking to the other platform holders, including Virgin Media, about retail partnerships.
It has previously been suggested that ESPN plans to launch a new standalone channel for broadcasting the games.
However, DS has learned that this is just one possible solution, with the other being to host the matches on a revamped version of ESPN America.
Following the demise of Setanta, the channel will continue running on a standalone basis on Virgin Media, while Sky will offer it as part of the News and Events television pack.
Despite this, the arrangement is just an interim solution to ensure seamless access to the channel's US sports coverage for viewers.
"We have come to this interim solution to make sure that US sports fans and existing subscribers to ESPN America can continue to enjoy watching the channel whilst we make permanent arrangements," said Potter.
The company is currently discussing firmer plans for the future of ESPN America, with a vehicle for Premier League games believed to be among the options.
On the possibility of ESPN bidding for other sports rights, including Scottish Premier League games, Potter reiterated: "We're interested in rights where they are available and they make business sense."
He also said that the firm has "met with a number of production companies" about covering the Premier League matches ahead of the start of the new season in eight weeks.
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Christine Brand has been named as the new managing director of MGM Networks (Deutschland) GmbH. It follows the departure of Marcus Ammon to Sky Germany, where he will be vice president, film.
“I have worked with Christine for many years and she has developed and grown into a talented and incredibly skilful programmer and manager,” said Bruce Tuchman, President, MGM Networks. “She was the first employee I recruited to join the MGM Channel in Germany when we launched and has made great contributions in our efforts to expand the channel in Germany as well as other markets around the world. “ Tuchman went on to thank Ammon for his six years at MGM and said the company was looking forward to working with him at Sky.
Brand joined MGM in 2003, and was most recently director of programming and on air promotion for the MGM Channel in Germany. She was previously director of programmes at Fox Kids Germany having begun her career with Nickelodeon Global Networks Ventures in London, Dusseldorf, Germany, and Singapore.
Discovery Networks Central Europe, a division of Discovery Communications, has announced a number of promotions.
They include that of Barbara Bilinska, channel manager of Discovery Historia, who now becomes channel director and will from July 1 be responsible for all Discovery channels in Poland; and Magda Szczawinska, previously on-air creative director Discovery Networks CE and now channel manager Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia from July 1.
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Eurosport has the secured TV rights for the 2009 US PGA Tour season which were previously owned by collapsed broadcaster Setanta.
All action from the 2009 Tour will now be aired on British Eurosport and British Eurosport 2 on satellite and digital cable, while also being simulcast on the broadcaster's online subscription service Eurosport Player.
"We are delighted to welcome the US PGA Tour to the Eurosport platform in the UK," said Eurosport chairman Laurent Eric Le Lay.
"British golf fans can now see the world’s best players competing live as the 2009 season unfolds. We can give the US PGA Tour's iconic tournaments excellent coverage across our two UK TV channels, and fans can follow regular news and results at Eurosport’s leading sports website."
Dave Kerr, Eurosport UK's director of broadcast, added: "The US PGA Tour is a great sports series and we are delighted that we can bring the live coverage to a wider audience of golf fans than ever before.
"With the retention of Moto GP, the recent acquisition of British Superbikes and now the arrival of US PGA Golf, our channels are becoming more and more attractive and exciting to UK viewers and we look forward to welcoming golf fans to a channel that has long been a destination for passionate fans of our other major sports."
Coverage has already begun with the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut, which runs until June 28.
NBC Universal is set to replace The Hallmark Channel UK with the Universal Channel in the next few months as part of an overall shake up of its pay-TV channels in the UK.
The Universal Channel currently airs across Latin America, Asia and in Europe and the move is expected to be officially announced at the end of July. It is also considering rebranding its Diva TV, Sci Fi and Movies 24 channels to bring them closer to the NBC Universal brand.
The Hollywood studio acquired Sparrowhawk Media last year.
SES Astra said it had received “ongoing requests from major customers” for capacity which will shortly be vacated by UPC Direct, after UPC’s DTH operation over Europe shifted its from SES Astra and its 19.2 deg East cluster of satellites, to Telenor’s 1 deg West position.
UPC is taking a total of 7 transponders from Telenor, and the deal is a significant ‘win’ for the Oslo-based satellite operator. The UPC contract with Astra expires in 2010, and Astra insiders say they have been anticipating the move for some time, and that they are confident that demand will quickly mop up the – then – spare capacity.
Alexander Oudendijk, COO of SES Astra, said: “Our confidence is based on the considerable demand from Western European key markets and strong dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The dynamics of the CEE markets are demonstrated by the impressive growth of customers like CS Link and Skylink which gained nearly 1 million subscribers in a very short period of time.”
Oudendijk added that the 5 transponders vacated by UPC Direct would “help us to meet current demand and customer requests for capacity at our prime orbital position”, including for capacity for high definition TV channels.
While most see the UPC decision as a solid long-term business win for Telenor (which will use some of its Thor 6 capacity, due for launch later this year, to fulfil the contract) it is generally accepted that the terms must have been extremely attractive to UPC which must now re-align some 330,000 homes beginning in the late Spring on next year – and this is an expensive process.
Most of UPC Direct’s subscribers live in Hungary, the Czech Republic or Slovakia, and these areas are very much part of the neighbourhood that Telenor is keen to be serving. Telenor now serves some 2m homes in Central and Eastern Europe. Astra’s demand tends to come from Western Europe.
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MTV Networks is taking its high definition channel MTV Networks High Definition (MTVN HD) to Switzerland, where the channel will be available from July 15 on cable network group QuickLine.
“With MTVN HD’s razor sharp images and perfect sound quality we are taking viewers directly to the concert stage,” said Roger Elsener, managing director of MTV Networks Schweiz. “We are pleased that with the innovative cable group QuickLine we have found the first strong partner in Switzerland for the distribution of our high definition channel.”
MTVN HD screens concerts and events such as MTV Unplugged, MTV World Stage and VH1 Storytellers, awards ceremonies like the MTV Video Music Awards or the MTV Europe Music Awards as well as coverage of international music festivals such as the Roskilde Festival and the Oxegen Festival. On weekends a Nickelodeon window with cartoon series is shown, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar and Jimmy Neutron.
In neighbouring Germany the channel is available on Deutsche Telekom’s IPTV platform T-Home Entertain. Distribution in Austria is also planned.
Fox International’s BabyTV has announced that it will be launching on Ssky Italia, Italy’s largest pay-TV service, as of July 31st 2009, marking it’s entry into the country.
BabyTV is set to launch on Sky Italia’s Kids Pack with a localized Italian channel, adding 4.7 million new subscribers.
Diego Londono, Managing Director of Fox International Channels in Italy and GAS countries, said in a statement: “BabyTV will be joining our 11 channels in Italy and we will be introducing it to audiences via a cross channel campaign as well as on ground marketing activities.”
National Geographic Channel is going free-to-air for the first time, following a deal with the Abu Dhabi Media Company. National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi will be the first international factual entertainment channel to be launched in Arabic.
Available on Arabsat and Nilesat, the new channel means National Geographic Channel is now available in 305 million homes in 165 countries in 34 languages.
Abu Dhabi Media Company said that the region is currently “hugely underserved in the international factual entertainment genre, giving the channel a first mover advantage.” The channel is completely dubbed into Arabic.
As well as a straightforward channel, the partnership will also leverage a variety of multimedia channels, including a dedicated website with an internet TV facilitiy.
H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Chairman of ADMC, said: “The launch of National Geographic Channel Abu Dhabi raises the bar of excellence in terms of viewer engagement in the region, both through the fact that the content will be in Arabic and that the channel will be free-to-air. It represents a very significant opportunity for us in Abu Dhabi to capture such a largely underserved market segment; and is the ideal launch for Abu Dhabi to attain its position as the Middle East’s centre for media.”
Ward Platt, President, Asia Pacific & Middle East, National Geographic Channels International said: “The launch of the channel in Arabic marks the first time in the Middle East that high quality National Geographic content will be delivered to the region’s viewers dubbed into their native language, and also the first time that a National Geographic Channel will be available free-to-air. Our work revolves around the protection of the natural world by bringing information and awareness about the planet to viewers - a philosophy and commitment to environmental sustainability shared by ADMC. We are very excited at this opportunity to together showcase unique perspectives on the world that we inhabit in the Arabic language, and play a part in Abu Dhabi’s sustainable growth and transformation into a global media hub.”?
Sky Italia is now officially Italy’s richest commercial broadcaster, with the News Corp unit overtaking Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset in revenue terms for the first time in 2008.
Hit by the global financial slump and the accompanying fall in advertising take, Mediaset could only manage third place, with both behind public broadcaster RAI.
Agcom, Italy’s communications regulator, released figures showing Sky Italia had revenues of €2.64 billion in 2008, RAI €2.72 billion and Mediaset €2.53 billion.
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The director general of Irish public broadcaster RTÉ has publicly admitted that launching Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) in September is no longer a “reasonable” prospect. When the consortium originally charged with rolling out the commercial arm of DTT walked away from the project in April, sources close to Communications Minister Eamon Ryan insisted the development would have no impact on RTÉ’s plans to launch public service DTT in September.
But at a briefing last week, RTÉ boss Cathal Goan said that it was his view that RTÉ and the commercial operator should launch their services simultaneously, and that means RTÉ will have to wait.
At the same briefing, Mr Goan also confirmed that RTÉ’s continued €300,000 annual investment in DAB digital radio was a “live question” being considered as part of cost cuts designed to combat a predicted €68m shortfall in the national broadcaster’s 2009 revenue.
But he added that DAB’s support would be viewed in light of the expense of establishing the platform, and the benefit to the public of the four extra radio stations that are available through DAB in the Greater Dublin area, the North East Coast and Cork and Limerick cities, as well as online and on NTL and Chorus Digital.
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Sci Fi has secured the first-run pay-TV rights to Warehouse 13 from NBC Universal International Television Distribution, it has been announced.
The series, starring Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, centres around two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a top-secret storage facility.
"We’ve had a fantastic run of highly anticipated, much talked about premiere series on the channel this year - and Warehouse 13 is no exception," said NBCU Global Network’s head of channels James Newton.
"There was a tremendous buzz ahead of its launch in the US and the first night ratings are testament to what a fantastic show it is. The special effects and exciting plot twists make it a real gem for our autumn schedule."
The sci-fi series joins Knight Rider, Dollhouse and Legend Of The Seeker in landing a UK premiere on the channel.
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E4 has acquired the rights to How I Met Your Mother and Being Erica.
According to C21 Media, E4 has picked up the 13-episode first season of Erica to air in early October.
The series, starring Erin Karpluk, follows a woman who begins seeing a counsellor to deal with regrets in her life. She later discovers that the counsellor has the ability to send her back in time to change the events in question.
The first four seasons of Josh Radnor-fronted Mother have also been secured, which E4 aims to begin airing later this year.
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Virgin Media has said that it is still reviewing various interest-based advertising options, including the online tracking service developed by Phorm.
This follows a decision by BT and TalkTalk not to go ahead with plans to rollout Phorm's technology, which enables targeted advertising based on internet habits.
For the past 18 months, Virgin Media has conducted a technical and legal consultation on the company's offering prior to any potential implementation.
Despite running surveys on consumer attitude towards the technology, the internet service provider has not at any stage trialled the system over its network.
Virgin Media has said, though, that it supports the opportunity represented by interest-based advertising for consumers, ISPs and online firms.
"However, given the fast moving nature of the sector, Virgin Media is reviewing potential opportunities with suppliers including Phorm prior to making any commitment to launch any of these technologies," a spokesperson for cable operator said in a statement.
"We recognise some consumers have significant concerns about the potential implications of interest-based advertising for their privacy. Virgin Media is committed to ensuring that any future deployment complies not only with the relevant legal requirements but - as an absolute minimum - the best practice guidelines contained in the Internet Advertising Bureau's recently published code of practice.
"Virgin Media will communicate openly and transparently with consumers before and after any future deployment of interest-based advertising technologies across its network."
This summer will see the satellite and digital broadcaster, UKTV, move into a new and exciting time, after signing an agreement with Channel Four.
The multi million contract will see around two hundred hours of Channel Four content being shown across the newly rebranded UKTV channels.
This means that UKTV will not have to rely so heavily on the BBC for content, which will give UKTV a stronger footing in the UK pay TV market place.
The deal will be made up with eighty nine hours of comedy, sixty hours of drama and thirty eight hours of entertainment.
A lot of this content will be getting its first showing on pay TV in the UK.
The deal is said to have taken a long time to negotiate and will start on the 1st August.
Russia’s Comstar-UTS says it ended June with over 145,000 cable subscribers to its Stream TV service in the Saratov region of the country.
It adds that Stream TV, which is distributed in the region by Kaskad TV, is now the leading cable service there, claiming a market share of up to 95% in the city of Balakovo alone.
The Saratov region is located in the South West of Russia.
The leading Latvian cable operator Baltkom has posted H1 results that defy the scale of the recession the country currently finds itself in.
Its consolidated turnover in the period was LVL8 million (€11.5 million), or 12% more than in the corresponding period in 2008, while operating profits rise 70% year-on-year to LVL1.2 million.
Baltkom’s internet subscriber total as of the end of June was 50% higher than a year earlier, and 80% of new connections were to a NGN network.
This currently serves 30,000 homes in the capital, Riga, with the figure expected to rise to 100,000 by the end of the year.
Baltkom was launched in 1991 and currently claims 230,000 cable TV subscribers.
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The leading Russian DTH platform Tricolor TV posted revenues of R1.56 billion (€35.2 million) from its pay-TV service in 2008, according to its CEO Vyacheslav Mordachev.
Quoted in Cableman, he added that the platform aims to reach 13.5% of the Russian population by the end of this year.
Tricolor TV is at present the fastest growing DTH platform not just in Russia but Europe as a whole, recently topping the 5 million-subscriber mark.
It offers viewers a 19-channel subscription package and 12 channel-package free of charge.
As of 2008, 2.6 million viewers received the former.
Sky Deutschland has terminated its contract with Deutsche Telekom to distribute content on the telco’s IPTV platform T-Entertain.
A spokesperson for the German pay-TV operator, formerly known as Premiere, said both companies were still in talks but confirmed it had terminated the distribution contract.
Until last season, Premiere and Deutsche Telekom had collaborated on Bundesliga football coverage. From next season, Constantin Medien will produce the telco’s IPTV Bundesliga coverage.
Separately, 99.8% of Sky Deutschland’s shareholders have approved the company’s name change.
TiVu_logoAgcom is to investigate whether the possibility of RAI pulling its channels from Sky Italia in favour of Tivù Sat would be in breach of the public broadcaster’s platform neutrality. The move would see the departure of its three flagship channels, Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre as well as its digital portfolio.
The authority’s president Corrado Calabrò told a meeting of the RAI supervisory board that the decision risked losing sight of the basic principals of quality and fair competition.
Tivù Sat, backed by RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia, is scheduled to launch on July 31, using the same Hot Bird position that is already home to Sky Italia, but using the rival Nagravision encryption system that will render reception of the RAI channels impossible to Sky households.
According to Il Sole 24 Ore, Calabrò’s intervention comes at a crucial time for talks between RAI and Sky Italia, the public broadcaster seeking additional carriage fees that Sky would seem unlikely to meet.
A public broadcaster seeking commercial advantage, and forgetting its obligations, is nothing new. However, RAI’s move comes with the added twist of its partner Mediaset being controlled by the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
AsiaSat 5, a new communications satellite of Asia Satellite
Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat), has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for launch by a Proton launch vehicle currently planned for early to mid-August.
AsiaSat 5 is a replacement satellite for AsiaSat 2 at the orbital location of 100.5 degrees East. The spacecraft, based on Space Systems/Loral‟s 1300 satellite bus, is produce to deliver advanced satellite services including television broadcast, telephone networks and VSAT networks for broadband multimedia services across Asia Pacific.
“AsiaSat 5 will become the newest member of the AsiaSat fleet to help us continue our mission of providing first-class regional satellite services to Asia Pacific. Equipped with the latest but proven technologies, improved and new beam coverage on AsiaSat 5, we look forward to serving existing and future clients with enhanced power, connectivity and network flexibility,” informed Peter Jackson, Chief Executive Officer of AsiaSat.
AsiaSat 5 will carry 26 C-band and 14 Ku-band transponders, and has an estimated operational life of 15 years.
It will offer an enhanced pan Asian C-band footprint that covers more than 53 countries spanning from Russia to New Zealand and from Japan to the Middle East and parts of Africa. Its Ku-band coverage will consist of two high-power fixed Ku-band beams over East Asia and South Asia, and an in-orbit steerable Ku beam. The three Ku-band beams are designed with switching capability to switch any uplink to any downlink beam to meet specific application requirements.
Dragan Solak will head the new company
Mid Europa has completed the acquisition of a 100% stake in UPC Slovenia from Liberty Global.
Significantly, the operator will now be headed up by Dragan Solak, the head of Serbia Broadband (SBB), which was itself acquired by Mid Europa in 2007.
He said that SBB and UPC Slovenia are “complementary platforms that are leaders in their respective markets.”
SBB also operates the DTH platform TotalTV, and as a result the acquisition of UPC Slovenia makes Mid Europa one of the leading operators of pay-TV services in the former Yugoslavia region.
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Celtic chairman John Reid has expressed his dissatisfaction after the Scottish Premier League accepted ESPN and Sky's joint bid for TV rights, according to reports.
It was announced yesterday (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a165470/spl-agrees-tv-deal-with-sky-and-espn.html) that the SPL had opted for the £65m, two-year deal on offer from the two broadcasters to replace the former carriage agreement with Setanta.
Prior to this development, Celtic and Old Firm rival Rangers were believed to be readying an alternative bid (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a165095/old-firm-clubs-to-launch-spl-rights-bid.html) after becoming dissatisfied with the terms proposed by ESPN and Sky.
Despite confirming that a formal approach from the two clubs was never actually made, Reid said that that the TV rights situation has not reached a satisfactory conclusion.
"Celtic have a responsibility to speak out for our supporters who will be deeply dissatisfied with the background to, and outcome of, today's SPL decision and the events leading up to it," he told reporters yesterday after the SPL's annual general meeting.
"No-one should underestimate the blow that has been inflicted on this club and Scottish football by the way in which the whole affair has been handled and by the losses incurred."
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell recently revealed his regret (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a160692/celtic-chief-rues-spl-setanta-deal.html) at the previous rights deal agreed with Setanta, and Reid believes that this could be a case of history repeating itself.
"Last year's decision to reject the Sky bid and opt for Setanta - arrived at against the strong opposition of Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen - has proved to be the disastrous misjudgement we indicated it might be, with Setanta now in administration," he explained.
"In turn, this has led to the dilemma we now find ourselves in. Today the SPL accepted a bid that is less than half the value of that offered by Sky last year. The whole SPL is now a commercial victim, in an uncompetitive TV market, in the middle of a recession, locked in for years to an income some 60% lower than last year's bid.
"This is the direct consequence of last year's misjudgement, one that has cost us all some £70m in a sport that desperately needs the income and where our supporters are already paying their own hard-earned cash.
"To Celtic it means a potential loss of up to £12m over the four-year period – the equivalent of around 6,500 season tickets each year. We need to face up to some harsh realities. In an environment crying out for long-term thinking this concentration on short-term gain only leads to long-term pain.
"Above all the SPL must learn the lessons of these events. That is why we initiated discussion with Rangers Football Club to examine possible alternatives to the present position.
"We reserve the right to continue to explore those options not only for the longer term benefit of Celtic football club but for everyone involved."
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Finally, despite all of the counter arguments against the deal, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) has sign an agreement that will give the live football match rights to Sky Sports and the sporting newcomer ESPN.
There was talk of an alternative deal, where Celtic and Ranger would take on the contract, but this has not materialised and so the bid from the satellite broadcasters, of just £65 million, will go ahead.
Effectively this means that the SPL is accepting half the amount of money that the original deal was worth.
Collapsed satellite broadcaster Setanta had a deal worth £125 million with the SPL.
This lack of cash is going to have an effect on some of the clubs that rely on the income from TV to survive.
UK free-to-air broadcaster Channel 4 and pay-TV broadcaster Sky are set to merge their advertising sales teams in a bid to cut costs.
The pair are set to ink a deal that will see both companies cut the number of employees by around 50%.
However, the deal is not expected to be announced officially for a couple of months until the country’s Competition Commission publishes its findings on regulations surrounding rival broadcaster ITV’s advertising sales.
The Commission is currently investigating whether to abolish its contract rights renewal system, the system that governs how much ITV can currently charge advertisers.
LONDON - ESPN, the US broadcaster, has handed its UK advertising brief for the launch of its Premier League coverage to Wieden + Kennedy's London office.
ESPN hands Premier League brief to Wieden + Kennedy
The broadcaster, which is owned by Walt Disney, works with Wieden + Kennedy in the US and UK activity for above-the-line campaigns will run out of its London office.
There had been speculated that there would be a pitch involving other agencies.
Media planning and buying will be handled by Carat, which already works on its ESPN America and ESPN Classic TV channels and is also an incumbent on Disney. Brand strategy and creative services will be handled by Heavenly, and on-air branding by Bruce Dunlop and Associates. Collective and Agenda21 will handle digital services.
Damion Potter, ESPN communications director said: ‘ESPN and Disney may decide to extend any current agreements with existing service providers that will accommodate the scope of work required for the launch of our new channel.'
Last month ESPN picked up the TV rights to the FA Premier League from Setanta. It will broadcast 46 live games during the 2009-10 season and 23 games each season from 2010-13.
TV viewers living in Latin America can now watch Russian channels, particularly, RTR-Planeta. VGTRK, which runs such TV channels as Rossiya, Vesti, RTR-Planeta and Kultura, has become the first Russian company of this kind on the South-American TV market.
RTR-Planeta is already broadcast by Cable Onda operator in Panama, while news channel Vesti is supposed to be launched in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Brazil a few weeks later.
In spring 2009 Inter Russia TV channel based in Panama started broadcasting in Latin America. The mission of the channel is to inform about life in Russia and the world.
Satellite users are being warned to check their bank statements carefully, after it emerged that a company named Satcov is trying to fraudulently charge to a number of accounts.
The charges are often brought where no existing agreement is in place, and where an agreement is already in force, extra amounts are being charged.
Since Feb 2009 they have been reported as:
- taking 10-times the correct monthly payment (£65 instead of £6.50),
- taking extra payments (typically £49.95)
- setting up Direct Debits on customer accounts without authorisation
Satcov offers expensive warranty cover on satellite boxes, not least Sky satellite receivers.
However, a rising number of complaints are being aired that they are being debited for a service they have not agreed to - or had cancelled years ago - whereas people with existing subscriptions are seeing their bank account wiped of extra funds.
It is also being reported that Satcov are now setting up Direct Debits under the name “Play” with a reference number afterwards that appears to be a phone number - 08716 641400.
If anyone finds that their bank account or credit card has been charged by Satcov without authorisation, or for incorrect amounts, they are recommended to take the matter up with their bank immediately for a refund.
Satcov is believed to be formed from Satellite Direct UK Ltd, which was successfully prosecuted by Sky for misleading sales practices, after the company claimed an association with Sky.
The director of Satellite Direct UK Ltd, David Reynolds, was also prosecuted last year for fraud and money laundering.
Satcov remains unavailable for comment, with their phone number providing the message “This service has been temporarily suspended”.
The BBC will have to invest thousands of pounds in upgrading the sets of shows such as EastEnders and The Apprentice in preparation for high definition, it has emerged.
As more BBC shows are being broadcast in high definition, the corporation is reportedly concerned that wear and tear on sets will be visible to viewers in the sharper, clearer picture.
It was previously revealed that the next series of The Apprentice will be filmed in HD, which could air in 2010, if this does not clash with the general election after Alan Sugar took up his new post in the House of Lords.
In preparation for this, thousands of pounds will now have to be spent on improving sets such as the boardroom so that the show looks presentable in HD.
"Those Perspex sheets that we use to make the glass walls are about eight years old now, and they are quite scuffed and scratched. Any dust, fingerprints or smears on them are definitely going to show," Cath Pater-Lanucki, who worked on the set, told The Independent.
"If we go to HD, I think we'd have to replace all the Perspex on the set and we would literally have to have a props man on set the whole time polishing surfaces."
According to Pater-Lanucki, each of the 60 Perspex sheets would cost around £300 to replace, which would feed into an estimated £40,000 cost of producing The Apprentice in HD.
"My worry is that they're not going to put the budgets up accordingly," she added. "I don't think the reality has really hit anyone."
In preparation for its HD debut on Monday, the entire set of Dragons' Den at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire had to be repainted, production designer Nik Callan has revealed.
"Every brick you see on the Den is painted - we had to have every single one done," he said. "Realistically, it costs thousands of pounds to upgrade a set for HD, and productions have got to allow for it."
In response, a BBC spokesman said: "The move to HD for programmes is a key priority for the BBC and very much part of our long-term planning, including all cost implications. We have detailed advance discussions with productions that are due to make the move, to ensure that the transition is as smooth and as cost effective as possible.
"With 19 million HD-ready TVs sold so far, and as we move towards a time when all programmes will be made in HD, it's important that the BBC helps lead these changes to deliver the very best service for our audiences."
The UK based set top box manufacturer Pace has finally launched its highly advanced multiroom digital video recorder or DVR.
This new technology connects set top boxes around the home without the need for any wiring, therefore making it much easier for consumers to receive digital TV in other parts of the home.
This is the first product capable of connecting the entire home to digital TV to enter the market.
It will also allow each TV connected to it to make full use of the dual tuner HD DVR function, which clearly demonstrates just how advanced this system is.
Using NAS technology the device is capable of supporting nine HD streams at once, while allowing for six HD programmes to be recorded all at the same time.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has ordered that the proposed lashing for a female LBC journalist based in the country be cancelled.
Saudi Arabia’s Information Ministry spokesman on Monday said King Abdullah ordered that the 60 lashes sentence for Rozanna al-Yami be dropped. She was charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex, considered a taboo subject.
But the case is not fully over. The Ministry spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza said the king ordered that her case and that of another woman journalist - also accused of involvement in the programme - be referred to an Information Ministry committee.
Estonia’s leading cable operator Starman has become the first in the country to offer a package of full HD channels in Dolby 5.1 stereo sound.
The channels are Nat Geo HD, Eurosport HD, History HD, Rush HD and Arte HD and will cost EEK99 (€6.32) a month to receive.
They will be joined by Eurosport2 HD in the New Year. Starman, which also operates the DTT platform ZUUMtv, claims its services are received in 560,000 homes.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii61/first_zipper/deluxe_lounge_hd.jpg
German music channels Classica and Deluxe Music will distribute their HDTV channels from November 1 via satellite on Astra. The encrypted transmissions on orbital position 23.5° East target platform operators who want to include the channels in their offers.
Unitel Classica HD and Deluxe Lounge HD are the first two channels to use the new HDTV feeding service provided by Astra’s technical subsidiary APS Astra Platform Services for cable, IPTV and other digital platform operators. The deployment of the channels to viewers, marketing and customer care lies in the hands of individual platform operators.
Unitil now, Deluxe Lounge HD was only available on Kabel BW’s cable network in federal state Baden-Wurttemberg, while Unitel Classica HD was not present in Europe.
“We are pleased to have found with Unitel Classica HD and Deluxe Lounge HD two channels as co-operation partners for the launch and are convinced that many further content providers will follow their example”, said Wolfgang Elsäßer, managing director of Astra Deutschland, in Munich. “For rights holders the HD distribution service on 23.5 degrees East offers an attractive possibility to deploy their exclusive content in Germany and beyond and to create new revenue sources.”
(Source: Rapid TV News)
Dusk in Kourou, French Guiana, on Oct 29 saw a giant Ariane 5 rocket flawlessly deliver two important satellites into orbit: NSS-12, for SES World Skies, and Thor 6 for Telenor Satellite Broadcasting.
As this is written the launch was performing “nominally” which is rocket engineering-speak for “OK”.
NSS-12 was built by Space Systems/Loral, and is the largest member of the SES fleet with a total of 84 transponders (40 in C-band, and 48 in Ku-band), and weighed a massive 6 tonnes.
Thor 6 is a somewhat smaller ‘bird’ with an extremely respectable 36 Ku-band transponders, and the craft was built by Thales Alenia Space.
Rapid TV News
Arab Radio & Television (ART), the major Middle East pay-TV broadcaster, is rumoured to have “sold” its numerous sports rights to Qatar-based Al Jazeera Sports. These are rumours, but from normally reliable sources.
In fact, the reports have been around for the best part of two weeks, and included claims that ART had been “bought” by Al Jazeera, to these current stories that ART has sold its extensive collection of sports rights. The sum mentioned is $2bn, and our sources say that Al Jazeera’s staffers are celebrating the move.
We must stress that the reports are unconfirmed, and might be off the mark. The deal could, for example, just be a sub-licensing deal which gives Al Jazeera access to ART sports programming, or a variation on this theme.
Rapid TV News 2009
Rapid TV News has been reporting on the – frequently complex – information that has come our way regarding the sale of Arab Radio & Television’s sports rights to Qatar-based Al Jazeera Sports. The picture is now getting clearer.
A preliminary agreement has been signed in Doha between ART and Al Jazeera, where 6 sports channels from ART will go to Al Jazeera, which already has 8 sports channels.
The negotiations have been going on for the best part of a year, although ramped up a gear over the past month or two. Terms have not been disclosed but payments well in excess of $1bn will now flow to ART. Indeed, some of our well-informed sources put the sum at more than $2bn, which is not unreasonable when one considers what’s involved.
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with a formal contract to be signed when ART’s owner Sheikh Salah Kamel returns to the region from Germany where he is undergoing medical treatment.
The Middle East is football crazy, where international soccer, national soccer and club soccer totally dominate the pay-TV market. ART will evidently continue to transmit its remaining bouquet of channels to subscribers, although there are local concerns over longer-term job prospects in Amman, Jordan, where ART’s sports operation were based in a brand new management and play-out HQ as part of Jordan’s Media City. ART plays out about 65 channels from Amman.
In essence Al Jazeera gets the exclusive content of 6 ART channels although there are questions as to whether some of the minor Arab soccer leagues are part of the transfer. The Jordanian, Syrian and Sudanese leagues may not be transferred to Al Jazeera.
The agreement will leave ART Sport with only one channel "El Ahly" which covers Egypt’s Number 1 soccer club. Sheikh Saleh owns 49% of the channel’s shares.
Al Jazeera’s sports division already holds the exclusive rights in the region for major football leagues such as the Italian Serie A, Spain’s La Liga and the UEFA Champions League. The network’s 8 sports channels also televise the top leagues in Brazil and Argentina besides the Summer Olympics and other major events including French Open and Masters Series tennis, motorcycling’s MotoGP series and the NBA from the US.
Al Jazeera bought the rights for the Champions League (2009 to 2012) this year beating off tough competition from ART, Orbit and Showtime. The new deal is expected to make Al Jazeera the exclusive regional rights-holder of next year’s World Cup in South Africa.
Al Jazeera claims 1m existing subscribers, and has made no secret of its intent to drive this forward to 3m over the next year or two.
Coincidentally, Doha, Qatar’s capital city, is bidding to host the 2022 FIFA soccer World Cup.
Rapid TV News 2009
Kudelski Group has won its battle to acquire the portion of middleware business OpenTV it didn’t already own.
Kudelski is paying $1.55 a share to pick up most of the 60% of stock that it doesn’t already control. By the closing time of the formal tender offer (11pm New York time, Nov 12) it had acceptances from “approximately” 60% of independent shareholders, and consequently controlled about 91% of OpenTV, thus passing the threshold where the bid becomes mandatory.
Kudelski says it will now recognise the remaining shares which need to be tendered ahead of this Friday, Nov 20.
The company says it will delist OpenTV from the Nasdaq “at the appropriate time”.
Rapid TV News 2009
Kudelski Group has won its battle to acquire the portion of middleware business OpenTV it didn’t already own.
Kudelski is paying $1.55 a share to pick up most of the 60% of stock that it doesn’t already control. By the closing time of the formal tender offer (11pm New York time, Nov 12) it had acceptances from “approximately” 60% of independent shareholders, and consequently controlled about 91% of OpenTV, thus passing the threshold where the bid becomes mandatory.
Kudelski says it will now recognise the remaining shares which need to be tendered ahead of this Friday, Nov 20.
The company says it will delist OpenTV from the Nasdaq “at the appropriate time”.
Rapid TV News 2009
Intersputnik Transfers Frequency Rights for AMOS 5 Satellite
International Organization of Space Communications Intersputnik has transferred its rights for the use of frequencies assigned at 17 degrees east to Israeli satellite operator Spacecom and specifically for its planned AMOS 5 satellite . The agreement was concluded for 15 years with the possibility of further extension.
Spacecom currently own and operates : AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 satellites located at 4 degrees west.
In July 2008 JSC-ISS - Reshetnev Company has contracted with Spacecom to supply the AMOS 5 satellite . The satellite is expected to be launch in late 2010 and positioned at 17 degrees east .
Judges in Paris will decide on Nov. 17 whether one of the world’s largest satellite operators should be investigated for politically-motivated meddling with a client’s broadcasts.
The Paris Commerce Court held a hearing on Nov. 5 to look at the France-based satellite company Eutelsat’s actions last year that resulted in the termination of the signal of one of their clients, New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), which broadcasts over mainland China.
Before using Eutelsat in 2004, NTDTV had previously lost contracts broadcasting over China with several satellite companies because of its penchant for reporting on topics deemed “sensitive” by Chinese authorities, including ethnic violence in Xinjiang, the poison milk scandal, the persecution of Falun Gong, and other human rights and religious freedom abuses.
International conventions on nonprofit broadcasters stipulate that satellite owners should provide a platform for them to reach countries around the world that they could not otherwise.
In 2005 Eutelsat refused to renew its contract with NTDTV, but later capitulated after international pressure.
In June 2008 NTDTV says that Eutelsat, with the excuse of technical difficulties, again terminated its broadcast into China. Eutelsat said one of their satellites lost power and the company needed to shut down several transponders, one of which carried NTDTV’s signal.
Groups concerned with press freedom saw it as an opportunistic attempt for Eutelsat to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese authorities.
“Eutelsat claims it was forced to suspend NTDTV on 16 June because of a technical problem but a recorded conversation with an employee of Eutelsat show it was a premeditated, politically-motivated decision violating the free flow of information and the convention under which Eutelsat operates,” the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Boarders .
In July 2009 NTDTV petitioned the Commerce Court in Paris to appoint experts to investigate Eutelsat’s actions. If the broadcaster can show there is merit to the case, the court will then assign an expert to investigate why Eutelsat stopped carrying the signal.
The night before the first hearing on Oct. 13 Eutelsat lawyers submitted boxes of defense materials to the NTDTV legal team. They requested it be postponed to Nov. 5 to give them time to review the materials before the case could proceed.
NTDTV legal counsel William Borden said that he was confident in their case. According to Borden, Eutelsat’s lawyers claimed they were not afraid of an expert investigation — but it was something they “definitely don’t want” to deal with.
“If Eutelsat is not afraid of an expert investigation and NTDTV will shoulder the independent investigation costs, then why would Eutelsat spend so much effort to obstruct the investigation?” Borden said.
NTDTV’s French spokesperson Isabelle Chaigneau said they were pleased with the trial thus far. “Our lawyers have a very convincing presentation and strong argument. I hope French law will safeguard justice, and reveal the real reason why Eutelsat disconnected NTDTV’s signal.”
Eutelsat lawyers declined to comment after the hearing
A week ago (on Nov 9) we reported on the piracy problems Showtime Middle East was suffering in Bahrain (and elsewhere in the Gulf) from users of the ‘Dreambox’ card-sharing technology. Marc-Antoine d’Halluin, CEO of Orbit-Showtime, claimed that piracy was endemic in his region, and that the pay-TV broadcaster was fighting “for its survival”.
The local Gulf Daily News has since published letters from viewers. One viewer who claims he is a legitimate Showtime subscriber issues a strong warning to Mr d’Halluin, saying: “If Showtime loses the rights to Premiership football in May, which may then go to Abu Dhabi Television, I will be cancelling my subscription at once, and I'm sure a lot of other subscribers will do as well, as it's the only thing we really watch on the Orbit Showtime platform. The former Orbit bouquet in particular, for which Mr d'Halluin is responsible, is absolutely appalling. Having it on demand or in high definition isn't going to make a bit of difference to the quality on offer! What the television industry needs to do is open up international markets and stop cross-border protectionism. I would rather buy a Sky Sports Italia box and card, which has all the sport, movies and news that I require, but it is illegal to do so. So, as long as you continue to thrust rubbish at us and expect us to pay premium rates for it, then you can really have no complaints if we look elsewhere. Where is Rupert Murdoch when you need him? Surely there is a market for Sky Arabia?”
Another, (“John H”) says Mr d'Halluin should recall that the reason most people in Bahrain go for a Dreambox is for the price and not for the willingness to break the law, as he puts it. “How can you possibly compare getting all the channels for BD40 a year, while you have to pay for Orbit and Showtime alone? Most people who subscribe to Dreambox service have low wages to begin with, many under BD300 per month. They can't afford to have 10% of their monthly wages going to TV. Let the [TV] companies reduce their prices (Batelco [the local telephone company] has reduced its rates many times over the past few years), and the piracy will die down by itself. Reducing your prices does not necessarily mean a reduction in profits (which is the ultimate goal of any company).”
Canal+ Group announced nine-month earnings (EBITA) of €754m, an increase of €133m (21.4%) , over the first nine months of 2009 compared to the same period of 2008. Revenues rose 1.1% to reach €3.36bn.
EBITA growth was driven by Canal+ France and was notably due to price increases, cost reductions, and the full effect of TPS merger synergies. Over the past twelve months, suscriber net portfolio growth at Canal+ France was 177,000. Since the beginning of the year, 348,000 Canal+ analog subs were transferred to digital which brought Canal+’s digitalization rate to 90% up from 78% over one year.
Revenues from the group’s other operations increased too, primarily as a result of subscriber portfolio growth in Poland, rising ad revenues on news channel I>TELE and a strong performance at StudioCanal after Kinowelt’a integration in April 2008.
Germany’s soccer Bundesliga will remain on free-to-air TV, Tom Bender, managing director of federal soccer league Deutsche Fußball-Liga (DFL) confirmed to newspaper portal DerWesten.de.
The mixture of free-to-air and pay-TV has been tried and tested over previous years, he said, and DFL doesn’t want to give that up. “DFL could have given the Bundesliga almost completely over to pay-TV in 2005, but decided against it and relinquished around €150 million. We do profit from our extensive TV presence and with almost €500 million income from sponsoring we are the number 1 in Europe,” said Bender.
With its planned TV channel, which was licensed in September, DFL does not want to compete with ‘current events’ Bundesliga coverage offered by other channels, stressed Bender. “This channel is only about the past,” he said, adding that DFL had built up the largest digital soccer archive in the world over past years. “By the end of 2010 there will be 40,000 hours of digitalised soccer. It’s clear that we have to think about ways in which to use that, such as a digital channel. It would be a sensible addition to current programmes.”
The BBC is currently up against something of an avalanche of critical press. The newspapers have made hay on the publication of some senior executives’ salaries and perks, while seemingly every BBC plan to expand online activity (Kangaroo, and now Canvas) is being stymied, and the current Tory opposition political party promising further mayhem should it be elected next summer.
However, it has just won a small victory in that the British government, due to outline its planned legislation for the remaining 6 months or so of this administration on Wednesday, has modified plans to use some of the BBC licence fee to improve local TV news coverage. A measure will be introduced in the parliamentary Queen’s Speech to fund local news, but a decision will not be made until 2012, thereby seemingly kicking the idea into the very long grass.
On Sunday, the London ‘Sunday Times’ published a long-form interview with Jeremy Hunt, the shadow (opposition) culture secretary, who would be managing the broadcasting and media portfolio in a new Conservative government, and it could not have made good reading at the BBC.
The BBC is already having to face the problems of having 37 senior managers earning more (and frequently much more) than the Prime Minister. Hunt told the newspaper that the BBC’s bureaucratic waste had become an absolute nightmare, and that it was “obscene” for the BBC to be demanding an uplift to its mandatory licence fee.
The BBC’s licence fee is up for re-examination in 2012. The broadcaster received a £68m rise this year, despite inflation being zero. “If we win the next election we will have to have discussions with the BBC about the appropriate level,” he told the newspaper. “We think in the current climate it would be very hard to argue for any increase in the licence fee.”
The likelihood that the BBC’s wings will be clipped is a possibility. The same might apply to its Project Canvas, which the BBC has said is a ‘game changer’ as regards online activity. Canvas would also have other UK network broadcasters involved as well as British Telecom, but is hitting major objections from pay-TV operators. There’s no guarantee that the BBC’s governors (the BBC Trust) will approve the scheme.
Last Friday BBC future media boss Erik Huggers demonstrated Canvas, showcasing how users would have the ability to watch highlights instantly, send clips to friends, monitor what is being said on Twitter, access archives at the touch of a button and use commercial third-party applications and services.
Huggers said: “Unless we succeed in getting Canvas through, that whole market will be fragmented - you would have multiple ways of achieving the same thing.” If Canvas fails, he stated, broadcasters would shoulder additional costs of reformatting new devices: “There could be a horizontal level playing field for everyone and I think that’s worth fighting for.”
However, the appeal of a Canvas-type proposition – at least in the UK – is summed up by Screen Digest in a recent report on the topic, which said that 3.5m UK homes could be tapping into such a system by 2014.
Dan Cryan, Senior Analyst at Screen Digest says: “The BBC’s track record of building markets with Freeview and the iPlayer has been a well-documented success. There is every reason to think that if a Canvas-type proposition is approved, with the full promotional impetus of the BBC behind it, it will reach at least 3.5m homes by 2014.
“Such a platform is both a threat and an opportunity to pay-TV operators. On the one hand giving them wider distribution potential for their content bouquets, and on the other hand giving content owners a potential route to bypass the operators and go direct to the consumer.”
“A Canvas-type proposition will offer an alternative, neutrally-branded distribution platform offering linear TV channels, video on demand and web-based applications. Ultimately, it will rival IPTV, cable and satellite and will be separate from the existing Freeview, Freesat and BT Vision offerings,” says Screen Digest.
“Despite the support of powerful partners, a Canvas-type proposition has a number of obstacles to address; set top boxes will be expensive and the timing may coincide uncomfortably for consumers with the launch of HD Freeview. Potential bandwidth bottlenecks should be tackled by BT’s 21st Century Network and with the backing of the BBC, consumer take-up should be strong.”
Rapid TV News 2009
A Thales-Alenia satellite, built for Indonesia’s Indosat operator, has been rescued from a useless orbit.
The satellite, Palapa-D1, was launched upon a Chinese Long March 3B rocket on August 31st but the rocket’s third stage failed to operate correctly and the satellite was placed into a useless highly elliptical orbit just 130 miles above the Earth at its nearest, but 13,150 miles at its furthest from the ground.
Thales Alenia Space immediately re-thought the near-catastrophic dilemma and commenced a bold rescue mission.
On September 3 the satellite’s on-board thrusters were fired, starting its realigned route to a correct orbit. Bit by bit it achieved a correct transfer orbit, arriving on station (at 113 deg East) later in September.
Thales Alenia now says that Palapa-D1 has successfully completed its in-orbit testing and is ready for work.
However, there’s a price to pay for the use of the satellite’s on-board thrusters in terms of fuel used. Instead of its planned 15 years of active life the satellite now has enough fuel for some 10.5 years of work. But this is a huge improvement on what had initially looked like a total loss.
Palapa-D1 has 35 C-Band transponders and 5 in Ku-Band. It will serve the Pacific region from Asia to Australia.
Rapid TV News 2009
Iran has spoken about its plans for TV and the media, which include boosting the number of satellite channels available to viewers.
The head of the Iranian radio and TV organization, Ezzatollah Zarghami, in a recent broadcast reported on by BBC Monitoring, said in the past Iran’s radio and TV organization has made films about the revolution, historical events and documentaries. He spoke in detail about how programmes are presented to the organization and approved for production. Zarghami said all provinces now have their radio and TV channels, apart from North Khorasan and South Khorasan. He said apart from Semnan Province TV, all other provincial channels are now on satellite. Semnan Provincial TV will also go on satellite in the near future.
He said the establishment of the international English-language Press TV has been a success. As to movies shown on domestic TV, Zarghami said Iran showed both domestic and foreign films. Around 100 domestic TV films have been shown in the current year.
He made reference to various documentary films shown on domestic TV channels and stressed the need to increase religious documentary programmes. He also pointed to technical issues, saying that there are 60 digital studios in Iran.
The head of the Iranian radio and TV organization drew reporters' attention to a five-year plan of the organization, and said that the plan includes increasing in the number of TV channels.
Rapid TV News 2009
Intelsat’s giant I-14 craft is still standing on its launch pad. It should have launched last Saturday.
The plan was for the satellite to be orbited from Florida’s Cape Canaveral (from pad 41) on an Atlas V rocket. Now the rocket’s fuel has been drained while an important electrical component on the rocket is switched out.
The Intelsat satellite is fine. Built by Space Systems/Loral, it is the thirteenth such model to be launched.
Intelsat-14 is needed on station to replace an aging Intelsat-1R craft that has problems with its solar panels, which are losing efficiency at a faster rate than planned. It is nine years old, and would normally have been expected to last some 15 years.
There’s a possibility that the launch could be re-scheduled for today (Tuesday).
Rapid TV News 2009
Educational TVRM menu Digi TV
'' Offer satellite pay-TV Digi TV today, featuring the next program. The Romanian program offer this platform appeared Romanian educational TVRM Educational TV program.
The station was previously available for DTH satellite viewers to receive free satellite Amos 3 (4°W), Boom TV customers at the same position and in the competitive service at Dolce satellite Hellas Sat 2 (39°E).
Educational Channel TVRM free program used to position the satellite transponder Intelsat 10-02. The signal station is provided Nagravision conditional access system 2 and Nagra Media Access.
Technical parameters :
Intelsat 10-02 (1°W), freq 12.531 GHz, pol V, SR 23340, FEC 3/4, DVB-S/QPSK, CA Nagravision 2 / 3 ''
www.sat-universe.com/showthread.php?t=167489 (http://www.sat-universe.com/showthread.php?t=167489)
PARIS, April 14, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a new display of how 3D is rapidly redefining the viewing experience, Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) is teaming with Russia's General Satellite Corporation and the Mariinsky Theatre for a satellite transmission on 15 April from St. Petersburg of an exceptional sequence of classical ballet performances by leading Russian dancers. The 3D content will be received live in Moscow and Paris and displayed for the first time on Samsung's first generation of Full HD 3D TV sets.
In an agreement announced today between Eutelsat and General Satellite, up to 500 hours of 3D content produced by General Satellite will further enrich the line up of Eutelsat's All-3D channel. General Satellite is already Russia's leading supplier of HD content for the Platforma HD package broadcast across European parts of Russia via EUROBIRD(TM) 9A.
The dance sequences in St Petersburg will be filmed in 3D (two video signals and one audio signal), mixed, encoded and uplinked to Eutelsat satellite capacity from an SNG truck at the Mariinsky Theatre. The live signal will be delivered to six Samsung 3D Ready 55" displays via a standard HD set-top-box produced by General Satellite. Viewers will watch the ballet sequences using Samsung Active glasses to show the lifelike depth and colour clarity that is now possible in consumer homes.
Commenting on the premiere 3DTV transmission, Michel de Rosen Eutelsat CEO said "Coming only three weeks after the remarkable 3D broadcast to cinemas in France of the Six Nations rugby match between France and England, this premiere satellite-delivered 3DTV display will be a new landmark in the rapidly emerging market for transmitting premium 3D content. Eutelsat has been the trailblazing satellite partner in this transformation. Since content will always be king, we are delighted to conclude the agreement for 3D content with General Satellite that will enrich the programming on our unique All-3D channel on EUROBIRD(TM) 9A."
Andrey Tkachenko, Chairman of General Satellite Corporation added "This live ballet transmission marks a brand new step in General Satellite's European ambitions for 3D, in close technical partnership with Eutelsat. Viewers with the appropriate equipment can now watch high-quality 3D content broadcast by General Satellite and Eutelsat from the EUROBIRDTM 9A satellite."
halohammer
28-03-11, 10:48
I remember reading about this!!:o
I did some research and I found the original news article from General Satellite themselves on their website. It's here: http://www.general-satellite.com/news/1274726026
That had to be soooo cool, man.
BTW, has anybody gotten this technology yet for watching movies??
PARIS, April 14, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a new display of how 3D is rapidly redefining the viewing experience, Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) is teaming with Russia's General Satellite Corporation and the Mariinsky Theatre for a satellite transmission on 15 April from St. Petersburg of an exceptional sequence of classical ballet performances by leading Russian dancers. The 3D content will be received live in Moscow and Paris and displayed for the first time on Samsung's first generation of Full HD 3D TV sets.
In an agreement announced today between Eutelsat and General Satellite, up to 500 hours of 3D content produced by General Satellite will further enrich the line up of Eutelsat's All-3D channel. General Satellite is already Russia's leading supplier of HD content for the Platforma HD package broadcast across European parts of Russia via EUROBIRD(TM) 9A.
The dance sequences in St Petersburg will be filmed in 3D (two video signals and one audio signal), mixed, encoded and uplinked to Eutelsat satellite capacity from an SNG truck at the Mariinsky Theatre. The live signal will be delivered to six Samsung 3D Ready 55" displays via a standard HD set-top-box produced by General Satellite. Viewers will watch the ballet sequences using Samsung Active glasses to show the lifelike depth and colour clarity that is now possible in consumer homes.
Commenting on the premiere 3DTV transmission, Michel de Rosen Eutelsat CEO said "Coming only three weeks after the remarkable 3D broadcast to cinemas in France of the Six Nations rugby match between France and England, this premiere satellite-delivered 3DTV display will be a new landmark in the rapidly emerging market for transmitting premium 3D content. Eutelsat has been the trailblazing satellite partner in this transformation. Since content will always be king, we are delighted to conclude the agreement for 3D content with General Satellite that will enrich the programming on our unique All-3D channel on EUROBIRD(TM) 9A."
Andrey Tkachenko, Chairman of General Satellite Corporation added "This live ballet transmission marks a brand new step in General Satellite's European ambitions for 3D, in close technical partnership with Eutelsat. Viewers with the appropriate equipment can now watch high-quality 3D content broadcast by General Satellite and Eutelsat from the EUROBIRDTM 9A satellite."
halohammer
01-04-11, 12:37
At the First International Business Conference for the production of microelectronics and nanoelectronics Si-Forum 2011 in the Technopolis Gusev (Kaliningrad region), the General Satellite Corporation, and the RC Module announced the development and manufacture of Russia's first chip for digital TV.
Don't want to paste the whole thing... lol
Full article is here: http://www.general-satellite.com/news/1300200307
Wow, sounds like a huge project. Could be great for the whole region aroud Kaliningrad :)
Sky Sports News HD launches
January 3, 2012
Sky Deutschland has launched its news sports news channel. Sky Sports News HD went live on New Year’s Day at 12:00.
Brian Sullivan, CEO of Sky Deutschland, said: “The launch of Sky Sport News HD is a landmark in the history of Sky. A 24-hour live sport news channel signals something completely new in the German-speaking TV landscape. With the new channel, Sky is once again adding to its unique portfolio of new products and innovations.”
Sky Sports News HD, with 200 employees including anchors Kate Abdo and Thomas Fleischmann, will air sports news 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Sky Sport News HD is available in HD via satellite and through cable networks Kabel BW, Tele Columbus and NetCologne. The channel can also be received in SD via satellite and through all digital cable networks. Sky Sport News HD will be broadcasted unencrypted for the first month to all digital satellite and cable households in Germany and Austria. The channel will be part of the Sky Welt package and is available in Germany and Austria through TV, internet, iPad, iPhone, and soon through Xbox 360 as well as sports bars and hotels.
N.DS set to change name to reflect Cisco ownership
14-06-2012
'' Technology provider N.DS will get a new name following its take-over by US electronics giant Cisco.
The N.DS brand will disappear, Yves Padrines, vice president and general manager at N.DS for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told German industry magazine "Digitalmagazin" at the trade fair ANGA Cable in Cologne.
By the end of this year, the company will be renamed Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group, said Padrines. Product brands such as VideoGuard, MediaHighway or Snowflake will keep their names, though.
N.DS provides conditional access solutions, middleware and other technologies for digital and interactive television to broadcasters including BSkyB, Sky Deutschland and Kabel Deutschland. ''
RAI suspends smart card distribution
July 30, 2012 11.22 Europe/London By Julian Clover
'' Italian public broadcaster RAI has suspended the distribution of smart cards for its Tivusat service.
It follows the judgment of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court on July 11 in the wake of a complaint by Sky Italia.
The action annulled RAI’s contract with Tivusat – in which it is a shareholder – where it was required to promote the Eutelsat-delivered platform.
Consumers looking for non-subscription access to RAI channels over satellite can now only obtain the card in conjunction with a Tivusat receiver or conditional access module.
Around 60,000 consumers, out of Tivusat’s 1,524,285 total, acquired their card through RAI. ''
CanalSat adds five HD channels
August 29, 2012 11.08 Europe/London By Robert Briel
'' The French CanalSat platform is adding five new HD channels to its existing line-up of 36 high def channels. The offer includes two new channels to the French market.
Djazz.TV HD is a new channel from the Netherlands and is part of the Brava TV group. It claims to be the world’s first 24/7 jazz channel. CanalSat customers can subscribe to the channel as an a la carte option for €4 a month.
Also new to the platform is Blackbelt TV, for lovers of fighting sports, including Thai boxing and actors such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. The channel can be previewed free of charge until November 30, when it becomes part of the Frisson bouquet.
The remaining three new HD channels are already available in SD on the platform. They are Planète+ HD, Ciné+ Frisson HD and Ciné+ Emotion HD. ''
Discovery HD for Sky Deutschland
October 17, 2012
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Discovery HD has launched on the Sky Deutschland platform in Germany and Austria as part of the Sky World package.
The launch will bring HD versions of content including How We Invented the World and Shark Week to Sky Deutschland subscribers.
The move brings to eight the number of HD services available in the Sky World package. ''
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