Classica HD, Deluxe HD on Astra
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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)
SES and Telenor success for Ariane
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
ART’s sports rights bought by Al Jazeera?
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
ART sells sports channels to Al Jazeera
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
Intersputnik Transfers Frequency Rights for AMOS 5
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 .
NTDTV Takes Eutelsat to Court Over Broadcast Termi
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
Showtime Mid-East suffers viewer backlash
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 EBITA up 21.4 %
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.
German Bundesliga to stay free-to-air
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.”
BBC is hitting road blocks
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
Indonesian satellite’s dramatic rescue
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
Educational TVRM menu Digi TV
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 ''
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Russia's first digital chip for TV
Quote:
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: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
