FilmBox in Cyfrowy Polsat?
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.
CANAL+ Cyfrowy stations with a wider range
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
Discovery HD free on charge in Cyfrowy Polsat for
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.
WWE wrestling on Eurosport
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
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 - [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Kino Polska with new graphics in March
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 - [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Five more arrested over CCTV blaze
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.
Spain: TV sector to be more flexible
Rose Major [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
Disney goes mobile in Asia
Rose Major [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
German DVB-H to try again?
Chris Forrester [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
India: DTH players pay record fees
Rose Major [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
Russia throws out Disney plan
Chris Forrester [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
HD, ads and sport hit Sky TV NZ’s profits
Rose Major [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
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
HD, ads and sport hit Sky TV NZ’s profits
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
Nick comes to Switzerland
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
UK viewers ‘willing’ to pay for TV
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
Cable lags in Austrian digitalisation
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
Nagra confirms Tivu-Sat win
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
