Satellite News

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Portugal rejects bids for 5th channel

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

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Euronews adds Turkish from 2010

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.