Satellite News

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.