Satellite News

[otheitis]

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.

[otheitis]

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.

[otheitis]

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.