Satellite News

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The Franco German cultural channel Arte has launched the online video portal Arte Live Web, which offers a selection of music, dance, theatre and other performing arts.

The new portal is free-to-view and will offer both on-demand content and live ‘broadcasts’ of events including the Art Rock festival, which takes place this weekend in Saint-Brieuc and features acts including Birdy Nam Nam and Cold War Kids.

Arte Love Web is available in both German and French and comes in addition to the regular Arte video portal, which serves 2.5 million video requests a month, of which 1.7 million are Catch-up TV streams. The site will offer between 200 and 250 programmes.

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Discovery has said it still wants to launch a channel on Freeview this year.
The broadcaster suspended the launch of Quest, its first free-to-air channel in the UK, just prior to the channel's expected launch date of May 14.

It cited "a number of commercial factors" as being behind the "difficult decision".
A spokesperson for Discovery has now told Media Week that despite the "challenging economic environment" the broadcaster is "still committed to launching a channel on Freeview during 2009".

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Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) and the Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific have signed an agreement in Hanoi on June 19, allowing VOV to use programming services from CNN. Under the two-year deal, VOV can now receive, monitor, record and incorporate excerpts from CNN services such as CNN International, International Newsource and CNN Radio in the news and information programmes to be broadcast on its channels. This includes the video image radio channel known as VOV TV. VOV is also licensed to publish CNN’s news stories on its website.

Ann Chu, director of CNN’s Broadcast Sales & Affiliate Relations, said that this was the first time CNN and the VOV have established cooperative ties and that the Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific plans to sign a similar deal with Vietnam Television. She expressed her belief that cooperative ties between CNN and Vietnamese media agencies will be strengthened in the future.

VOV Deputy General Director Hoang Minh Nguyet spoke highly of the deal, which she said will help improve the quality of radio broadcasts by keeping audiences better informed of what is happening around the world. She also stated that the VOV and CNN will continue to cooperate and share information in many other areas in the future

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The Romanian government has authorised the Ministry of Communications to start procedures for the granting of licences for the terrestrial transmission of TV broadcasts in digital format across 80 percent of Romania’s territory.

“Technically speaking, Romania has the necessary resources to implement the terrestrial transmission of TV programs in digital format across 60 percent of the country, but my goal is that we achieve a percentage of 80 percent by the end of 2009,” said Minister of Communications Gabriel Sandu, cited by daily Ziarul financiar. He added that the government has mandated the Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) to initiate the transition from analogue to digital television and implement broadband [sic]radio services nationwide.

According to the strategy paper, no analogue television broadcaster shall remain operational in Romania after January 1, 2012, the date when the transition from analog to DVB-T television services is due to be finalized.

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The Greek government has decided to sell as further 5% stake in OTE to Deutsche Telekom.

According to Greek news sources, the move is in accordance with a deal struck last year obliging Deutsche Telekom to buy a further 5% in OTE at €27.5 a share proving the Greek state remains in control of the telco.

As a result of the deal, the state will collect €674 million plus and benefit by over €385 million due to the current OTE share price.

The sale, which raises Deutsche Telekom’s interest in OTE to 30% plus one share, is being strongly opposed by the Federation of OTE employees and PASOK political party.

Separately, it has been confirmed that OTE will participate in €2.1 million FTTH network project.

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Virgin Media has removed the three Sky Sports channels from its analogue cable as part of an ongoing shut down of the transmission over its cable network.

The majority of the cable operator's customers currently receive digital TV services, but there remains a small proportion still watching an analogue signal.

A region-by-region programme was launched a year ago to transfer customers receiving analogue services to new digital TV packages.

From the start of this month, this has resulted in the remaining analogue TV users no longer being able to receive Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3 over their existing service.

In a statement, a Virgin Media spokesperson said the change has affected just 0.1% of the firm's TV customers.

"The majority of customers affected by this change will now be able to take advantage of digital TV services including Sky Sports and Sky Movies and enjoy over 165 digital TV channels, access to Virgin Media's pioneering on demand services - with over 4,600 hours of TV including 500 movies - as well as ultrafast fibre optic broadband," said the spokesperson.

According to Virgin, all customers affected by this change were contacted well in advance about the process of transferring to a digital service.

The spokesperson added: "A tiny percentage of customers who may be unable to receive digital cable services in their area will still be able to receive the rest of their analogue TV channels as before.

"Any customers that were paying for these channels will no longer be charged for this service."

Sky turned off its analogue satellite service back in 2001, while the UK's analogue terrestrial transmission is due to be shut down by 2013.

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French pay TV operator Canal+ is to offer customers a weekend-only subscription for half the amount it charges for its usual package.

Canal+ chief executive Bertrand Méheut told Le Monde that to assess demand, "Canal+ week-end" would offer a Friday evening to late Sunday night service priced at €15 per month.

6.2m homes take Canal+ and CanalSat with churn standing at 10.6%.