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NEWS Monday 16th December - Monday 23th December 2002
Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday | |||||
Finally a bird that flies!
Vivendi sells, sues and closes
BetaDigital moves Premiere
News Corp's China deal
Cable and TV makers team up
Sky drives digital TV take up
More games on Sky
Finally a bird that flies!
A European Ariane-4 rocket, launching from French Guyana, has successfully put a broadband satellite from New Skies Satellites into orbit last Tuesday night (17/12/02).
The bird is New Skies' sixth satellite - and its launch was watched closely, with the companies hoping it would not end up 'broadcasting to the fishes' as last week's failed satellites launched by Eutelsat and Astra were subsequently described as doing.
Destined for geostationary orbit at 95 degrees east longitude, the satellite will provide switchable Ku-band beams to provide broadband and broadcast services throughout the Asia Pacific region, from southern Africa to Australia.
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Vivendi sells, sues and closes
Troubled Franco-American media conglomerate Vivendi Universal has agreed sell its entire EchoStar equity position to EchoStar Communications Corporation. The US satellite-television operator will pay Vivendi E1.07 billion in cash for the 10 per cent stake on December 23, 2002. This is 15 per cent less than Vivendi paid a year ago.
Former Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier bought the EchoStar stake in December 2001 for E1.5 billion to boost Vivendi's distribution reach in the US to better showcase the films and music of its entertainment businesses.
Vivendi had been restricted from selling the shares pending a US regulatory ruling on the EchoStar/Hughes deal, which has been recently called off.
The move is intended to prop up EchoStar's own stock price and avoid uncertainty caused by the prospect of the eventual sale of such a large block of EchoStar shares on the open market. The transaction is expected to close on Monday.
The move is expected to result in a E170 million non-cash gain for EchoStar in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile Vivendi is reported to be planning to take legal action in the Paris high court against Appac, a small shareholders' association, alleging that the group had published seven different versions of its 2001 accounts and that the group had not published an audit report by PwC.
Appac lodged a complaint at the end of July, alleging Vivendi had put out false information about its financial situation and resorted to forgery and the use of forged documents.
Appac's lawyer, Frederik-Karel Canoy, who is leading the group's complaint that Vivendi Universal misled investors during Messier's tenure, was reported as saying that the legal action was a, "diversion created to destabilise Appac . . . and waste time."
It's been reported that there have been further police searches for documents related to the inquiry. The house of Marc Vienot, honorary chairman of Societe Generale SA and a Vivendi board member until two weeks ago, has been searched and he is said to believe that as many as 10 other executives connected with Vivendi have had their homes or offices inspected.
*In the UK Vivendi and cable operator NTL are to close their joint venture movie channel, 'The Studio,' by the end of the year.
Although the Studio channel was meeting its financial target in less than a year of existence, its shareholders decided to pull the plug after having failed to secure carriage deals to appear on the television platforms operated by British Sky Broadcasting and Telewest.
The channel is available on NTL's digital TV subscription package and screens classic movies to 1.4 million NTL subscribers.
"Nobody sets up a movie channel to be distributed by one carrier," NTL was reported as saying. "Success depends on other distribution deals. Unfortunately 'The Studio was unable to secure additional carriage."
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BetaDigital moves Premiere
From Dieter Brockmeyer in Frankfurt
The German digital pay TV platform Premiere took over the digital playout centre from insolvent KirchGroup and formed a new unit, Digital Playout-Centre (DPC), which will be headed by Winfried Urner who held the position of Managing Director at BetaDigital since 1998.
When Premiere was fighting its own insolvency problems, many observers considered that its lack of playout facilities was the biggest obstacle to the platform's survival. By taking over BetaDigital, not only has Premiere overcome this problem, but it has also put the company into the position of being the largest German digital TV service provider.
Beta Digital, along with other providers, also handles the digital playout for channels within the ProSiebenSat.1 group, the DSF sports channel and the Home Shopping Europe (HSE) services.
Last quarter Premiere went past the 2.5 million subscriber bench mark for the first time. In addition, an E1.2 billion cash infusion by new investors is expected to be finalised before the year's end.
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News
Corp's China deal
News Corporation Ltd signed an agreement with a state-owned Chinese provincial
broadcaster to jointly finance and produce television programs, reports
the Herald Sun.
The deal between News Corp's Star Group and the Hunan Broadcasting Group,
which operates eight television channels, including the nationally broadcast
Hunan Satellite TV, was signed in Changsha.
James Murdoch, Star Chairman and Chief Executive was reported as saying,
"The agreement further broadens and deepens our development in China."
"To team up with Star is our first strategic step to strengthen our cooperation
with the outside world," Wei Wenbin, Chairman of the Hunan group, was
reported as saying.
Two months ago, News Corp became the first international broadcaster to
beam programs directly to Chinese television audiences when Star Group's
partially-owned Phoenix Chinese Channel began transmitting into the Pearl
River Delta region of southern Guangdong province.
For years international broadcasters have fought to gain access to the
fast growing Chinese market of 1.3 billion television viewers, but they
had been formally banned - apart from limited broadcasts to upscale tourist
hotels and foreigners' residential compounds.
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Cable
and TV makers team up
US television manufacturers and cable operators are planning to team up
to produce a 'plug-and-play' connection from the cable wire into the digital
TV set for the next digital generation of TV services, with no need for
a set-top-box.
The companies say that the deal is designed to ensure crisp pictures and
advanced digital features to roughly 70 million homes that subscribe to
cable. The integrated products are not expected to be available in the
retail market for about two years. This will help the US switch from analogue
to digital, which is planned for 2007.
The companies expected to join the agreement are major cable operators
who hold 70 per cent of the market such as Comcast Corp and AOL Time Warner
as well as 14 television set makers including Sony Corp, Thomson Multimedia's
RCA and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd's Panasonic, Reuters reported.
The plan will need approval from US communications regulator, the Federal
Communications Commission.
Still to be resolved are standards over two-way communications, which
would enable interactive features.
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Sky
drives digital TV take up
BSkyB's key role in the take up of digital TV in the UK is acknowledged
in a new survey carried out by UK TV regulator, the Independent Television
Commission (ITC). The satellite operator continued to display strong growth
over Q3, increasing its households by 3.3 per cent. The ITC's figures
state that 6.06 million homes now subscribe to Sky Digital following a
steady and continued increase over the year.
The ITC has launched a new report, the 'Multi-channel Quarterly', " to
provide a more wide-ranging review of progress in the sector and it aims
to be a single reference point for subscriber information across the multi-channel
platforms," the organisation said.
More than 11 million UK homes are now equipped with digital TV on satellite,
cable or terrestrial. This represents an overall increase in of 2.8 per
cent in 3Q.
In contrast, both the main cable operators, NTL and Telewest, witnessed
an overall fall in subscribers, with a decrease of two per cent. Total
cable subscribers have fallen for four consecutive quarters - the majority
of this is due to churn from their analogue services. Digital cable subscribers
have continued to grow over the corresponding period, adding 0.9 per cent
over Q3.
The DSL platform has experienced a substantial fall in customers of 12.5
per cent over Q3. Similar to the cable platform, subscriber numbers have
also fallen for four consecutive quarters.
Following the collapse of ITV Digital a significant number of viewers
have left the digital terrestrial platform leading to a drop in DTT households.
The report does not include figures for the early rush of people who have
taken the successor service Freeview.
Overall, the changes in subscribers across the different platforms resulted
in multi-channel penetration in UK households increasing by 1.2 per cent.
Digital penetration increased by 1.5 per cent largely due to the additions
on the digital satellite platform with a small contribution from digital
cable.
Also see: http://www.itc.org.uk
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More
games on Sky
Mobile entertainment solutions company Digital Bridges has agreed a deal
with UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB, to make its SMS and Java mobile entertainment
content available via enhanced TV channel, Sky Active.
Over 6.3 million Sky Active users in the UK and Ireland will be able to
download games to their mobile phone using the Sky remote. The service
joins Sky Active's portal of mobile and messaging services.
Miles Pearce, Head of Interactive Communications at Sky Interactive said,
"With the popularity of both Gamestar and our ringtone service, we are
sure that downloading mobile games using Sky Active will prove a hit.
By partnering with Digital Bridges we are able to offer our viewers a
wide range of first-class mobile games. Viewers will be able to download
the games quickly and easily from the Your Mobile area on Sky Active."
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to top
Knapp raps OFT
German media scrap on
Canal Satellite tops 2 million
Liberty, News Corp bid for DirecTV
Canada Cable losses E400m to pirates
Iran to end ban on satellite TV?
SoniCblue launches networked DVD Player
StudioCanal CEO to go
Comcast to sell securities
Knapp raps OFT
Barclay Knapp, Chief Executive of NTL has slammed the Office of Fair Trading for taking almost three years to complete its investigation into BSkyB.
In the three years since the investigation - which delivered a 'not guilty' verdict yesterday - was launched NTL has gone from go-go media stock to a bankruptcy filing leading to a debt for equity swap leaving shareholders with next to nothing.
Knapp said he would study the 157-page report before commenting on the findings, but attacked the length of time the investigation had taken. He said the investigation proved that there was a need for, "a converged regulator in the form of Ofcom, capable of delivering well thought-out regulation at broadband not dial-up speed."
Earlier this month Knapp complained the regulators had never come to terms with Sky's dominance. He made the point that of Sky's main competitors - which are also its' customers - ITV Digital had gone into liquidation and NTL and Telewest had been forced into major restructures, "it's not solely because of this issue, but it has played a significant part," he said.
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German media scrap on
Axel Springer, the German publisher, has scored a major victory in its year-long fight to recover a E767 million cash claim from the insolvent Kirch media empire in a court ruling that could affect the proposed Kirch sale to another major media player, Bauer.
A Munich court ruled that the claim, sparked by the exercise by Springer in January of an option forcing Kirch to buy the publisher's shares in TV station ProSiebenSAT.1, was legally binding. KirchMedia, had argued that its insolvency filing in April had extinguished the liability.
Outside court Springer has already offered to drop its E767 million claim against Kirch in exchange for another 16.5 per cent of Sat 1. Such a deal would raise its stake in the station to a decisive 28 per cent. Both parties say they will continue to negotiate although Springer's hand is obviously strengthened by the ruling, which Kirch says it will appeal.
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Canal Satellite tops 2 million
From Sotires Eleftheriou in Paris
French DTH platform Canal Satellite, has reached its' initial and hit the two million subscriber mark.
The company, owned 66 per cent by Canal Plus (part of Vivendi Universal) and 34 per cent by the Lagardere group said this represents a net growth of 220,000 during the year. Churn rate is down to 8.5 per cent from 9.9 per cent in 2001, one of the best in the industry. Canal Satellite attributes this to its range of channels (almost 60 of which are exclusive to Canal Satellite), the richness of the programming and the strength of its brands.
Meanwhile the French football league has accepted the Canal Plus group's bid for televising football 2004 -2007, albeit at a high price of E480 million a year. However, the Competition Council is set to hear the complaint by TPS on January 8. If the deal is accepted and Canal Satellite and premium channel Canal Plus have exclusive rights to the lion's part of French football, then many observers believe it will revive merger discussions with the rival platform DTH. On the one hand Canal will hold the rights but at a very high price, while on the other hand TPS will be short of subscribers.
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Liberty, News Corp bid for DirecTV
Speculation that following the halting of the Echostar/Hughes merger a News Corp and Liberty Media bid for Hughes owned DirecTV would emerge was stoked yesterday by Robert Bennett, President at a Liberty Media shareholders meeting.
"It's something we're interested in looking at. Our preference would be with News Corp," said Bennet.
Owning DirecTV would give Australian-based News Corp the missing piece of a global satellite network and broaden Liberty's already big stable of media properties, which includes stakes in the Discovery, Animal Plant, QVC channels.
Liberty said it had thought about a solo bid but combining with News Corp, where it is the second biggest shareholder, would make sense.
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Canada Cable losses E400m to pirates
Signal piracy in Canada is costing the cable TV industry more than E400 million in lost revenue annually, it was reported as part of an ongoing investigation about TV signal piracy.
The analysis commissioned by satellite TV provider Bell ExpressVu and conducted by Pathlink Engineering, found that of the 8.1 million Canadian households with cable TV, four per cent of single family homes and 10 per cent of multiple family units steal cable service for an estimated annual loss of E290-million. Pathlink then adds E128-million annually related to people overriding cable company filters that limit access to premium channels, bringing the total to more than E400-million.
Bell ExpressVu has come under fire from the cable sector because of the report. Cable operators alleged that the satellite TV provider, that has more than 1.2 million subscribers across the country, it is not doing enough itself to combat the piracy of its own signal.
Timothy McGee, Bell ExpressVu President, was reported as saying in an interview "The cable companies have clearly ignored their own issue and tried to obfuscate what's going on."
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Iran to end ban on satellite TV?
Iran's reformist-controlled parliament voted to end the ban on satellite television, and instead place restrictions on what residents of the Islamic republic are allowed to watch, the local press reports.
Deputies in the Majlis approved a text that commissioned the telecommunications ministry to develop over the next six months, "receivers that can receive a limited number of foreign channels" whose broadcasts do not contravene Iran's national and Islamic values.
The law also authorises state television to relay programming from some foreign media, and would give certain people such as academics and journalists unlimited satellite television access.
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SoniCblue launches networked DVD Player
SoniCblue launched Go-Video D2730, a networked DVD player. The D-2730 can bring the pictures, music and video clips stored on the computer onto the TV. Go-Video D-2730 comes with a PC software to set the network up and the TV viewing is though the DVD remote control.
"SoniCblue's vision is connecting people with entertainment and with the proliferation of digital cameras and the downloading of audio and video files, today's consumers have a lot of great entertainment content trapped on their computers," said Ed Brachocki, SoniCblue's Vice President of Product Marketing, audio and video products. "The networked DVD player will allow them to easily connect to this entertainment, and stream content from their computers to the television."
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StudioCanal CEO to go
Richard Lenormand the current Chief Executive of the European content division of French Canal Plus, StudioCanal, is to leave the company at the end of the year.
Lenormand took over as Chairman and CEO of StudioCanal in the wake of the Vivendi merger, taking over from Vincent Grimond, who had built the division up into what was intended to be a fully integrated European studio
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Comcast to sell securities
US Cable TV operator Comcast Corp filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission to periodically sell up to E10 billion in debt securities, common and preferred stock and other securities, Reuters reported
.
The Pennsylvania-based company plans to use the net proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes, it said in the shelf registration filing.
Under such a filing, a company may sell securities from time to time in one or more separate offerings in amounts, at prices and on terms to be determined at the time of sale.
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Wednesday 18th December 2002
Sky off watchdog hook
UK soccer bid speculation starts
Freeview will slow in New Year
Expanding the bottle neck
BBC World Service is 70-years-old
Intelsat interested in Satellite Internet
Telenor sells Russian mobile operator
Sky off watchdog hook
The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has decided that while BSkyB does have a dominant position in the pay-TV sector, it is not guilty of breaching competition law.
The verdict follows a three-year investigation sparked when rival pay-TV operators led by now defunct ITV Digital, accused Sky of charging rival pay TV broadcasters inflated tariffs to carry its Sky Sports and Sky Movies channels.
A year ago the OFT seemed to have decided Sky was guilty and issued a "rule 14 notice" warning the UK's largest pay TV broadcaster that it believed it had broken competition laws.
But now John Vickers, the Director General of the OFT is reported as saying: "We have concluded that BSkyB is dominant in the supply of premium channels. On the key issue of the alleged margin squeeze against rivals we found BSkyB to be around the borderline of anti-competitive behaviour. Overall there are not sufficient grounds to conclude that BSkyB has broken competition law."
BSkyB said: "After an investigation lasting nearly three years, BSkyB welcomes confirmation that its conduct has not infringed the Competition Act."
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UK soccer bid speculation starts
Now that Sky is off the competition hook, speculation in the press has immediately turned to next year's Premier League TV rights bidding. Yesterday several reports indicated Sky is willing to repeat its' last offer of E1.7 billion - made in 2000 - for the rights to screen top football games exclusively when contracts come up for renewal in 2003.
Given the collapse of ITV Digital and cable companies being in no position to offer any serious competition, and the likelihood the BBC will again cooperate with Sky, one can only assume the source for these stories was the UK football's governing body.
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Freeview will slow in New Year
Freeview, the UK free digital TV venture that launched just over a month ago and has claimed a roaring start, is likely to see demand drop off in the New Year according to the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB).
A new survey by the Bureau reported in the Guardian, says that only one in 10 of those without digital television said they would buy a E150 (£99) set-top box to receive Freeview next year. Although around10.6 million homes have digital TV - cable, satellite or DTT - there are fears that interest has peaked.
A further two in 10 said that they were "quite likely" to upgrade to Freeview, leaving seven in 10 viewers not interested in upgraded their TV sets to get new channels including MTV or BBC4. The survey indicates that the maximum take-up of Freeview would be around 3.5 million viewers.
If the survey were proved right the Government will be left well short of its targets for analogue switch-off in 2006-10.
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Expanding the bottle neck
From Dieter Brockmeyer in Frankfurt
Germany's public broadcasters are taking up space on the scarce analogue cable channels, making it harder for commercial competitors to expand or even to get cable distribution for new or existing services.
One case is the German kid's channel, KiKa, which is jointly run by the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. The channel is further expanding its airtime with programmes extending from the current 7pm to 9pm and from 2005 onwards the program schedule will go till 10pm.
The channel is making use of the must carry rule that states that public channels must be carried on one of the strong but rare German analogue cable channels. Previously KiKa had jointly used one cable channel with the public French/German cultural channel Arte that started its program schedule in Germany at 7pm. Now they need a full cable channel each.
KiKa Managing Director Frank Beckmann says the channel needs to expand its airtime because older kids between 10-13 years of age today would spend more time in front of TV screens. Since the ongoing delay in Deutsche Telekom AG selling its cable assets and the dramatic financial shortfall of the entire German cable industry, analogue distribution to the over 18 million cable homes reaching over 60 per cent of 33 million German TV homes is most important.
Germany is the most competitive free to air TV market with about 35 channels available of all genre of which about half belong to the public broadcasting system.
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BBC World Service is 70-years-old
BBC World Service is seventy years old tomorrow and to celebrate it will undertake its most ambitious outside broadcast ever, coming live from Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town in South Africa, between 4am and 6pm GMT.
The celebration is the pinnacle of two weeks of special events and programmes including a World Service 70th Birthday Lecture by Kofi Annan, a special edition of Talking Point with Tony Blair and a Global Party in which several top musicians performed.
Live from Table Mountain presented by Ben Malor of Africa Live and Outlook's Heather Payton, is a fourteen hour broadcast (also webcast live, in vision and in audio) beginning as the sun rises over the Indian Ocean and continuing throughout the day until the sun sets over the Atlantic.
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Intelsat interested in Satellite Internet
US-based Intelsat Ltd is planning to invest in WildBlue Communications Inc, a satellite Internet start-up, in a join venture Liberty Media Corp. and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative. The companies are said to be talking about a E160 million investment, reported Washington Post newspaper.
If the deal is carried through is expected to breathe new life into WildBlue, a Denver-based firm planning to launch high-speed satellite Internet service. Liberty already owns about 16 per cent of WildBlue
Intelsat Chief Executive Conny Kullman reportedly confirmed that the company is in discussions about investing in WildBlue, but he declined to specify details. The deal is likely to be announced within the next week.
The terms of the investment are still under discussion, but the deal is likely to give Liberty Media 35 per cent ownership, Intelsat 30 per cent, and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative 15 percent ownership in the new WildBlue.
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Telenor sells Russian mobile operator
Norwegian state-dominated telco Telenor has sold its 49 per cent share in Russian regional mobile operator Extel, to Telenor Mobile's associated company, VimpelCom. The remaining 51 per cent of the shares in Kaliningrad based Extel have also been sold to VimpelCom.
Extel is the dominating player in the Kaliningrad region where the company had a 65 per cent market share representing a subscriber base of approximately 105,000 at the beginning of December this year. VimpelCom, in which Telenor holds a 29 per cent economic stake, had approximately 4.5 million subscribers at the end of November 2002. The VimpelCom Group's license portfolio covers approximately 79 per cent of Russia's population (115 million people), including the City of Moscow, the Moscow Region and the City of St Petersburg.
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| FLEX The Good and the Bad of the BBC Three BBC stories of the week: 1. Word Service is 70 years old. 2. BBC is the most searched word of 2002 on Google. 3. According to Press Watch the BBC is the most negatively reported media company.
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Tuesday 17th Decemeber 2002
Europe's satellite makers to merge?
Echostar / Hughes fallout
Marconi settles restructure while C&W sweats
TF1 delivers broadband TV
Shopping on Sky a real Pleasure…
Bank holds key to Telewest deal
Ericsson and Telenor MMS agreement
AB leaves ACCES and calls for revolution
TiVo on digital music
Homechoice, users must upgrade
C5 top job, Faking it?
Europe's satellite makers to merge?
Broadband satellite capacity oversupply is leading Europe's main satellite manufacturers to assess a merger, according to the FT.
Astrium, which is controlled by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) company, along with Alenia Spazio, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, the Italian electronics and defence group, and Alcatel's satellite manufacturing division, are all said to be currently in talks about joining up as order books shrink.
There are now about 200 satellites in orbit providing more capacity than telcos and broadcasters can currently use. Globally there are enough manufacturers to supply 50 satellite orders a year but in 2002 only six were ordered.
Talks between the three companies are said to have gained momentum in recent weeks following a string of cancelled orders and lost satellites. said SES Global, the satellite operating company. Industry observers say that when a satellite is lost, manufacturers cannot prove that th ey work, which affects their ability to attract future orders.
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Echostar / Hughes fallout
The fallout from the failed merger of Hughes Electronics and Echostar continues. PanAmSat, the Hughes owned satellite operator price lost a fifth of its value last week thanks to Hughes decision to release its rival EchoStar from an obligation to buy its 81 per cent owned subsidiary for E2.7 billion.
Hughes also said it will pull the plug on DirecTV Broadband's terrestrial high-speed Internet business in 90 days, but it will keep its satellite broadband offering, DirecWAY - which has about 160,000 customers. The business was acquired by Hughes in April 2001 and serves approximately 160,000 customers with its DirecTV DSL service.
Roughly half of DirecTV Broadband's 400 employees were notified of layoffs on Friday, the remaining employees will work with customers during the approximate 90-day transition process and to wind down business operations, Hughes said.
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Marconi settles restructure while C&W sweats
Marconi, the troubled telco equipment maker, has finally agreed its E6 billion restructuring with banks and bondholders. The deal will leave the original shareholders with just 0.5 per cent of the company. The company also announced a new chairman, John Devaney, who joins from logistics company Excel.
Meanwhile Cable & Wireless the troubled telco operator, that has seen its value decimated in recent weeks by a series of financial revelations, is refusing to comment on speculation that venture capital backed predators are beginning to circle. Among those mentioned is the relative minnow Thus, itself often criticised for underperformance in the past.
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TF1 delivers broadband TV
TF1, France's national broadcaster, is to deliver broadband TV services in a field trial in Paris. TF1 will be using iMagicTV's Media Manager software to enable 200 trial customers in the French capital to receive TV and video services over broadband networks in an initial six month. TF1 will deliver a bouquet of live TV channels and in partnership with ISP 9Online will provide fast Internet access on PC.
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Shopping on Sky a real Pleasure…
Sky Active, the interactive TV service from BskyB, is launching this a new interactive shopping service channel called Pleasurezone TV.
The channel will offer adult toys and clothing along with 'sexy' mobile ringtones and logos through Sky's interactive menu. Viewers will use a PIN code for security.
Mark Cowne, Pleasurezone TV's founder and CEO, was reported as saying, "Our early trials with consumers have been very encouraging, and we think there is a definite market out there with couples, both heterosexual and gay, who are keen to view and buy adult merchandise in the privacy of their own home."
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Bank holds key to Telewest deal
The Royal Bank of Scotland wants the UK cable company to repay E 18.38 million of debts for foreign exchange dealings, in return for signing up to a new bank facility that is central to the company's debt restructuring.
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Ericsson and Telenor MMS agreement
Ericsson and Telenor Mobile have signed a global framework agreement for Multimedia Messaging Services solutions, the technology that offers enhanced messaging capabilities such as colour pictures, photographs, sounds, animations and audio clips. The agreement involves all Telenor Mobile operations in Europe and Asia. Ericsson will provide the MMS platform and related systems as well as network integration services.
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AB leaves ACCES and calls for revolution
From Sotires Eleftheriou in Paris
French production company, channel supplier and DTH operator AB Groupe, has left Acces, the French Association of Cable and Satellite Channels and called on the independent cabsat channels to organize into a new association in order to defend their interests.
In a statement, AB Groupe said that over the last few months Acces has become dominated by channels that are linked to terrestrial TV operators and distributors. It said: "We consider that in the current state of its statutes, Acces only gives independent channel suppliers the right to shut up and to rubber stamp decisions dictated by the distributors or their shareholders."
The AB group produces 18 French thematic chann els and is a major shareholder in two more. One of these channels, RTL9, achieves 12 per cent audience figures, exceptionally high for cable and satellite. AB particularly criticises the way thematic channels are represented on the Mediacabsat committee.
Acces responded by issuing a statement on Friday. It states "AB Groupe's decision to withdraw from Acces is no doubt more the result of a desire to play it alone than of divergence within the association." Acces points out that since its creation in 1997 it has grouped all of the French cable and satellite channels authorized by the CSA, whatever distributor they use. "Decisions are taken democratically by a majority vote and the committee is elected by secret ballot."
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TiVo on digital music
TiVo's television
recording system will soon be able to play digital music and show pictures
stored in personal computers, according to the company.
CEO Michael Ramsey says the plan is to be able to access data stored in
file formats such as MP3 and JPEG via televisions that are connected to
a TiVo set-top box. TiVo is likely to charge an additional fee for the
premium service, which will be launched in January at the Consumer Electronics
Association's CES conference in Las Vegas.
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Homechoice, users must upgrade
London-based
video-on-demand service provider Homechoice wants its customers to change
their current E31 per month package to a new service which includes all
the basic VOD service and a 1Mb Internet service for E54 per month - including
VAT.
The previous package which included a 115k always on internet service,
plus a charge for each of the various Video on Demand services the first
one at E9 per month, but Homechoice is sending out letters to their existing
customers explaining they must change.
Home Choice will still be offering Pay Per View movies on top of this
E54 per month service which uses a new set top box, which engineers will
install for customers.
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C5 top job, Faking it?
Channel 5 is still looking for a CEO. The position was left vacant last September when Dawn Airey moved to BSkyB to become Managing Director of Sky Networks.
According to The Guardian a new potential candidate for the job is David Frank, the chief executive of RDF, the company behind Channel 4's Faking It and Scrapheap Challenge.
Frank, a former investment banker turned financial journalist, founded RDF 10 years ago. Since then the company has grown to become one of the UK's leading independent production companies, responsible for shows including Faking It, Banzai, Perfect Match and Michael Jackson's Face. RDF is projected to hit a turnover of E54 million this year.
Other names in the frame are said to include the Flextech Chief Executive, Jane Lighting, and former Granada executive John Willis, who is head of programming at US public service broadcaster WGBH Boston.
No interviews have taken place yet and a new chief executive is not expected to be appointed before the new year.
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Monday 16th December 2002
BBC licence fee at risk?
ITV Digital box debate
Police search Vivendi HQ
No digital feed for F1
Noos axes 35% staff
New supply from Hollywood for Kirch Media
Playboy TV On Demand
MTV's new interactive services
Murphy named BBC Three controller
BBC licence fee at risk?
British Chancellor Gordon Brown has ordered a secret investigation into the funding of the BBC, which could herald an end to the licence fee system, reports the Independent newspaper. Any resulting report would be a precursor to the official review of the Corporation's Royal Charter in 2006.
The report speculates the investigation could lead to recommendations scrapping the fee or allowing broadcasters such as Channel 4 to compete for a slice of the BBC's annual E3.8 billion in public funding.
Rival commercial broadcasters, such as BSkyB, and Internet services providers say the BBC is quashing competition unfairly by spending much of its vast guaranteed funding on new channels and websites. The government has already announced a review of the BBC's funding of its online activities.
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ITV Digital box debate
OnDigital, the defunct UK DTT provider ITV Digital, won't force all of its ex-subscribers to pay E62 or return their boxes, say reports in the local press. Pre-pay subscribers who paid over a hundred pounds (E150) and are still owed money by the collapsed pay TV broadcaster will not face demands by liquidator Grant Thornton for cash to keep their set-top boxes but they are unlikely to receive any refund.
The former ITV Digital shareholders, Carlton and Granada, BSkyB, transmission business Crown Castle and the Football League are all owed money by the pay TV operator, which collapsed earlier this year.
While Grant Thornton has made it clear it is legally obliged to recover as much money as possible for creditors, it has indicated it is unlikely to chase those who are still owed more than E62 - because of having payed the annual subscription - with as much vigour as those who subscribed via direct debit.
However, he also warned that former subscribers who received a letter and refused to pay could risk a black mark on their credit records.
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Police search Vivendi HQ
As part of an on going investigation into Vivendi Universal's financial management under ousted Jean-Marie Messier, 15 police officers from the Paris fraud squad searched Vivendi's Paris headquarters and two properties belonging to Messier.
Police investigators working for magistrates Bruno Pireyre and Rene Cros want to establish whether the media group issued misleading financial statements under its former CEO. The troubled company said in an statement, "Vivendi Universal confirms that a team of investigators from the Finance Brigade of the Paris public prosecutor's office is carrying out inquiries at the company's head office. This procedure follows the filing of a claim against an unnamed party in July 2002. The company emphasises that it is a plaintiff claiming damages in these proceedings and that it intends to cooperate fully with investigations. "
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No digital feed for F1
Formula One motor racing, of which insolvent German media giant Kirch has the majority stake, is to abandon its digital TV service. This will strike a blow to major car makers, rcing teams and the creditor banks of the failed German media group which raised E1.6 billion to buy stakes in F1 with potential digital revenue as commercially vital.
The decision was taken by Formula One Management, which is under the control of Bernie Ecclestone. Only last month FOM was talking about making the formerly pay-per-view digital service available free to the terrestrial TV channels which provide most of each grand prix's average 350 million global audience. The TV audience for F1, which has been second only to World Cup soccer and the Olympic games, has been falling rapidly amid accusations that F1 has become boring.
Ecclestone was reported as saying that most of the 300 employees of FOM's digital operation had been placed on leave until its final future is clarified. Job losses were "highly likely," he added.
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Noos axes 35% staff
From Sotires Eleftheriou in Paris
Noos, the leading French cable operator, is to shed 35 per cent of its payroll with a programme of voluntary departures. The move is estimated to affect 300 to 400 out of its total 1100 staff. It had already axed 260 people in 2000.
Noos made annual losses of around E230 million, about double its sales. It is also implementing economy measures and reducing construction of the network in the northern and eastern suburbs of Paris. Its main shareholder, Suez (50.1 per cent) hopes the operator will reach breakeven by 2004, when it will reconsider selling its share. The other shareholders are Morgan Stanley (22.9 per cent) and France Telecom (27 per cent). Last year Suez sold its 25 per cent share in DTH platform TPS.
None of the French cable operators are making any money. According to a report in Le Monde, a plan is afoot for a "big bang" within the cable industry, which would put all the current cable operators into a common pool and create a single national operator. It would open the way for an injection of capital from a stock floatation or by a foreign operator, with Liberty Media as the most likely candidate. Noos claims no knowledge of this plan.
Meanwhile the company is pushing its marketing for the Christmas season. It has just introduced a 'second TV' option, providing a duplicate subscription for E1 a month (plus E10 a month decoder rental, plus E75 returnable deposit). Although this option would not in itself bring in much revenue, it makes the Noos digital service much more attractive and should drive up penetration. Noos has also introduced a E40 bounty for subscribers who bring in new subscribers. Finally, in the race with ADSL for broadband subscribers, it is offering the modem rent-free for the first year to the first 15,000 new broadband subscribers.
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New supply from Hollywood for Kirch Media
From Dieter Brockmeyer in Frankfurt
Troubed German media group Kirch has inked E500 million license deal with the US major Paramount through to 2011, including the Free TV rights for blockbusters "Vanilla Sky", "Save the last dance" and the famous Star Treck TV series.
Kirch managers have also finalised multi-year agreements with other production studios and distributors such as Epsilon, Highlight, Constantin and Tobis. The deals with a 100 million plus Euro value include over 100 feature films and TV series like 'Black Hawk Down' and 'America's Sweetheart.' The packages are for the exclusive usage of the channels of ProSiebenSat.1 that is controlled by Kirch Media. Only some weeks ago, Kirch Media signed a similar deal with Buena Vista.
At the same time, the German press reports that the current board member for electronic media of Axel Springer AG, Hubertus Meyer-Burckhardt, is going to the Pro Sieben board, where he will become responsible for content and at the same time will replace the current Sat.1 Managing Director Martin Hoffmann. However, this arrangement will only click in when the take over of the majority of stakes (via Kirch Media) of Heinrich Bauer Verlag takes place.
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Playboy TV On Demand
Playboy TV UK and Kingston Interactive, the broadband TV arm of Kingston Communications, have launched the UK's first adult Pay-Per-View Video-On-Demand service on KIT - Kingston's broadband interactive TV platform.
Playboy TV, will use KIT's Video-On-Demand platform to offer viewers access to adult films and programmes on an 'on-demand' basis. Because the content is 'on-demand', viewers can pause, stop, fast-forward and rewind - just as they would with a normal video. Playboy TV will continue to offer its broadcast channel on KIT in addition to the new Video-On-Demand service.
At launch, KIT viewers will be able to choose from around 50 films and programmes from the Playboy TV video library, renting them directly via the remote control.
Customers will not have to pay a monthly subscription and will be discretely billed at the end of the month, the companies said. The service will only be available after a 10 o'clock watershed, and an adult PIN number will be required to either preview or rent the content.
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MTV's new interactive services
MTV UK is to launch a full 24-hour interactive TV service. The core iTV service, running on the Sky digital platform, will form the backbone of the interactive services planned across the MTV branded channels in 2003.
MTV is to launch a 24-hour service linked to programme content on Sky's NDS. The service will allow viewers to interact in one of three areas - 'Feed', 'Blag' and 'Bitch'.
To read about celebrity gossip and information users can go to 'Feed', which is synchronised with what video or programme is being shown. The second feature, 'Blag', allows users to win prizes by entering quizzes. Costing 50p to enter, viewers will get audio, visual and multiple choice questions. The third interactive service, 'Bitch', involves a user-focused personality quiz and provides viewers with a chance to vote off artists' videos from the MTV playlist.
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Murphy named BBC Three controller
The BBC announced that Stuart Murphy, currently Controller of BBC Choice, will become the first Controller of BBC Three, the new digital channel aimed at young adults that is due to launch in February 2003.
BBC Three, which had some difficulties on getting the approval for its creation from Culture Minister Tessa Jowel - who thought it wasn't very distinctive on its first proposal - will be a multicultural, interactive channel with 80 per cent of programming specifically commissioned for the channel and 90 per cent of programming being made in the UK or Europe.
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