NEWS
Monday 10th May to Friday
14th May
2004
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Friday
May 14th 2004
BT bows to unbundle price pressure
Telewest
Q1 net loss narrows
Thomson
buys DirecTV STB business
NBC
U: future in content
T-Online
boosted by broadband
Bertelsmann
mulls Five stake
UK
gov pick digital pilots
Phoenix
Satellite rises to profitability
YooMedia
launch baywatch in fancy a flutter
Nagravision
selected by TVA
Cabot:
fastest MHEG-5 Engine
BT bows to unbundle price pressure
BT has responded to pressure from Ofcom by slashing the price it charges rival
broadband providers to access the last mile or local loop.
BT says price cuts in local loop unbundling products of up to 70 per cent will
"alter the face of broadband competition in the UK". Prices are being cut from
June 1 for existing products, followed by further cuts once BT has introduced
new and simpler unbundled products. BT CEO Ben Verwaayen says: "We now have
a far clearer idea of how Ofcom sees the market developing and we share their
view that competition based at the infrastructure level will be good for everyone."
Last month Ofcom warned it might have to intervene on BT's unbundling prices.
A BT statement said :"The monthly rental price for the existing shared LLU product
will come down on June 1 from £4.42 (E6.6) to £2.26 per line with the connection
fee also falling from £117 to £83.33. Taking both cuts into consideration, this
represents an overall saving of 35 per cent on the current price.
Prices will be reduced again - making a total reduction of up to 70 per cent
- once the full cost benefits of the re-scoped product and the achievement of
certain volumes filter through. Prices for the fully unbundled LLU product are
also to come down initially by an average of 15 per cent."
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Telewest
Q1 net loss narrows
Telewest narrowed its first-quarter net loss as it seeks approval for a much-awaited
financial restructuring. The net loss shrank to £36 million (E54.5 m) for the
three months to March 31 from £187 million a year ago. Turnover rose three percent
to £335 million.
Telewest will seek approval for a £3.8 billion debt-for-equity swap from shareholders
on May 21 and from creditors on June 1. In an effort to push through the restructure
the company warned: "We do not believe that our creditors will continue to forebear
from declaring defaults if our financial restructuring is not implemented or
it is not implemented in a timely manner". Under the deal, creditors would receive
98.5 percent of the company's stock and Telewest would move its listing from
the London Stock Exchange to the U.S. Nasdaq market.
The company's larger rival NTL is also listed in the United States. An eventual
merger between the two companies is widely anticipated.
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Thomson
buys DirecTV STB business
Thomson, the French media equipment group, strengthened its position as the
world's leading maker of digital set-top boxes in a contract analysts estimate
could be worth up to $4bn with DirecTV, the US satellite-TV group controlled
by News Corporation.
Thomson will pay $250m in cash for DirecTV's set-top box manufacturing business
but the amount could swell to $400m if orders increase over the next five years.
In return, the French group expects to more than double its annual revenues
with DirecTV. Analysts say the deal could be worth up to $4bn over the lifetime
of the contract where Thomson will have preferred supplier status.
DirecTV will outsource research and development for the television set-top boxes
to Thomson in addition to selling its manufacturing business. The French group
has in recent years moved away from consumer electronics and repositioned itself
as a services and equipment provider to media companies. It sees its deal with
DirecTV as part of an increasing trend as media groups outsource services to
focus on their core business in the face of technological change.
Thomson will manufacture standard DirecTV-branded digital satellite receivers.
It also plans to produce high definition and digital video recorder receivers
and will explore the development of home gateway boxes, which give consumers
access to a broader range of entertainment services through their televisions.
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NBC
U: future in content
As its merger was finally formally completed, NBC Universal yesterday laid out
its future as a pure provider of content. Bob Wright, the newly formed group's
chairman and CEO, said he had no plans to buy into cable or satellite distribution
as NBC Universal joins the ranks of the world's largest media groups.
"We're agnostic in terms of the technical aspects of distribution and we want
to be associated with all forms of distribution," he said. "As we go through
the eye of the digital needle, our judgment is that - at this juncture - we
don't want to make a substantial financial investment in distribution."
The decision puts NBCU at odds with rivals like Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation that control content and distribution, while Comcast, the giant
cable group, is still keen to expand its content businesses in spite of dropping
its hostile offer for Walt Disney. But NBCU will be joining Viacom, the media
group that most closely resembles NBC Universal, in arguing that content is
king.
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T-Online
boosted by broadband
Customer growth at T-Online's lucrative broadband services, combined with better-than-expected
earnings during the first quarter boosted results at T-Online.
It attracted 280,000 customers to its high-speed DSL broadband service in Germany,
including 64,000 that had migrated from narrowband tariffs.
T-Online has been making big efforts through advertising and promotional activities,
including an offer of two months free access, to appeal to new customers. The
last quarter's growth takes the number of T-Online's broadband customers in
the key German market to 2.44m.
Despite the promotional spending, T-Online's earnings before interest, tax,
depreciation and amortisation rose 62 per cent from a year earlier, to E117.7m.
T-Online is 74 per cent owned by Deutsche Telekom.
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Bertelsmann
mulls Five stake
BERTELSMANN, the German publishing and broadcasting conglomerate, has hired
JP Morgan, the US investment bank, to consider what to do with its 65 per cent
stake in Five, the UK broadcaster. Options including selling its stake if a
decision is reached that there is little opportunity for UK expansion.
The bank will also look at the feasibility of a merger of Five with another
broadcaster, such as Channel Four, or buying out the minority stake held by
United Business Media. An initial public offer is not among the options being
considered. Bertelsmann has already said that it is committed to Five, but that
the broadcaster needed to find a partner in Britain if it was to survive a multi-channel
environment.
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UK
gov pick digital pilots
A group of towns across the UK have been chosen as part of a national digital
switch over plan. A series of pilot technical trials will be rolled out with
thousands of households switching from analogue to digital TV.
Two Welsh towns, Ferryside and Llansteffan, are among those chosen for the trial.
Broadcasting Minister Andrew McIntosh said the area was picked because it is
enclosed, relatively small and all 350 homes receive an analogue signal from
a single transmitter. He said: "We are starting consultation with residents
this week. We will kit them up with set-top boxes for all of their televisions."
Then the three-month trial will begin in November and, at the end of that time
and if everyone agrees, we will switch off the analogue signal for good."
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Phoenix
Satellite rises to profitability
Phoenix Satellite Television, is poised to take InfoNews Channel into profitability
next year. Phoenix, 37.6 per cent owned by News Corp, roared to a first-quarter
net profit of HK$40.5 million. It was Phoenix's first quarterly profit in more
than three years as advertising sales climbed, driven by the economic boom in
the mainland.
Chairman and chief executive officer Liu Changle said: ``The new advertising
sales arrangement for mainland advertisers was the reason for the turnaround.
We can see the growth, particularly at InfoNews Channel. There is still a lot
of potential to grow in the future.''
InfoNews Channel, the 24-hour news channel granted landing rights in the mainland
in January last year, generated a revenue of HK$44.8 million, up from HK$2.5
million a year earlier. Segment operating loss was cut 94.3 per cent to HK$1.7
million.
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YooMedia launch baywatch in fancy a flutter
YooMedia, has forged a unique licensing deal with FremantleMedia to build fixed
odds and pay per play games for Fancy a Flutter and YooPlay interactive games
channels. The FremantleMedia licensed games include Baywatch and Call My Bluff.
The agreement follows Fancy a Flutter's initial agreement with FremantleMedia
to revive Blockbusters as a fixed odds keno game on its Sky service, offering
a maximum payout of £500,000.
Aubrey Welch, General Manager of YooPlay, says: "We have learnt a great deal
about the power of TV brands when they are re-designed as games through our
GoPlayTV portal on Sky - with titles like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy in the
past. We believe Baywatch, Blockbusters and Call My Bluff will appeal to different
customers on different platforms - variety is key in game development which
we plan to exploit these titles fully in the coming months."
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Nagravision
selected by TVA
Nagravision, a Kudelski Group company, announced that TVA, Brazil's second largest
cable operator, has selected its Conditional Access system and its Livewire
Tsunami STB software technology for TVA's new digital platform.
In operation since 1991 with about 300,000 pay TV subscribers and 20,000 broadband
internet subscribers, TVA is the first Brazilian Pay TV operator. Boasting state-of-the-art
cable network technology, TVA has the flexibility to operate with two technologies:
cable and MMDS, for both television and broadband Internet service. It is presently
in six of Brazil's largest and most economically important cities, including
S®o Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba. TVA is a division of the Abril Group,
one of Latin America's largest communications groups, with integrated operations
across a variety of media, supplying magazines, textbooks, broadband Internet,
music and pay TV.
TVA plans to launch before the end of the year a basic platform and migrate
aggressively their entire subscriber base in 2005. The new digital platform
features Nagravision latest conditional access system and smart card technology,
Livewire's Tsunami STB software and EPG allowing TVA subscribers to view with
innovative navigation capabilities programs by time, genre and channel for a
full seven days in advance. The entire system will be integrated and installed
under the management of Nagravision systems integration team and will include
a digital cable headend system from Harmonic.
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Cabot:
fastest MHEG-5 Engine
Cabot Communications, the specialist digital TV software supplier, has announced
that its MHEG-5 engine, Mercator will be launched at Mediacast 2004. The latest
version of Mercator is significantly faster than its previous incarnation with
a smaller memory footprint says Cabot. It allows STB and iDTV manufacturers
to remain cost-effective whilst providing support for enhanced Freeview interactive
services, such as BBCi and Teletext.
The Mercator MHEG-5 engine, supplied as a Software Development Kit (SDK) with
mature programming interfaces and comprehensive porting documentation, enables
STB and iDTV manufacturers to add digital interactivity support to their Freeview
receivers within very competitive timescales, says the company.
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Thursday
May 13th 2004
BSkyB
reveals big profits but sub slowdown
BSkyB
keeps football rights
Spain's
Tele 5 prepares for flotation
Irish
racing must pick winner
MTG,
new directors
Yes
Television markets with Wireless Broadcasting
Intelsat
acquires Comsat business
DISH: broadband requires more spectrum
EURO 1 Chooses MediaHighway
Two
Way TV on Turner Kids
BSkyB
reveals big profits but sub slowdown
As expected BskyB has reported a slowed net increase in subscribers for its
Q3. The UK satcaster added just 66,000 taking the total to 7,274,000. Despite
the slower acquisition rate, CEO James Murdoch said the firm was still on track
to hit its eight million target by the end of 05. Post tax profit for the nine
months to March 04 was £243 million (E368 million), up from £28 million, on
sales up 16 per cent at £2.7billion. Interactive revenues were up 50 per cent
to £219 million.
Meanwhile, Sky has comfortably exceeded its Sky+ PVR target picking up 72,000
in the quarter to take the total to 322,000, 16 per cent of which are first-time
customers. Also multi-set subscribers have doubled over the year to 270,000.
The all-important churn rate remained steady at 9.4 per cent despite price increases
in the quarter, which contributed to ARPU reaching £382 (E578) up £18 on the
year.
The company also announced that James Murdoch had agreed a 12-month rolling
contract, seven months after being installed as BSkyB CEO. Murdoch will earn
an annual salary of £750,000 (E1,125,000), plus £200,000 (E300,000) per year
in relocation and other expense allowances for three years. He will also be
entitled to a bonus. Murdoch is being granted 450,000 BSkyB shares, though 70
per cent of the entitlement will be subject to performance.
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BSkyB
keeps football rights
BSkyB has revealed rival broadcasters will not be allowed to show any English
Premiership games live because their bids for the rights were too low.
The satellite broadcaster had agreed to sub-license the rights for six to eight
games for the next three seasons but only if a reserved price, agreed with the
European Commission, was reached.
Sky won exclusive live UK rights to Premier League matches last August, but
the EC later forced it to sell rights to eight games over three seasons to another
broadcaster. The BBC and ITV were said to be in the auction after cable rivals
NTL and Telewest and Irish pay-TV firm Setanta were priced out of the running.
But in a statement released early this morning, Sky says none of the bids received
in a tender process met its reserve price per match, previously agreed with
the EC.
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Spain's
Tele 5 prepares for flotation
From David del Valle in Madrid
Spanish Mediaset-controlled TV network, Tele 5, is preparing for floatation
on the Stock Market by the end of June.
The channel will place between 24 and 35 per cent of its shares on the Market,
from stakes owned by Dresdner Bank (25 per cent) and the Dutch Investment Fund
Ice Finance (10 per cent). The channel has been valued at E 2.9bn and E3.5bn.
Before floatation, Tele 5 will give a dividend of E134.2 million to its shareholders,
led by Mediaset with a 52 per cent stake. The channel managed to double its
profit in the first quarter of the year reaching E58.1 million. Revenues grew
by 21.6 per cent reaching E 172.7 million.
Meanwhile Spain's pubcaster RTVE has denied privatisation plans for the leading
TV channels La Primera and La 2.
The denial comes soon after the State Secretary of Treasury, Miguel Angel Fernandez
Ordoìez, cam out in favour of privatising part of TV group. "Privatising part
of TVE is not ruled out", he said, as a way to tackle its huge debt of E 6 billion.
His comments caused a storm in the TV Group with Trade Unions and Viewers Associations
against privatisation. Carmen Caffarel, the new General Director of RTVE, played
down his comments. "It is just an opinion" she said adding that the new RTVE
model is still to be defined by the experts committee recently approved by the
new socialist Government. This committee has nine months to study the RTVE's
case and propose a new model for the group.
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Irish
racing must pick winner
Ireland's horse-racing authority, Horse Racing Ireland, is understood to be
in negotiations with both the planned new horseracing channels in Britain -
the Horse Racing Channel and New Attheraces. Horse Racing Ireland is determined
not to split its rights, but to sell them as a single package.
Irish racing would be a big prize for either channel since there are 304 meetings
a year at the republic's 27 racecourses. New Attheraces, with 25 courses signed
up, is owned by BSkyB and Arena and will be free-to-air. Horse Racing Channel,
backed by a group of investors led by the general manager of Goodwood racecourse,
Rod Fabricius, has 28 tracks and will be a subscription channel.
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MTG,
new directors
Modern Times Group, the international media group, announced that at its AGM
Nick Humby and David Marcus were elected as new members of the Board of Directors.
Humby, was appointed Group Finance Director of Manchester United in 2002. He
was previously Finance Director and Chief Operating Officer of Pearson Television.
He is a non-executive director of The Ambassador Theatre Group. Marcus is founder
and Managing Partner of investment advisor M2 Capital.
Asger Aamund, David Chance, Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, Cristina Stenbeck and Pelle
Tornberg were re-elected as Board Members and David Chance was elected Chairman
of the Board. The AGM approved the proposal from the Board of Directors not
to distribute a dividend to shareholders for 2003.
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Yes Television markets with Wireless Broadcasting
From Shveta Malik in New Delhi
Yes Television (Hong Kong) Limited has entered into a strategic alliance agreement
with Wireless Broadcasting Corporation for a sales and marketing partnership
in Asia. Both companies will establish a joint sales effort to provide television
Video-On-Demand (VOD) services, 3G video content, and also a technology and
content development platform for VOD in either residential or other application
areas. Wireless Broadcasting Corporation , a wireless company founded in Singapore,
has patented two-way DVB technology, Allumera, suited for streaming video content
to customers wirelessly.
Thomas Kressner, chief executive officer, Yes Television said, "We are pleased
to sign the agreement as it leverages off the synergy between our companies
to jointly explore key markets together, especially since our combination makes
it possible to provide both compelling content and affordable deployment rates
through the use of low cost, proven technologies."
For Yes Television, the tie-up follows agreement with SingTel's ADSL broadband
service for offering five channels - Asia Television, Manchester United Television,
Soundtrack Channel, Universe Videoclub and Video Sound. Yes TV Plus is a multi-media
platform which provides sports, news and music entertainment TV programmes on
personal computers.
Meanwhile, Yes Television is to represent PTVI in four Asian markets Yes has
been ontracted by Playboy TV International (PTVI) to represent adult entertainment
programming company throughout Hong Kong, China, Korea and Taiwan.
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Intelsat
acquires Comsat business
Intelsat announced that it has agreed to acquire the assets of end-to-end communications
services integrator Comsat General Corporation and certain of its affiliates,
in a transaction expected to strengthen Intelsat's competitive position in the
U.S. Government commercial satellite capacity and services market. Comsat General
is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin which owns 24.1 per cent of Intelsat.
The total agreed purchase price is approximately $90 million, including approximately
$40 million that may be paid in the form of ordinary shares of Intelsat, Ltd.
Intelsat will also purchase an Atlas launch vehicle from Lockheed Martin Commercial
Launch Services, Inc., an affiliate of Lockheed Martin, for the launch of a
future satellite.
Comsat General is a provider of integrated satellite-centric communications
services to commercial and government users, including the resale of satellite
capacity purchased from Intelsat and other operators. In addition, Comsat General
provides value-added services such as bandwidth management and host nation agreement
management. Comsat General had revenues of approximately $150 million in 2003.
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DISH:
broadband requires more spectrum
US satcaster EchoStar has told the Federal Communications Commission that in
order to make broadband services via satellite work, more spectrum resources
are required for the still-developing service.
The FCC is taking comments concerning the availability of broadband service
and whether high-speed Internet access is available to all Americans, particularly
those in rural and/or low-income areas. Broadband via satellite, EchoStar said,
creates an additional competitor in every market, including unserved areas.
In its FCC comments, EchoStar said broadband service is spectrum-intensive,
and a nationwide rollout of services will require spectrum resources "far in
excess" of what is now available.
"EchoStar has long been a proponent of broadband service using satellites, particularly
as a means of eliminating the gap in broadband access that exists between urban
and rural areas," the company said in its comments on the matter.
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EURO
1 Chooses MediaHighway
NDS and EURO 1 AG, the interactive and digital TV service provider based in
Bremen, Germany, announced that EURO 1 has selected NDS's MediaHighway Advanced
interactive TV platform which combines a DVB-MHP-certified middleware with PVR
capabilities, an HTML engine and broadband return channel.
"We are happy to bring in MediaHighway Advanced, an advanced iTV platform, into
Germany's digital TV market. A true asset, the MediaHighway interactive TV platform
links up entertainment to (content) value as it combines its original features
to the benefits and advantages of PVR technology", said Nils Bretschneider,
General Manager of EURO 1 AG.
Caroline Le Bigot, VP and General Manager NDS France said: "The MediaHighway
Advanced with PVR interactive TV platform supports MHP applications and will
let EURO 1 AG host a number of outside interactive content providers to generate
additional revenues per subscriber from t-commerce to the broadest range of
entertainment services.
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Two
Way TV on Turner Kids
The new interactive services menu (ISM), launched on Cartoon Network, is the
first in a range of new interactive services that iTV specialist Two Way TV
is supplying to Turner Broadcasting. The new deal will see the broadcaster polling
kids' opinions with voting and competition applications and tracing the popularity
of its other interactive services. As part of the deal Turner is using TWTV's
Ark technology to assess how it can be used to manage viewer registrations,
voting scores and hi-score tables.
An ISM will sit permanently behind the red button on the Cartoon Network channel
on UK Satellite. One of the first new applications to launch from it will be
"Dexter's Laboratory: The Robot Wars", where viewers play the part of their
favourite "Dexter's Laboratory" character to defend their team of robots in
a pong-meets-breakout-meets-space-invaders style game. This will be the first
of a new series of eTV formats to launch, with a number of cartoon and advertiser
branded versions in the pipeline.
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Wednesday
May 12th 2004
Dyke
and Ball join Sat 1
German cablers voice disquiet over DTT
James
Murdoch needs subs lift
Germany
will fall behind in broadband if cable merger rejected
ONO
mulls listing in 2005
Hutchison
rejects 3G negativity
Liberty:
buys see Q1 revenue soar
ITV
wants Disney's GMTV stake
Vodafone
chief wants industry standards
Mobile
adult content to be opt-out
Astra
in 3 out of 4 digital satellite homes in Europe
Harmonic
enables new on-demand services
Ish
deploys BigBand
BT
ups broadband ante
Telecom
Italia goes live with Intec
Shanghai Media chooses Irdeto for premium live content
Dyke
and Ball join Sat 1
The UK's two foremost Ä but out of work - television executives have been hired
by the entrepreneur Haim Saban to sit on the supervisory board of ProSiebenSat.1.
Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, and Tony Ball, the former chief
executive of British Sky Broadcasting, will advise the company taken over by
Saban last year after the collapse of Kirch Media.
Dyke said he was, as yet, unsure as to the exact nature of his role at the company,
adding that he did not even know how much he would be paid. The main attraction
for agreeing, he said, was to learn more about German television as well as
offering the company advice.
"I got a call from Haim asking me if I would do it. I've always been interested
in German television. It's interesting that Haim Saban was able to come over
from the US and buy ProSiebenSat while no one from Britain tried it. I was at
the BBC so couldn't do it anyway. But I just don't think the Brits understand
German television."
Saban has also been strongly linked in the past with a possible bid for ITV,
backed by private equity partners, however, Dyke dismissed the idea of a bid
for ITV or that the entrepreneur had hired himself or Tony Ball to advise him
on such a move.
Some observers were surprised that Ball had been allowed to join the board of
ProSiebenSat after signing a non-compete clause when he left BSkyB last year,
to be replaced as chief executive by James Murdoch. However, apparently, Ball's
agreement stipulated that he could not join a rival UK broadcaster, leaving
him free to join European operators.
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German
cablers voice disquiet over DTT
From Colin Mann in Cologne
Thomas Braun, president of ANGA, the German cable TV industry's private operators'
trade association, took a decisive stand on the disputed introduction of digital
terrestrial TV in the country. "We welcome the fact that the hysteria about
DVB-T has died down and we are back to realism," he told delegates to the
ANGA cable convention. He was joined in his condemnation of DTT by Dr Georg
Kofler, chairman of pay-TV platform Premiere, who described the subsidisation
of DTT platforms as "totally crazy". According to Kofler, it was legally unacceptable
for one type of transmission technology to receive grants in this way.
Braun told advanced-television.com that instead of DTT becoming ubiquitous,
new patchwork network coverage would emerge. "After analogue switch-off in
2010, TV reception in some areas will only be possible via cable or satellite."
ANGA has already challenged the legality of the subsidisation with EC regulators.
Braun and Kofler also revealed a co-operation agreement that will see cable
operators market set-top boxes to enable customers to receive Premiere's digital
programming package. "We're offering our networks so that they can approach
the final customer," commented Braun
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James
Murdoch needs subs lift
BSKYB chief executive James Murdoch faces his first major test on today when
he reveals that the rate of growth for new subscribers to the satellite broadcaster
has slowed dramatically in the first three months of the year.
Murdoch will announce third-quarter results that are expected to show about
85,000 new subscribers between January and March this year against 150,000 who
signed up to Sky in the same period last year.
The company is currently advertising heavily and the City will want to hear
how effective the campaign has been in promoting sales in the final quarter
of its year.
Investment bank Societe Generale said: 'Initial concerns as to the new chief
executive's long-term strategy have been subsumed by the more pressing need
to show that he can meet the medium targets he inherited from his predecessors.'
SG analysts believe that the number of new subscribers will rise in the final
quarter of the year to 113,000, which will allow the company to meet its annual
target of 566,000 new customers.
The company is expected to announce third-quarter revenue of £930 million (E1.4bn),
up nearly 14 per cent, while profits are expected to be 83 per cent ahead at
£128 million.
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Germany
will fall behind in broadband if cable merger rejected
Germany risks falling further behind its European partners if it fails to approve
KDG's proposed acquisition of its three rivals, and remove regulations that
hinder competition in the media and communications markets. Strategy Analytics'
latest report, 'German Cable At The Crossroads', finds that an enlarged Kabel
Deutschland (KDG) would offer serious competition to Deutsche Telekom as a leading
provider of broadband and digital services to Germany's 38 million homes, in
spite of the significant investments required to upgrade the cable network.
"Germany faces a stark choice between a competitive market for advanced services
and a stagnant market which serves the vested interests of the incumbent players,"
said David Mercer, Principal Analyst. "The fierce opposition of the leading
media companies to a powerful cable industry suggests that the authorities are
likely to support the status quo. In this case, Germany will continue to fall
behind other European nations in broadband and digital TV adoption."
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ONO
mulls listing in 2005
Spanish cable operator ONO may list its shares on the stock market in 2005,
the company said on Monday after completing a debt refinancing. "ONO has improved
the structure of its debt...which allows the company to close successfully this
first stage of its preparation for a possible stock market launch in 2005,"
CEO Richard Alden said in a statement.
ONO launched a E280 million bond issue on Friday to refinance some of the high-yield
bonds it sold between 1999 and 2001. ONO has long planned a stock market listing,
but no specific dates have been set. The company has invested E1.6 billion in
setting up its network, but does not expect to make a profit before 2007.
Main shareholders include: Santander Central Hispano GE Capital, Bank of America,
Spanish construction company Ferrovial and Canada's Caisse de Depot et Placement
du Quebec.
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Hutchison
rejects 3G negativity
From Shveta Malik in New Delhi
Responding to negative reports Huchison may abandon 3G, managing director Canning
Fok has come out strongly in the defence of 3G telecommunication business.
"We are seeing very good results. I don't understand them. Why would we exit?
People are changing their views more and more. The bad press is getting less
and less," said Fok in response to a report on 3G telecommunications operations
by Nomura Securities. (See Daily News 10/5/04)
Commenting on Hutchison¯s recent contract with LG Electronics of Korea as preferred
UMTS Videophone provider, Fok said, "They are going like hotcakes". Under the
agreement LG Electronics is committed to supplying 3 million UMTS dual mode
terminals, compatible with the GSM standards and GPRS, to the "3' group of companies
by the end of 2004. Fok reiterated that the company would break at the EBITDA
level by year-end 2005.
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Liberty:
buys see Q1 revenue soar
Liberty Media Corp, John Malone's media conglomerate, posted a first-quarter
loss against a year-earlier profit as a result of losses in some of the company's
investments.
Revenue more than quadrupled as a result of last year's acquisition of a 57-percent
stake in the QVC shopping channel from Comcast Corp and the consolidation of
international cable company UnitedGlobalCom within its results. Liberty assumed
voting control of UGC in January.
The company posted a loss of $10 million, compared with a profit of $132 million.
Revenue totalled $2.37 billion compared with $505 million a year before. Like
for like revenue rose 18.5 per cent.
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ITV
wants Disney's GMTV stake
ITV will seek to further strengthen its position by buying out Walt Disney's
interest in GMTV, the breakfast franchise that broadcasts across the UK on weekday
mornings. It would give ITV outright ownership of the franchise following the
spate of deals announced between ITV and SMG, the Glasgow-based media group.
Those deals included the sale of SMG's 25 per cent stake in GMTV to ITV for
£31m (E47m).
Disney and SMG became minority stakeholders in GMTV following last year's merger
of Carlton and Granada, which left the consolidated ITV with a combined 50 per
cent holding. Under the terms of GMTV's original shareholder agreement, ITV
must offer the same price for Disney's 25 per cent stake after buying out SMG.
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Vodafone
chief wants industry standards
Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, has called on the mobile phone industry
to work together to develop a standard that will supersede 2G and 3G technologies.
Speaking at the FT World Mobile Communications Conference in London, Sarin said
operators and manufacturers needed to co-operate to avoid the introduction of
competing wireless technologies that could increase network roll-out costs and
cause compatibility problems.
"We need to consider a broader industry standard beyond GSM" he told delegates.
"We need to map the direction for the next five to 10 years to avoid industry
fragmentation."
His comments come as Vodafone experiences problems with its 3G roll-out in Japan.
Vodafone has opted for W-CDMA, the European 3G standard, for its Japanese operations.
But that has meant that it is failing to match the growth in 3G subscribers
of its rivals in Japan. KDDI, the Japanese mobile operator that has adopted
the rival CDMA 2000 3G technology, has been far more successful in winning 3G
customers, which Sarin attributed to KDDI's choice of 3G technology. But he
said Vodafone would soon catch up with KDDI, as its handsets operating on W-CDMA
improved.
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Mobile
adult content to be opt-out
UK MNOs Orange and O2 are controversially planning to adopt an opt-out policy
for adult content for their entire contract subscriber base reports New Media
Zero. The moves would be a significant boost to the mobile content industry,
which is concerned that forcing users to opt-in to receive over-18 content,
including games, gambling and pornography, could damage market development.
All of the contract base will be enabled to receive adult content, with barring
mechanisms allowing subscribers to opt-out. Vodafone has taken the lead in implementing
the operators' adult code of practice with an opt-in policy for all users except
those on pre-defined adult databases.
MX Telecom MD Mark Fitzgerald, pointed out that for contract subscribers, operators
have 'already done an age check via credit cards when contracts are purchased.'
Head of third party services at Orange, Ben Hirsch, said this age check process
was key. 'Our policy will be that anyone that has been checked will be opted-in
to view adult content,' he said.
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Astra
in 3 out of 4 digital satellite homes in Europe
SES Astra, has published the latest results of its European Satellite Monitor.
It confirms SES Astra's audience growth within its 30 country European footprint:
At year-end 2003, the number of homes receiving audiovisual broadcast and broadband
services via the ASTRA Satellite System at 19.2Õ East and 28.2Õ East increased
by 2.5 million to reach more than 94 million.
At the beginning of 2004, a total of 36.4 million households in Europe were
receiving Astra services directly via satellite. This represents an increase
of 2 million households compared to the prior year. Another 57.9 million homes
receive Astra content via cable.
More than three out four digital satellite homes in Europe receive services
carried by Astra. Digital reception now accounts for 49 per cent of Astra's
total DTH reception, up from 44 per cent in 2002, with France, Germany, Poland,
Spain and the UK remaining the traditional key markets for Astra satellite reception.
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Harmonic
enables new on-demand services
Harmonic has introduced the GIGALight(tm) GTA 9100 Digital Dense Wavelength
Division Multiplexing (DWDM) transmission system to cost-effectively increase
the scalability and capacity of IP-based narrowcast networks.
The system can transmit up to 40 wavelengths per fibre over long distances,
with each wavelength delivering 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps). The GTA 9100
is optimised for video-over-IP transport to yield greater flexibility in the
design, implementation and expansion of networks as they are readied for the
next wave of on-demand service deployments. GIGALight - which is fully integrated
with Harmonic's industry-leading Narrowcast Services Gateway IP-enabled edgeQAM
device - is now managed by NMX Digital Service Manager to make Harmonic's award-winning
narrowcast transport and distribution solution even more compelling.
"Raw capacity is certainly important for the next wave of on-demand service
deployments, however, network flexibility and manageability are equally crucial
considerations," said Fernando Amendola, Transport Solutions Product Marketing
Manager at Harmonic Inc. "The GTA 9100 efficiently carries high volumes of IP
narrowcast traffic over long distances, without the cost and complexity associated
with SONET/SDH, ATM and other similar networking technologies. One- and two-
way versions of the system can be deployed to optimise the network architecture
according to the bandwidth characteristics of the service portfolio. In addition,
integration with Harmonic's NMX Digital Service Manager allows an operator to
monitor and manage the entire narrowcast service environment as a single entity,
including headend, IP-based video transport and edgeQAM systems."
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Ish
deploys BigBand
BigBand Networks, a provider of broadband multimedia platform solutions for
broadcast television and on-demand services, announced that ish, the second
largest German cable operator, has deployed BigBand Grooming on the BMR (Broadband
Multimedia-Service Router) for offering its digital TV product in areas where
this had not been possible so far.
The platform will be used for programming ish's digital TV product for these
additional service areas. By routing and processing the content, the BMR platforms
provide the operator with control over channel line-ups, video quality and bandwidth
efficiency. Redundant configuration of platforms assures provision of service
to subscribers.
The ish deployment expands BigBand Networks' presence in the German market for
the delivery of video services. In 2003, Kabel Baden-W¼rttemberg, the country's
third largest cable operator, engaged BigBand Networks to design and deploy
an end-to-end infrastructure solution for video services based on the BMR, including
Gigabit Ethernet connectivity over long distances based on BigBand Transport
Gateway application.
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Pace
Prepares for Premiere Retail Roll-Out
Pace Micro Technology will launch Premiere digital satellite set-top boxes into
retail by mid-May 2004. The DS210, at just 3.5cm in height, 14cm in depth and
22cm in width will be the smallest digital satellite set-top box in Germany.
Leading retail stores across Germany including Electronik Partner have already
placed orders to stock Pace's DS210. Pace's product will provide access to Premiere's
multichannel payTV programmes and Germany's free-to-air channels. The box also
provides innovative interactive services including Near-Video-On-Demand, multi-angle
TV and an extended Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).
Premiere, Germany's largest digital TV operator and only national pay-TV broadcaster
awarded Pace a licence to retail Premiere-ready set-top boxes in September 2003.
Pace also recently delivered on its second Premiere contract, providing set-top
boxes for the broadcaster's direct sales business.
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BT
ups broadband ante
BT Group is offering to fly new broadband internet customers to America or Europe
free, rasing the stakes in the domestic broadband market in the UK.
BT said customers buying any broadband connection, starting at £19.99 a month
(E30),would qualify. Customers will receive a flight voucher which they can
redeem themselves or pass on to a friend or family member.
One condition is that the flights cannot be taken in the peak months of July
and August. However, the airline seats available, apart from BA, include Air
France, KLM, easyJet and BMI.
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Telecom
Italia goes live with Intec
Intec Telecom Systems today announced that Telecom Italia has gone live with
the company's Inter-mediatE(tm) convergent mediation solution. The selection
of Inter-mediatE followed a detailed and competitive evaluation against other
mediation vendors, with a particular emphasis on performance on high-volume,
next-generation networks. Inter-mediatE replaced Telecom Italia's existing mediation
system, providing fully convergent mediation capabilities as it migrated its
fixed line telephony network across Italy, which serves over 27 million customers,
to IP. Intec eventually expects to be collecting and processing hundreds of
million of voice and data EDRs (event detail records) per day.
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Shanghai Media chooses Irdeto for premium live content
Irdeto Access, announces it signed a license agreement with Shanghai Media Group
to supply its large-scale conditional access solution; Irdeto PIsys, initially
to protect the live sport events broadcast by the SMG over satellite.
SMG is a leading broadcasting media group based in Shanghai and its businesses
include 11 television channels, 10 radio stations, 2 newspapers and 2 magazines.
The company has recently purchased the exclusive TV broadcast rights for "China
Super Soccer" and "China AA Soccer" starting in May 2004. In addition it is
currently negotiating with other event organisers to gain the broadcast rights
for further live events.
"We are excited to be selected as the technology and business partner of SMG
in protecting their premium content. This reaffirms the leading position of
Irdeto Access in this fast growing market and will open the door to additional
business opportunities," said David Xiong, Chief Executive Officer of Irdeto
Access China.
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Tuesday
May 11th 2004
Bids for Premiere channels
Spain's
largest cablecos in profit by 2007?
Nomura:
Hutchison could drop 3G by end 2006?
Bertelsmann
swings to profit
New
Skies/FalconStream team up
T-Mobile
offers airport Wi-Fi service
Bids for Premiere channels
From Dieter Brockmeyer in Frankfurt
German TV groups ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL are interested in buying the pay TV
channels that digital pay platform Premiere has said it may shed.
In an effort to better focus its product, Premiere CEO Georg Kofler had announced
they were willing to sell those channels that are marginal to its core movie
franchise, including Premiere Serial, Premiere Nostalgia and Premiere Crime
channel.
According to reports Kofler is currently negotiating with six to eight bidders,
including ProSieben and RTL. Sat 1 chief Haim Saban explained that as advertising
revenues were under pressure, "we have to exploit new fields; pay TV is one
option".
Last week ProSieben announced its figures for the first quarter of this year,
making a E43 million profit. Premiere also delivered positive figures for Q1:
The number of subscribers rose to 2.955 million, up 47,000 from January 1.
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Spain's
largest cablecos in profit by 2007?
From David del Valle in Madrid
After many years of huge losses, Spain's two largest cable operators, Auna and
ONO, hope to make their first profits in 2007. Both have already managed to
get a positive EBITDA. In 2003, Auna declared an EBITDA of E124 million against
a negative EBITDA of E 40 million the previous year. In ONO's case the EBITDA
in 2003 was E102 million with forecasts to reach E 160 million this year.
Both operators significantly increased their revenues in 2003: by 17 per cent
in Auna's case reaching E1.07 billion and by 41.5 per cent as for ONO reaching
E358.6 million. Combined they have around 1.4 million subscribers. But this
growth in revenues was not enough to avoid losses. Both lost money in 2003:
ONO, E107 million, 45 per cent down against the previous year, and Auna, E220
million, 55 per cent down.
Recently, Auna and ONO made a new consolidation move in the market by acquiring
local cable operators Navarra and La Rioja-based Tenaria and Castilla y Leon-based
Retecal, respectively.
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Nomura:
Hutchison could drop 3G by end 2006?
Investment bank Nomura predicted that Hutchison Whampoa could walk away from
its loss-making 3G mobile business by end 2006. According to reports, Nomura
analyst Mark James estimates the Hong Kong conglomerate to rack up operating
losses of about $2.7 billion this year on its 3G operation.
Normura failed to see how Hutchison 3G can achieve an economic return on capital
and value the company at a negative HK$63 billion (E8.07 billion). "Our Hutchison
Whampoa estimates include an assumption that the company walks away from its
3G ventures by the end of the full year of 2006," James said.
The survival of »3' Italia was also called into question despite signing up
the highest number of 3G subscribers among Hutchison's 3G business. The company
announced in March that it had 453,000 customers in Italy.
Hutchison 3G last week added the U8110 handset from LG Electronics to its range
of 3G handsets. The LG handset is the smallest and lightest of the H3G's phones
LG Electronics is Hutchison's fourth handset supplier alongside Motorola, NEC
and Nokia and has signed a deal to supply the operator with three million units.
The priority for the handset ordered will be given to Europe and Australia
3 Austria announced last week it has signed up 25,000 customers and is adding
around 1,000 users per day.
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Bertelsmann
swings to profit
German media giant Bertelsmann posted a profit of E31 million in the first quarter.
The profit contrasted with a loss of E397 million in the January-March quarter
a year ago. Revenues from the company's businesses fell to E3.79 billion from
E3.93 billion a year earlier. It said revenues increased three per cent after
allowing for currency fluctuations and last year's sale of its scientific publisher
Bertelsmann Springer.
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New
Skies/FalconStream team up
Netherlands-based New Skies Satellites and KMS (Kuwait Messaging Services) FalconStream,
a Kuwaiti information technology firm that provides Internet services via satellite,
announced a new two-way satellite IP hub for the Middle East, which will access
New Skies' NSS-6 satellite. The hub will be provided by Australian satellite
broadband specialist, NewSat.
FalconStream has also signed for additional capacity on NSS-6 to offer expanded
and more advanced broadband Internet access services through the new two-way
hub to small offices, corporate enterprises and consumer households throughout
the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and North Africa.
The new hub will employ DVB-RCS technology and NSS-6's high-powered Ku-band
capacity to enable high-speed, two-way IP transmissions between customer sites
and the hub at speeds up to 1.15 Mbps on the uplink and 60 Mbps down, resulting
in service15 to 20 times faster than traditional broadband access technologies.
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T-Mobile
offers airport Wi-Fi service
T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has signed a deal with the UK's
BAA to provide Wi-Fi services to passengers at Heathrow, Gatwick and Glasgow
airports. Travellers will be able to obtain wireless broadband access to the
internet via their laptops by sitting within "Wi-Fi hotspots" in the airports'
international departure lounges.
Casual users will pay £1.50 (E2.25) for 15 minutes' access to the internet,
with rates going up to £5 (E7.5) for an hour, £10 (E15) for three hours and
£16.50 (E24.75) for 24 hours. Discounted tariffs will be available to travellers
who sign up for a monthly or annual T-Mobile Wi-Fi account.
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Monday
May 10th 2004
EchoStar
loss as marketing costs soar
Murdoch
plans new pay-TV channel in US
DoCoMo
forecasts revenue decline
TW
investor suit OK'd
Telecom
Italia returns to profit
Univision
reaches record audience
Two
Way TV provides interactivity for BBC
TeliaSonera
widens Swedish broadband access
Extreme
launches in Portuguese
Top
Up increases reach
Broadcasters
choose Athens Broadcast base
LG
supplies Hutchison with 3 million 3G videophone
EchoStar loss as marketing costs soar
EchoStar continued its strong subscriber growth in the first quarter, but only
at the expense of an increase in the amount it spends to attract those users,
the satellite broadcaster revealed.
The No. 2 U.S. satellite television operator saw its subscriber acquisition
costs rise 26 per cent from a year earlier after promotions to lure subscribers
away from cable services. EchoStar reported a net loss of $43 million, compared
with a net profit of $58 million. The loss included a $78 million charge for
the early redemption of senior notes due in 2009. Revenue grew 16 percent to
$1.58 billion.
Like competitor DirecTV which reported results earlier this week, EchoStar added
more subscribers than expected, showing that the satellite industry is gaining
share of new television households from cable operators. EchoStar added 360,000
net new subscribers in the quarter compared with 350,000 in the same quarter
last year, bringing its total subscribers to 9.8 million.
About 40,000 new subscribers were added through a partnership with SBC Communications
which is bundling Dish Network service with its telephone service in certain
markets.
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Murdoch
plans new pay-TV channel in US
News Corporation is said to be planning at least one new US television channel
before the end of the year as it seeks to take advantage of his recent acquisition
of DirecTV, the satellite broadcaster.
The company, which last week reported a 69 per cent jump in net profits, is
expected to choose from a number of possible formats including an offering intended
to appeal to the growing numbers of Hispanic viewers, a channel devoted to reality
TV, and a weather channel.
"We now have 27 million subscribers around the world, making News Corp the biggest
pay-TV operator in the world," Murdoch was reported as saying. "Because we have
the largest subscriber base, we would be foolhardy if we did not have ambitious
plans." "We're looking at a number of [channel] genres, ones in which we have
particular expertise and which would be natural extensions of the Fox brand.
I'm highly confident that whatever we choose will have an immediate effect on
DirecTV and our other platforms," he added.
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DoCoMo
forecasts revenue decline
NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile phone operator, posted slightly higher full-year
operating profits amid fierce competition, but forecast its first ever decline
for the current business year.
DoCoMo said it expected to earn 830 billion yen ($7.56 billion) in operating
profit for the year to March 2005, against 1.1 trillion yen a year earlier.
The company also expects sales to slip 2.5 per cent to 4.92 trillion yen - its
first revenue decline since its market debut.
DoCoMo attributed the forecast sales and profit declines to bigger family discounts,
price cuts in some data plans, the introduction of a flat-rate data plan and
an anticipated increase in subsidy costs.
Momentum has finally started building for its "FOMA" 3G service, but it may
have come a little too late in the year as rival KDDI Corp's "au" mobile phone
service overtook DoCoMo in net subscriber additions for the first time in 2003.
DoCoMo had 45.9 million customers and a 57 per cent market share at the end
of March. The company increased its 3G subscriber base by 50 per cent to 3.05
million in the last month of its fiscal year, helped by the introduction of
a new line of sleek phones. But it is still far behind KDDI's "au", which has
nearly 80 per cent of its 17 million customers on 3G.
KDDI last week said it doubled its net profit to a record last year and forecast
further growth on the back of strong demand for its mobile phones and 3G service.
DoCoMo's consolidated net profit for the year to end-March tripled to a record
650.0 billion yen from 212.5 billion yen a year earlier, when it suffered heavy
overseas losses. Revenues rose to 5.05 trillion yen from 4.81 trillion yen a
year earlier.
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TW
investor suit OK'd
A federal judge in New York has allowed a class action lawsuit against TW to
proceed. The claim alleges that shareholders were duped by its $112 billion
merger with AOL in 2001.
According to reports, the suit, led by the public pension fund of Minnesota,
contends that the AOL share price was artificially inflated at the time of the
merger through a series of sham advertising transactions. The suit also names
Time Warner executives, accountants and investments banks as defendants. It
claims America Online misrepresented its financial results before agreeing to
acquire Time Warner.
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Telecom
Italia returns to profit
Telecom Italia returned to the black in the first quarter as revenues climbed
at its mobile division and it avoided the one-off writedowns that dragged it
into multi-million euro losses last year. Italy's former telecommunications
monopoly reported consolidated net profits of E277 million in the first three
months of the year compared with losses of E397 million in the same period last
year.
The company's bottom line was boosted by improved operating margins and a 1.7
per cent rise in revenues to E7.42 billion as both its core fixed-line operations
and its mobile arm reported growth. Fixed-line revenues rose 1.4 per cent on
the back of demand for broadband internet lines while messaging and other value-added
services helped revenues jump 12 per cent at Telecom Italia Mobile.
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Univision
reaches record audience
Univision Communications, the top Spanish-language broadcaster in the US, yesterday
reported record television audiences, attributing the growth to a rising preference
among Hispanics for Spanish-language media. The Univision Network broadcast
48 of the top 50 TV programmes in the quarter in Hispanic households.
Its principal Univision network and TeleFutura, a new general-interest network,
combined to win 81 per cent of growth in the prime-time Hispanic audience aged
18-49 in the first quarter. Univision reported net revenue for the first quarter
of $352.9m, compared with $316.5m a year ago, adjusted for the acquisition of
Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation.
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Two
Way TV provides interactivity for BBC
Two Way TV has licensed its Ark technology to the BBC to enable the broadcaster
to link to its enhanced TV and 24/7 services across all of its TV and radio
channels on digital cable. Up until now the BBC has been using Ark to link to
interactive programming for BBC One and BBC Two on digital cable television.
The new licensing deal with Two Way TV means that the BBC will now be also able
to roll out interactive services across all of its digital channels on cable.
Channels that will be able to run these services include the dedicated CBBC
channel, CBeebies, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC Parliament and BBC News 24 in addition
to all the BBC radio brands.
Two Way TV's Ark technology enables broadcasters to schedule and manage enhanced
TV applications as well as run tightly synchronised programming such as quizzes,
betting services and sports applications. The BBC has been using Ark for popular
games such as 'Test the Nation' and »The Antiques Roadshow.'
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TeliaSonera
widens Swedish broadband access
TeliaSonera has begun upgrading 250 exchanges to broadband across Sweden. This
will enable another 400,000 Swedes to connect to the internet at speeds up to
8 Mbps.
The upgrade, expected to be completed by the end of June, 2004, will mean that
around 85 per cent of households and businesses in Sweden have access to ADSL
broadband connectivity. Sales to private and business customers will begin when
exchanges are upgraded.
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Extreme
launches in Portuguese
Extreme Sports Channel announced a distribution agreement with Portuguese cable
and satellite operator TV Cabo. Portugal's biggest operator will launch the
channel on Saturday 8th May. This latest major platform deal opens up a new
country for Extreme, making 53 in total. Portuguese is now the tenth language
in which the channel is available.
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Top
Up increases reach
Digital pay-TV venture Top Up TV hopes to be available in a further 500,000
homes from next month as new Freeview boxes compatible with its technology come
to the market, and a new £40 (E60) set-top box adaptor module hits the shops.
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Broadcasters
choose Athens Broadcast base
Athens Broadcast Services partners, represented by GlobeCast, Gearhouse Broadcast
and Stefi Productions, announced today that leading international broadcasters
have selected the Athens Broadcast Base 2004 for their Olympics coverage.
These leading broadcasters include: Sky News, Sky Sports News, ITN (ITV3 News)
and Reuters from the UK; 9 Network Australia; Italian group Mediaset and global
news network CNN.
The Broadcast Base launched in May last year by GlobeCast, Gearhouse Broadcast,
the equipment rental, sales & project solutions company, and Greek production
company Stefi Productions offers non-rights holders a one-stop-shop for all
of their production and broadcast requirements.
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LG
supplies Hutchison with 3 million 3G videophone
3 has contracted LG Electronics of Korea as preferred UMTS Videophone provider.
Under the agreement LG Electronics is committed to supplying 3 million UMTS
dual mode terminals, compatible with the GSM standards and GPRS, to the 3 group
of companies by the end of 2004.
Thanks to this agreement, LG Electronics joins Motorola and NEC in the group
of the preferred Videophone providers of Hutchison's 3 businesses, extending
the range of 3G phones available for 3 clients in the world.
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