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NEWS Monday September 13th to Friday September 17th 2004
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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday | |||||
Spain's
CMT blocks Telefonica DSL pay-TV
From David del Valle in Madrid
The Spanish Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT) has vetoed Telefonica's
Imagenio ADSL pay-TV service.
The watchdog says Telefonica Cable, part of Telefonica, is not legally entitled
to market Imagenio's pay TV service – made up of 22 TV channels currently
available in Madrid and Barcelona - as it is not physically distributing it.
The CMT argues that Telefonica Cable is not qualified to deliver the service
as it is neither a digital TV operator nor a conditional access provider (set-top-boxes
are being distributed by Telefonica and not by Telefonica Cable). Imagenio
is not regarded as being a broadcast service, but rather an interactive audiovisual
service.
As a result, CMT has denied the model contract that Telefonica Cable had submitted
for its approval, and so left the Imagenio project up in the air. The company
said it will appeal against CMT's decision which, if ratified, could drive
Telefonica to close down Telefonica Cable.
The telco company recently announced a full frontal assault on ADSL with a
E 3 billion investment. The CMT decision represents a setback in its plans
to fully break into the pay-TV market.
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Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is preparing to take full control of Sky Italia, its Italian pay-TV arm, by buying a 19.9 minority stake held by Telecom Italia. Murdoch is expected to agree terms with the Italian telecoms company shortly. News Corp is likely to pay about E60 million for the stake, according to reports. The negotiations come as TI is trying to cut its debt from E33.2 billion to less than E30 billion by the year-end.
TI inherited its stake in Sky Italia, Italy's only satellite operator after News Corp's E893 million takeover of Telepiu, Italy's largest satellite TV company, almost two years ago. News Corp subsequently merged Telepiu, previously part of Vivendi Universal of France, with its Stream pay-TV operation in Italy.
A deal could mean Telecom Italia is more aggressive in pursuing Italy's TV soccer rights - the most lucrative content in the country's TV market - on which Sky Italia currently has a stranglehold. TI is now developing video and internet entertainment services that could challenge Sky Italia. The pay-TV company already faces potential competition from new digital channels launched by Mediaset, the Italian media group controlled by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Loss-making Sky
Italia is expected to break even within the next 18 months as it combats piracy
and lifts subscription numbers. Its subscriber numbers are forecast to reach
3 million by the end of the year, up from 2.2 million in 2003.
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US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell acknowledged that technology and telecommunications companies are racing to develop ways to pipe television shows into consumers' homes via high-speed Internet lines, in particular telcos are trying to fend off mounting competition from cable television companies' triple play offerings.
"Almost
every major phone company I'm aware of has an initiative underway to begin
to try to plug the hole with partnerships with satellite-delivered video but
what they're really working on is broadband-delivered IPTV," Powell told
reporters. But, Powell said, it was unclear what regulatory obligations such
as serving the public interest would apply to television via the Internet,
if any.
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Alcatel and IFX, one of the leading telecom services suppliers in Latin America, have teamed up to upgrade IFX's national broadband network, with DSL installations in 12 central offices in Santiago and in the 9 main regions of Chile.
With this deal, Alcatel is supporting IFX to create an extensive pan-regional platform to provide network connectivity to a wide range of value added voice and data services for enterprises, carriers and Internet Service Providers in Latin America. IFX commercialises its turnkey network access solutions and value added services to local, regional and international corporate customers, from its 10 subsidiaries that are located in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, United States, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Under the terms
of this contract, Alcatel will supply the XD (eXtreme Density) version of
the Alcatel 7300 ASAM with ATM and Ethernet based uplinks. The Alcatel ASAM
will allow IFX to enable the mass deployment of exciting new broadband services
to the vast majority of both business and residential customers.
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SES Astra has signed its first transponder contract with the Broadcast division of ntl. The agreement gives ntl additional capacity in the rapidly expanding UK market for small channel launches.
NTL says the deal allows ntl to offer a seamless one-stop-shop solution including studio facilities and playout services from its Broadcast Media Centre. Steve Holebrook, Media Solutions Director at ntl, said: "This agreement is an exciting step for us and a significant development in the scope of our service offering. We can now provide a complete package for satellite broadcasters and we already have a number of channels lined up to go on."
Meanwhile Astra
announced it has signed a two-transponder deal with yet another UK broadcaster,
Channel 4. Earlier this week the DTH satellite service provider signed a two-transponder
deal with ITV, the UK's biggest commercial television network, also for the
28.2° orbital slot.
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Australian telco Optus has re-signed a multi-million dollar agreement with satellite owner PanAmSat to operate its PAS 4 satellite for another 10 years. Optus has been operating PAS 4 since its launch in 1995.
Under the re-signed
agreement, Optus would continue to look after the orbit determination and
manoeuvre planning of PanAmSat's PAS 4, the telco said.
Optus -a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications - uses its Perth Earth
Station in Lockridge to communicate with the satellite, which is roughly located
over Australia.
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Sky hands over music channels to Chart Show
BSkyB has handed over the day-to-day running of its music channels, Flaunt, Scuzz and The Amp, to rival music company Chart Show Channels in a deal that sees Sky consolidating the ad sales operations of the two companies.
Chart Show Channels, which owns Chart Show TV, The Vault and B4, will also run Sky's music channels, although the James Murdoch led company will retain ownership and control of ad sales. All channels will remain part of the Sky Digital service. Sky will also sell advertising on the three Chart Show Channels from January 2005 on an agency basis.
The deal will result in 13 redundancies at BSkyB, representing all the permanent staff of Sky Music. Keith Macmillan, Chart Show Chairman was unable to tell advanced-television.com if the company was going to employ any of Sky Music staff.
BSkyB launched Flaunt, Scuzz and The Amp 18 months ago to take on MTV's stable of music channels including MTV and the Emap-owned Kiss, Smash Hits, Q and Kerrang!. However, after failing to dent the market the future of the channels was placed under review with a chance that they could cease.
Meanwhile, Sky
is also said to be talking to creative agencies about pitching for briefs
to advertise specific areas of programming, working alongside incumbent agency
HHCL/Red Cell. The move follows the unveiling of an intensive marketing strategy
to overhaul the brand and combat slowing subscriber growth. Ad spend will
increase by up to £75 million (E112.5 million). It is believed that
Sky wants to focus on its flagship channel Sky One.
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Japanese technology companies Canon and Toshiba plan to invest $1.82 billion in a joint venture to manufacture advanced flat-panel displays. Canon, the world's largest maker of office machines, and electronics conglomerate Toshiba have conducted research since 1999 on surface conduction electron emitter display (SED) panels, which are seen as a promising next-generation display.
SED panels are thinner than existing flat panels, consume less energy and, unlike liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, do not require backlighting because they produce their own light.
The two companies said they plan to begin production of SED panels mainly for large-screen flat-panel TVs in 2005, and they expect the venture to become profitable by 2010. They are the only major companies developing SED panels.
Canon and Toshiba said they plan to spend $183 million (20 billion yen) to get a production line up and running and another $1.64 billion by 2007 to mass produce the SED panels. "We believe SED technology is best suited to meet the demand for high-quality images such as digital high-vision broadcasting spreads," said Tadashi Okamura, chief executive of Toshiba. Okamura added that Toshiba's strategy is to use SED panels for television models with screens bigger than 32 inches and LCD for those that are smaller.
Canon and Toshiba
said they expected to produce 3,000 50-inch panels a month in 2005. They aim
to raise production to an annual 1.8 million units in 2008 and 3 million units
in 2010. Revenue for the venture was forecast at $274 million in 2007 and
is then expected to grow to $1.83 billion by 2010.
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China Central
Television (CCTV) is to sign a deal next month to allow the distribution of
17 channels originated in mainland China by Echostar in the US.
A formal announcement is expected in Los Angeles on October 1, China's national
day, following the signing ceremony attended by a group of senior CCTV executives.
The agreement will give Echostar six CCTV channels, seven provincial ones, three produced by Hong Kong's Phoenix Satellite TV and one service by Hong Kong terrestrial Asia Television. The channels will mainly be in Mandarin, although CCTV-9 is in English.
Echostar reaches
more than 8.5 million homes in the U.S. and is the country 's second largest
direct to home satellite TV provider. News Corp-owned DirecTV had been angling
for the carriage rights, but backed out of the bidding.
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After posting positive financial results, Vivendi Universal' CEO Jean-Rene Fourtou said the French company is ready to return to the acquisition trail, although he pointed out that to start with it would look for smaller bolt-on purchases worth E500 million-E1 billion.
Fourtou, appointed in July 2002 after a costly acquisition spree and corporate governance scandals had brought the group to its knees, ruled out any "big transformational deals".
Lagardère
owns 34 per cent of CanalSatellite, Vivendi's digital-TV business, and analysts
believe it is likely to want to increase its stake, or to buy Canal Plus,
the holding company. Instead, Fourtou said Lagardère would be invited
to swap its CanalSatellite stake for shares in Canal Plus.
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Last week, the signal of the French channel France 5 on the Astra 1H satellite was scrambled. France 5 is an ‘educational' channel, which shares an analogue terrestrial frequency with Arte, using the channel during the daytime. The 24 hour version of the channel has been available free of charge on Astra for some years, along with a number of other French language channels (Arte, RTBF, TV5, KTO, LCP, Zik) constituting what is in effect a ‘mini-bouquet', available to users of Free-to-Air digital terminals in France and in other countries in Europe. While most satellite viewers in France subscribe to either TPS or Canal Satellite, a sizeable number use the FTA service.
Advanced Television
asked France 5 the reason for the encrypting. The reply was that the decision
came from Canal Satellite, who provide the transport for the signal, as part
of a "desire to harmonise with the other signals from France Televisions
carried by Canal Satellite". Territorial copyright does not appear to
have been an issue; more likely that Canal Satellite wanted to reduce the
appeal of the free-only channels. France 5 has recently started to strengthen
its schedules in the evening, in the run up to the launch of DTT next year
when it will have a full time channel. Officially, the encrypted signal is
"free for subscribers", althought only those that already have Canal
Plus.
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Racing UK, the dedicated horseracing channel currently available to 7.5 million satellite subscribers, will reach another one million homes from Thursday (16 September 2004) through a deal with digital cable operator Telewest Broadband.
Telewest Broadband customers will benefit from a short free-to-air period before they are required to subscribe in October. After that the cost of the channel will follow the satellite pricing structure of £20 (E 30) a month.
Racing UK Ltd, owned by 30 of the UK's leading race courses, has concluded the deal with Telewest Broadband via a commercial agreement with broadcast partner Setanta Sport, a British independent operator of pay sports channels.
Racing UK will
be available on channel 537.
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TalkSport TV will launch for six hours a day on October 4, on an existing channel slot, number 235, and is aiming to catch listeners who have come home from work. Initially the service will amount to little more than the televising of TalkSport's anchors and pundits at work.
"Chris Evans made a mistake when he went to Sky and turned a radio show into a TV show. We are radio; we have multiple cameras operating in a piece of software. Our business is radio and this is a marketing exercise," said MacKenzie. He said the development would give a new meaning to the phrase "face for radio": "If some of our broadcasters are facially challenged they are going to have to raise their game."
MacKenzie unveiled
the plans as the Wireless Group announced its half-year operating profit had
more than doubled to £1.63 million (E2.4 million) in the six months
to June 30, thanks to the increased interest in radio among advertisers and
a Euro 2004 windfall. Revenues have soared throughout the third quarter of
the year - up 18 per cent in July, 43 per cent in August and 16 per cent in
September.
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Rupert Murdoch
has been named non-executive director of CNC, the China NetCom Group Corp-Hong
Kong - he is also Chairman of Netcom's compensation committee. The company,
which is planning a US$1.5 billion (HK$11.7 billion) initial public offering,
named China's former telecoms industry regulator Zhang Chunjiang, as its chairman.
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Pace Micro Technology has introduced Europe's first HD personal video recorder (PVR) at IBC2004. Designed for cable and satellite platforms, Pace's TDX840 HD PVR box will enable European broadcasters to capitalise on two of the most advanced, revenue creating technologies currently available in the digital TV industry.
Pace's TDX840
uses MPEG-2 de-coding and features a minimum 160 GByte hard drive. Any European
cable or satellite broadcaster looking to transmit HD services will be able
to utilise the TDX840 as it can be configured for all major CA and middleware
systems. The TDX840 will launch in the second half of 2005 and form part of
a comprehensive European high definition product range featuring cable and
satellite variants and Pace's first MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264) set-top box platform.
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Internet company Yahoo says it will buy privately held music software company Musicmatch for about $160 million in a bid to promote its online music services.
San Diego-based
Musicmatch offers software that lets users manage digital music collections
and listen to online radio stations. Customers also download songs from its
music store. Yahoo said Musicmatch will compliment its own Launch music service
that offers Internet radio and music videos and generates revenue through
advertising. With Musicmatch, it will produce revenue through subscriptions
and downloads.
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Hughes Network
Systems, has introduced a satellite-based virtual private network (VPN) acceleration
technology. Based on the Ipsec standard, Direcway, HNS says VPN Accelerator
enables enterprises and government agencies to implement uniformly efficient
and secure, wide area broadband networks, reaching teleworker employees at
any location, urban or rural.
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Ofcom, the UK media regulator set out its blueprint for switching off the analogue TV signal, saying that it is technically possible to phase in digital-only areas as early as 2007.
The regulator also added that commercial broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Five - which are to be given new licences at the end of this year - must switch off the analogue signal by the end of 2012. Digital licences are being offered to the current Channel 3 licensees (ITV Plc, plus SMG, which owns the Scottish and Grampian franchises, and Ulster Television), Five and Teletext Limited, which operates the public teletext licence. If the 10-year licences are accepted, the replacement licences must be issued before December 29 this year. The digital licences will expire on December 31, 2014. Channel 4's digital replacement licence will be the subject of a separate consultation.
About half the country currently has digital TV in some form - through satellite, cable or Freeview connections - but it is widely agreed that the consumer acceptance of digital will plateau and the government will have to intervene by setting a firm date for switching off analogue transmitters.
The timetable follows up on the announcement earlier this year by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, that 2012 might be the most appropriate date to complete the switchover, instead of the 2010 date the government had previously proposed.
Trials of digital-only
networks will start next spring in two Welsh villages where hundreds have
agreed to abandon analogue TV.
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French company Neuf Telecom (or N9uf Telecom as in its logos), announcing its half yearly results, stated that it is probably the leader in unbundling local loop in Europe: "As of September 2004, we have unbundled a total of 500,000 lines," said Jacques Veyrat, President of the company.
He expects the figure to reach 700,000 by the end of the year. 40 per cent of these are for N9euf Telecom clients, and the rest for clients of other ISPs to whom N9euf provides services.
The company made a net profit of E15 million during the first of this year, compared to a loss of E10 million the same period last year. Sales were E564 million, compared to E455 million the previous year. Veyrat went on to say that the group has had a "strong organic growth" in a sector in which growth is slowing down. Although the company began by concentrating on corporate clients, consumers make up an increasing proportion of its activity. It currently has two packages for the home market: 1 Mb/s for E14.90 a month or 2 Mb/s for E29.90 a month. The latter pack includes unlimited phone calls to landlines.
In November Neuf is to roll out an ADSL TV service, for no extra charge. This will comprise 42 channels at launch, but more are going to be added. "The channels are essentially the same as those available via Free," said one spokesman. An interesting bonus, the dedicated decoder will include a DTT receiver, making all of the French FTA DTT channels available with no need to purchase an extra box.
Finally, Neuf
Telecom is planning to roll out an ultra high speed broadband service in the
first half of next year. This will use DSL2+ technology and provide speeds
in the range of 25 Mb/s.
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Vivendi Universal revealed an eight per cent lift in first-half operating profits, helped by another strong performance by mobile phone operator SFR Cegetel, prompting it to lift its forecast for 2004.
The company said operating income increased to E1.8 billion in the first six months of 2004 compared with E1.7billion in the same period last year, despite a fall in revenues to E11.4billion from E12.4billion as the company shed business to help pay off debt.
On a comparable basis, revenues rose six per cent as SFR and Maroc Telecom continued to grow, while restructuring fuelled recovery at pay-TV unit Canal Plus and revenues stabilised at Universal Music.
Vivendi said it now expected 2004 operating income to match the E3.3billion generated in 2003. The company said it would now be in a position to pay a dividend in 2005, based on 2004 earnings. "Today the reorganisation of Vivendi Universal is almost complete. Its financial position is restored," said Jean-René Fourtou, chief executive.
Despite the improved operating results, overall the net losses ballooned to E1.9 billion after the company was negatively-impacted by E2.1 billion of foreign exchange losses on the part sale of Vivendi Universal Entertainment, which comprised its core US assets, to NBC.
Net debt fall to E6.4 billion by June 30 compared with E11.6 billion at the end of December. Vivendi forecast debt to fall to E5 billion by the end of 2004, including the proceeds of the sale of Veolia Environment.
SFR, France's second-largest mobile phone operator, grew operating income 21 per cent to E1.2 billion. The company, a joint venture with Vodafone in which Vivendi controls 56 per cent, reported a 10 per cent rise in mobile revenues to E1.2 billion on the back of seven per cent customer growth and a better revenue mix. Fixed-line revenues jumped 40 per cent to E596 million driven by broadband internet sales.
Operating income at Canal Plus fell to E207 million from E245 million, but its core pay-TV business grew more than 17 per cent as a recovery plan implemented in 2003 continued to bear fruit and churn rate fell.
Restructuring
helped return Universal Music Group to operating profit, but a turnaround
plan at Vivendi Universal Games, the computer and video games developer, introduced
at the beginning of 2004, brought one-off costs of E90 million, dragging the
unit further into the red.
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Sony is close to seizing control of Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The consortium led by the Japanese electronics giant placed an offer of about $4.8 billion for MGM forcing rival bidder Time Warner to withdraw its $4.6 billion offer.
"Time Warner could not reach agreement with MGM at a price that would have represented a prudent use of our growing financial capacity," Dick Parsons, Time Warner's Chairman and CEO, said. "We are confident that there are other capital allocation choices that will enable us to continue to build shareholder value."
People close to the talks said MGM had accepted a cash offer that valued the company at about $12 a share, and includes the assumption of about $1.9 billion in debt. Apparently MGM changed its mind after Sony's group on Sunday raised its bid from $11.25 a share and offered to pay a $150 million non-refundable deposit in case the deal fell through.
The consortium
also benefited from the last-minute inclusion of Comcast, the US cable giant,
which helped to support the higher valuation by agreeing to co-operate with
Sony to launch new channels and video-on-demand services based on its expanded
library of films and TV programmes. Comcast has an option to join the consortium
as an investor after the deal is finalised.
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HBO, which entered the India market in September 2000 with the backing of four major Hollywood studios (Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment), was earlier with Zee distribution platform before shifting over to SET India. The channel is now available in over 20 million households throughout India. The competitors include STAR Movies and Zee MGM.
HBO will now be a part of the Zee Turner bouquet that features Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Cartoon Network, Pogo, CNN as well as a number of strong regional channels. Turner International in India represents Cartoon Network, CNN International and POGO.
Zee Turner is
a joint venture company that manages distribution and trade marketing for
Zee Telefilms and Turner International‚s bouquet of channels as well
as third party channels such as CNBC and Reality TV in India and South Asia.
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UnitedGlobalCom announced its planned launch of VoIP in The Netherlands by its European broadband division - UPC. This follows our launch of VoIP telephony services in Hungary last week. "Using the same advanced broadband IP technology that drives our chello Internet services, UPC is the first operator in these countries to start with a full-scale deployment of low-cost Digital Telephony via VoIP," the company remarked.
At the same time UPC also announced that it will increase the speed across a range of its chello Internet products. In the city of Almere, UPC will start a 30 Mb/s broadband chello Internet trial to be followed by commercial deployment of new high-end broadband products.
UPC showcased its latest suite of new triple play products, including high quality VoIP, ultra high speed broadband Internet by chello and several digital and interactive television platforms, at IBC 2004 in Amsterdam. Most of these products are now ready for large-scale deployment in several markets within our footprint.
UPC is the first
operator in the Netherlands now starting a full scale national launch of advanced,
high-quality VoIP technology that will enable UPC to provide advanced, low-priced
fixed line telephony services to its 2.4 million customers on its cable network.
After an initial launch in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, the rest of The Netherlands
will follow in early 2005.
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UK cable operator ntl is to undertake a trial of broadband quality interactivity in conjunction with BroadbandTV Group, the recently formed joint venture between iTV specialists YooMedia and ICTV. ICTV will provide its HeadendWare technology, which allows for far richer content within the interactive broadcast stream than conventional interactive TV, while YooMedia will handle content provision. Under the trial, BroadbandTV services will be made available to selected ntl customers in 2005.
ICTV's HeadendWare capabilities, which will be made available through ntl's existing standard cable set-top boxes, include Flash and Shockwave animation and high quality streaming audio and full motion video.
Mike McGrail,
CEO of ICTV, suggested that interactive television has so far lacked the vivid
quality of linear television or the best of the worldwide Web, and described
the trial as a "tremendous opportunity for all parties involved. It will
help ntl offer more competitive packages, and it's certainly the most important
deal for our group." Yoo Media CEO David Docherty said the quality enhancement
had "the potential to transform the interactive experience for the viewer
in the same way that broadband transformed the Internet experience for Web-users."
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There is new hope on the UK TV and newspaper industry, after the latest figures released by the Advertising Association showed that, for the third consecutive quarter, advertisers' spending was up.
Spending for
the three months to June rose 4.2 per cent from the same period last year
to £3.7billion (E5.5 billion). Advertising had fallen in 2001 as confidence
among companies deteriorated after the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war
and the dotcom collapse. Spending on television rose 5.8 per cent to £1.03
billion and on national newspapers by 6.5 per cent to £499 million.
Direct mail advertising, which was used as an alternative media, fell 3.5
per cent to £539 million.
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SES Astra has signed a two-transponder deal with ITV, the UK's biggest commercial television network, for the 28.2° orbital slot. ITV, which already has three ASTRA transponders, will use the additional capacity to expand its digital offer including more regional and interactive services.
ITV's broadcast
CEO, Mick Desmond, said: "ITV1 is the most popular commercial television
channel in Britain, but to stay at the top against a background of continuing
digital viewer growth, we need to ensure that we have the transmission capacity
to meet our digital strategy objectives."
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Hauppauge Digital,
makers of the world's smallest Freeview box, has introduced a second generation
UK Freeview receiver, with enhanced picture quality, faster operation and
full interactivity. The Hauppauge DEC-1100-t uses the latest Philips chipset
to provide superior picture quality, faster scanning and is priced at £79.99
(E119.9) (£20 less than the previous model). The tiny receiver, the
size of a CD Walkman, will be available from end of September from high street
and online retailers.
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UK consumer electronics Amstrad is understood to have signed a deal with the Scottish telecoms company Thus to launch a mass-market fixed-line videophone, named E3.
The E3 will be
billed as the ‘son of the e-m@iler,' the telephone and email device which
launched in March 2000, and is now making money for Amstrad. The company's
latest accounts show that Amserve, the subsidiary that produces the e-m@iler,
made a £1 million (E1.5 million) profit last year compared to a £5.5
million loss in 2002.
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BigBand Networks,
a provider of network platforms for triple play services, announced that Multikabel
is introducing 10 Mb/s downstream / 2 Mb/s upstream Internet access on the
BigBand Cuda12000CMTS (cable modem termination system). The Dutch cable operator
currently provides high speed data services to more than 100,000 subscribers
and VoIP telephony to more than 15,000 subscribers, and is expanding its Cuda
usage with this new increase of Internet access speeds.
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Mike Heap, CEO
of Entertainment Rights commented "With the combination of Tell-Tale's
strong creative talent and ER's strength and expertise in television and video
distribution, licensing, merchandising and brand management, the combined
company will be a formidable force in the worldwide kids market. The Tweenies
have sold more than three million videos in Britain alone and have even scored
a Top 10 hit single."
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Germany's KDG, Europe's largest cable operator reaching over 10 million homes, seems to have given up the hope of convincing the German antitrust watchdog that the acquisition of its smaller regional sister operators ish, iesy and KabelBW, was a good idea.
After a meeting between KDG and the cartel office the chances for an agreement "have not improved at all", a German newspaper quoted a high ranking KDG source as saying. The Cartel office did not comment, its' judgement is expected on October 7th.
In case of a
denial, KDG could still succeed by special permission of the German federal
economic secretary Wolfgang Clement. However, according to the news reports,
the secretary's office has already said he will not decide against the interests
of the German TV networks. Both the large public (ARD, ZDF) and commercial
(RTL, ProSieben/Sat.1) networks heavily oppose the intended cable fusion.
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According to a report in The Indian Ocean Newsletter, the plan to launch a pay TV service via cable in the Seychelles should finally see the light of day before the end of this year. The project goes back several years, but got bogged down in a series of legal battles, which ended up in the instigator of the project, Bahrain based Global Investments & Business Corporation, having its assets seized. A new operator has arrived on the scene to take over, Intel Vision. The list of shareholders of this new company is a closely guarded secret, but the Seychelles government has given it special treatment.
Intel Vision has obtained a licence for an unusually long 20 years to operate services via cable: TV, broadband Internet and radio. It will be set up in new buildings on ground reclaimed from the sea. The South African satellite operator DSTV (part of Multichoice) will supply it with access to around 80 TV channels. Intel Vision has also escaped from paying a hefty tax bill on imported equipment, whereas the legislation excludes exemptions of this type except for goods imported by the president himself. This exemption would therefore appear to be the direct result of a presidential decision. Intel Vision will also recover installation worth $1.3 million which were owned by Global Direct and had been impounded by the Seychelles State.
Seychelles is
an African coutry, located in the Indian Ocean about 1,600 kilometres (1,000
miles) east of Kenya.
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The socialist
Government has given its approval to the launch of a new regional TV channel
in Spain. The cabinet meeting has granted the regional Administration of Aragon
(in the north east of Spain) with the direct management of this new state-owned
channel.
This is the fourth regional TV channel to get the green light for launch in
2004. Earlier this year, the Government approved the creation of three new
regional channels in Extremadura, Baleares and Asturias.
With the creation of this new channel, Spain will be home to 14 regional TV
stations covering 10 Spanish regions.
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The US International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission denied an application from NetSat 28 to extend or waive its construction completion and launch milestones for its Ka-band satellite system.
In its order, the bureau said NetSat didn't meet conditions for its Ka-Band authorisation and has not justified an extension or waiver of its milestones. With the bureau's order, NetSat's authorisation for Ka-Band service at the 95-degree orbital location was made available for reassignment.
In May 1997,
the bureau authorised NetSat to construct, launch and operate a satellite
at the location. The company had three milestones to meet: May 1998 for the
commencement of satellite construction; April 2002 for the completion of satellite
construction; and May 2002 for launch of the spacecraft. Later on, the bureau
had extended the construction completion and launch milestones to August 2003
and September 2003, respectively.
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Michael Eisner, the veteran CEO of Disney who has had a vote of no confidence from shareholders making him give up his dual role as chairman and chief executive earlier this year, will leave the company when his contract ends in September 2006.
Potential successors include Bob Iger, Disney's COO – Eisner preferred choice for succession-, and rival media executives such as Jeff Bewkes, the head of Time Warner's entertainment arm, Mel Karmazin, the former COO at Viacom, and Peter Chernin, the COO of News Corp.
Reflecting the
pressure he has been under from critics within and outside the company, Eisner,
laid out what he planned to do on retiring in his letter to Disney's board,
reportedly saying: "I'm going to Disneyland!"
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Modern Times Group, announced that Viasat Broadcasting has switched off the legacy ‘Viaccess' encryption of its premium pay-TV channels in the Nordic region (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland). This follows the successful implementation of NDS ‘VideoGuard' conditional access technology on the Viasat DTH platform.
The switch-off of the old system will render ‘pirate' pay-TV cards useless as pirate cardholders will no longer be able to receive the Viasat packages of premium pay-TV channels. Viasat broadcasts both its own and third party entertainment channels digitally via satellite and had 436,000 premium subscribers at the end of the second quarter of this year (30 June 2004).
The migration
has been implemented via the downloading of software to subscribers' TV set-top
decoders and the distribution of new smart cards. Hans-Holger Albrecht, President
and CEO of MTG, commented: "The project has been delivered on schedule
and is one of the first times that a satellite pay-TV broadcaster has migrated
its subscriber base to a new conditional access system. We have accomplished
the migration at low cost and made the transition as simple as possible for
existing customers."
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The Fair Trade Commission plans to issue an administrative order against Usen, the largest cable broadcaster in Japan, and its agent Nippon Network Vision to halt their alleged unfair price-cutting practice, the local press reported.
The administrative
order, formally known as a ‘recommendation,' would replace an emergency
order the commission had asked the Tokyo High Court to issue over the matter.
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Harmonic has announced that Korean cable operator QRIX, is using its commercial services solution to deliver managed ultra high-speed data communications services. The Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) solution enables QRIX to leverage its existing cable television network infrastructure to offer scalable Internet access and virtual private network (VPN) services to businesses and multi-tenant buildings.
An official statement says that more than 75 per cent of Korean households have network connections that offer from 20 to 400 times the bandwidth of a 56k modem. By 2010, 100 megabit per second (Mbps) connections are expected to be similarly commonplace.
Harmonic's Commercial Services Solution enables cable operators to offer very high-speed data communications services over the same fibre that distributes residential broadcast and on-demand television.
The initial phase
brings ultra high-speed broadband to several sections of Seoul, each of which
encompasses a multitude of small and mid-size businesses.
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Conax has launched the new Conax CAS7 system at IBC. The company said that while its former main system version Conax CAS5 is expected to be robust for several years to come, Conax CAS7 represents an option for Conax CAS based operators to start upgrading to Conax's latest security level.
Already Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation, the TV and Radio division of Northern Lights Communication, the largest privately operated media company in Iceland, has signed a contract to use the Conax CAS7 system for its Digital Terrestrial operation (DTT), starting this November.
Conax CAS7 supports
all the CA-functions, from classic subscription via PPV and pairing to our
latest developments; ordering and payment of content via mobile phone SMS
messages. "Mobile operator independent SMS ordering system, PVR support
and CableCard are new features adding to the already rich set of CAS-functions
supported by Conax. In all, we think Conax CAS7 has so many advantages, we
call it the best CAS ever," says Ole Hansvold, COO and Executive Vice
President of Conax.
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SES Astra and Austria's leading public broadcaster ORF, announced at IBC 2004 in Amsterdam, the signing of a long-term agreement on the use of additional Astra transponder capacity.
ORF will start
using the additional transmission capacity on Astra's orbital position of
19.2° East this year. At the same time, the existing contracts between
ORF and SES Astra have been extended. Andreas Gall, Technical Director of
ORF, commented: "With the extension of our transponder capacity we have
laid the foundation for providing our TV viewers and radio audiences with
best-quality programs and improvements to current services for years to come."
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Arrivo on demand, a unit of chellomedia, has expanded its service to German cable company ish by rolling out its NVoD content across 16 new channels.
The service is
expected to reach another three million prospective customers successively
after the switch-on this month, representing a significant expansion to the
ish Plus TV offer, almost quadrupling its current subscriber reach from its
base of 1.1 million homes. ish Plus TV launched in November last year.
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Latens, the provider of cardless CA systems, and BitBand, a provider of Video-On-Demand (VOD) solutions for broadband IP networks, announce that they have integrated technologies to provide broadband operators with secure VOD content distribution.
"Through the expertise of our two companies we are able to provide peace of mind to content owners as well as protecting the revenues of broadband operators," says Yuval Sovinsky, VP Marketing & Strategic Business, BitBand. "This integration enables broadband operators to gain access to high quality content while minimising setup and running costs enabling a cost effective full scale deployment," he added.
The integration
of Latens Video Encryption Engine (VEE) with BitBand's
Maestro was carried out seamlessly. Latens VEE, which launched at IBC 2004,
is an efficient 1U rack unit that provides fast and scalable encryption of
VOD content. Using open interfaces and a PC-based architecture, VEE is fast,
efficient, scalable and straightforward to integrate with other vendors equipment.
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France's M6 has purchased two Inca RTX HD character generator systems from Inscribe, to deploy a solution that simultaneously delivers Standard Definition and High Definition graphics using only one operator.
"M6, in
announcing HD capability, has chosen an Inscriber workflow solution for greater
efficiency that eliminates manual graphic conversion between SD and HD formats,
and improves graphic quality by producing graphics in their true respective
native format," the company said in a statement.
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NDS, STMicroelectronics, and Thomson have announced the formation of the SVP (Secure Video Processor) Alliance with the aim of making SVP a leading, open specification for secure content protection.
SVP is an end-to-end
system that allows the content distributor to use existing CA or DRM solutions
to manage a secure content protection mechanism available on video processor
chips in STBs and consumer electronic devices.
Its objective is to adopt, use and promote the SVP standard and develop interoperability
with other content protection solutions.
The companies
claim that SVP creates new opportunities to distribute and package digital
content while ensuring that content owners' rights are protected, and service
operators maintain control of the content within and outside their respective
networks. For example, SVP network service operators such as DirecTV in the
US plan to extend their reach by entitling consumers to receive, store and
render secured content in home networks and portable consumer devices. SVP
also meets the cost and implementation requirements of the consumer electronic
industry and preserves the end users' rights to enjoy digital entertainment
in the most flexible and convenient way.
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NDS unveiled a secure content protection solution for two-way IP TV network operators at this years IBC in Amsterdam. VGS, part of NDS's IP content security solution, Synamedia, is aimed at telecom and broadband operators.
Built on NDS's conditional access, VideoGuard, VGS offers two-way connected networks a secure solution for the delivery of video content. A secure non-proprietary processor sits in the set-top box (STB) which communicates with the headend VGS server. The VGS solution is hardware-based because the processor contains non-proprietary secure hardware that enables the VGS, hardware based, secure servers to communicate securely with the set top box.
Nigel Smith,
NDS Vice President Broadband Internet said: "For a Telco operator, wanting
to move in to the delivery of video content, security is of primary concern
to protect their revenues and get high value content. It is recognised that
hardware-based security is the only secure and reliable method for protecting
Pay-TV content and VGS provides this without the need for a smartcard in the
set top box.
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Here at IBC NTL Broadcast division and MNO O2 revealed their plans for the UK's first consumer trial of multi-channel television for mobile phones.
The trial, set to begin in spring 2005, will involve around 500 demographically weighted users in the Oxford area where nine transmitters will cover about 120 square kilometres. The users will receive Nokia multimedia phones with a digital tv receiver built in. On it, they will see a package of 16 TV channels including sport, news, comedy, music and animation.
Terry Howard
of ntl and Mike Short of O2 told Advanced Television that users were currently
being recruited and the trial would be used to test the perceived value of
various types of programming propositions and video services.
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France Telecom has decided to speed up the roll-out of its ADSL TV service, called MaLigne TV. Last week it announced that it was opening service in more cities including Grenoble, St Etienne with TPS; and Nice, Lyon and Marseilles with Canal Plus, Toulouse and Strasbourg will have both.
Take-up has been sluggish: TPS launched its service in December 2003 under the name TPS-L in Lyons, now has only 10,000 subscribers, about half its objective. Canal Satellite, which launched its ADSL service a few months later, has not disclosed how many subscribers it has, but it is generally believed to be around 3,000. France Telecom expects to have around 50,000 subscribers to Maligne by the end of the year in partnership with one or other of the platforms.
Meanwhile, the
ISP Free (Iliad group) has been rolling out its "Freebox" (see Advanced
Television last week) which provides a combination of Internet access, VOIP
and a selection of TV channels, has around 330,000 users of its Freebox with
200,000 of them believed to use it for watching TV channels.
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China has five new digital channels. Launched by the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), have 245,000 digital television viewers in 22 provinces and municipalities, making up 79 per cent of the total viewers in China, a company official said. Encrypted by the satellite, the digital signals from the five channels, together with the other six paid TV channels provided by Tianjin TV Station, Hubei TV Station and Jiangsu TV Station will be sent to digital television viewers.
SMG is the second
firm authorised in China to launch digital channels. Last month, the state-run
China Central Television (CCTV) launched six digital channels. "China
Satellite Communication Corporation will provide a satellite to safeguard
signal transmission for these channels," a spokesperson said. Besides
soap operas, the channels will show programs involving fashion, sports and
music.
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Companies in South Korea and Japan say they are ready to launch a new satellite broadcasting service in the next two months that can send video and audio directly to devices such as mobile telephones, handheld terminals and in-car receivers.
According to
reports, prototype terminals for the service, which will be launched in South
Korea by TU Media and in Japan by Mobile Broadcasting (MBCO), were on show
at the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Telecom Asia 2004 conference
and exhibition in South Korea.
The services will broadcast from a satellite launched by the two companies
earlier this year. Unlike existing satellite systems that require dish antennas,
the service uses L-band frequencies, which are around 2.6GHz and close to
those used by third-generation (3G) cellular services, so it can be received
using an antenna built into a portable receiver.
Both Samsung
Electronics and LG Electronics have produced prototype cellular telephones
for the service, which were on show at the exhibition.
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German broadcaster
Premiere is to start broadcasting its first programmes in HDTV format from
November 2005. The Munich-based pay-TV operator will transmit HDTV content
on three dedicated channels for sport, film and documentaries. The programmes
will be broadcast in digital format via the Astra satellite system at 19.2°
East. Premiere also intends to introduce its HDTV package on cable networks
later on.
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Taking advantage of the increased speed of broadband connections and the software developments that allow TV transmission over internet protocol, several set top boxes vendors and middleware providers have got together to launch IPTV devices.
Microsoft and Tandberg Television have finalised the integration of the Tandberg EN5920 encoder with the Microsoft TV IPTV platform. Tandberg's encoder and Microsoft TV IPTV platform support the Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile codec, enabling broadband operators to offer live, broadcast television programming at lower data rates while maintaining broadcast-quality video.
Set-top-boxes vendor Thomson has unveiled the new Thomson-brand IP1001 and RCA-brand IP1000 STB, which also support the Microsoft TV IPTV software platform.
Microsoft TV is offering its IPTV software to several other top-tier telcos worldwide, including Telecom Italia, Bell Canada, Reliance Infocomm, SBC Communications and Swisscom/Bluewin .
Amino Communications presented at IBC what it claims to be the smallest IPTV set-top box with integral Personal Video Recorder (PVR). The AmiNET500 is the latest addition to Amino's range of small, low-cost, high performance set-top boxes and contains an 80Gbyte hard disk drive which is capable of storing around 40 hours of programme material. The product has been developed in response to requests from telcos experiencing consumer demand for PVRs as part of their IPTV services.
Set top box software developer Espial announced it has teamed up Pace Micro Technology to create a full-featured set top box targeted at the hospitality industry. The Pace IP420, embedded with the Espial Escape browser, will offer hotel viewers a full range of services such as pay-per-view, video-on-demand, interactive shopping and community or service information using IPTV.
ANT, a UK-based
provider of user interface software for TV and consumer electronics, announced
two deals at IBC for its ANT Fresco browser. STB vendor Pace will use it for
its IPTV box, the DB210, which is aimed at the mass market. Also RedCom Videophone
will use Fresco for the user interface on its new broadband videophone 'RedCom
VP1,' which is integrated with Texas Instrument's TMS320 DM64x generation
of digital media processors. Fresco allows OEMs to integrate a wide range
of advanced content technologies such as Windows Media 9, MPEG4 and H.264
into their consumer electroncis products.
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Cabot Communications,
a digital TV software supplier, announced the launch of Aurora, an open standards-based
DVB middleware stack for free-to-air digital terrestrial and satellite receivers.
Available on 15 different semiconductor platforms, the pre-integrated stack
allows manufacturers to build devices that meet the transmission requirements
of every European DTT network and interactive standard, including MHEG-5 and
MHP, in previously unachievable timescales.
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Omneon Video Networks, which produces networked media servers for the broadcast and video industry, announced at IBC the introduction of the Omneon Spectrum HD.
The scalable
media server provides integrated playback of high-definition video content,
and when configured with other components in the Omneon Spectrum family, it
allows broadcasters to ingest, store, and play back both SD and HD content
simultaneously from a single system, using a common pool of shared storage.
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Korean company KT Corp has announced that it has signed a contract to build high-speed Internet infrastructure in Iran. The US$26 million contract will help AsiaTech, one of the major Iranian Internet service providers, set up 100,000 broadband Internet lines in the country's 20 major cities, including its capital Teheran, by 2005, according to local reports in Korea. This was announced by KT during the ITU Telecom Asia conference.
In a separate development, KT signed a memorandum of understanding with Algerie Telecom, a telephone operator in Algeria, to set up a broadband Internet joint venture in the African country. The venture, which will be jointly established with Daewoo International, a South Korean trading firm, aims to build 100,000 high-speed Internet lines in Algeria by 2006, KT said.
KT considers
the deal as one of the important step to penetrate into the Middle Eastern
region. Iran has about 3.1 million Internet users out of its 67 million population.
Most of the subscribers access the Internet through traditional telephone
modems, KT said. In order to introduce the high-speed Internet service, which
transmits data at a speed of 50 to 100 times faster than the modems, the Iranian
government in February selected 13 companies with the aim of building 4.5
million broadband Internet lines by 2010 and AsiaTech is one of those companies
chosen by the Iranian government, KT said.
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PanAmSat and GlobeCast have teamed up, to launch PanGlobal TV. Hosted on the PAS-8 Pacific Ocean Region satellite, this new Australian DTH platform will target international broadcasters wanting to reach Australia's five million multicultural viewers.
David Ball, vice
president, Asia Pacific sales, PanAmSat said: "International customers
looking to distribute their programming to Australia's vibrant Pay TV market
will be able to access an established DTH neighborhood of more than 60,000
homes, where the necessary antennas have already been deployed. This is the
ideal opportunity to reach a fast-growing market."
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