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NEWS
Monday 9th to Friday
13th February
2004
Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday | |||||
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, is said to have telephoned Eisner with a takeover proposal this week, seeking to exploit a series of setbacks for the California company, including the collapse last month of its 13-year partnership with Pixar, the highly successful animation studio.
According to a report in an Italian newspaper, media mogul Rupert Murdoch believes Comcast Corp's offer for Disney will succeed, but its bid needs to be higher. He also said he was no interested in making a bid for Disney. Murdoch added that after the Comcast bid is concluded there will be three big world media players: Comcast, Time Warner and Newscorp.
Comcast is offering 0.78 Class A voting shares for each Disney share, a $5 billion premium to Disney's market value on Tuesday.
Eisner said its board would "carefully evaluate" the offer but urged shareholders to take no action. Disney appointed Goldman Sachs to help prepare a defence strategy.
Disney posted a spectacular rise in first-quarter net profit to $688 million, compared with $36 million a year earlier. Revenue increased from $7.17 billion to $8.55 billion. Disney posted the results earlier than expected following Comcast's bid for the company.
Comcast, meanwhile,
posted a fourth-quarter profit from continuing operations of $383 million,
compared with a loss of $51 million the previous year. Revenue increased 58
per cent to $4.74 billion. Disney shares closed up 15 per cent on February
12 at $27.60, higher than the $26.47-per share value of the Comcast bid, a
sign that Wall Street expects rival bidders to enter the fray.
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France Telecom swung to a net profit in 2003 thanks to fewer asset writedowns and restructuring. The company said its net profit last year was E3.21 billion, compared to a record E20.74 billion loss in 2002, when asset writedowns wiped out earnings at the heavily indebted former monopoly. Its free cash flow, excluding asset disposals was E6.4 billion
The disposal of assets such as Dutch cable operator Casema and Italian mobile licensee Wind contributed E3 billion, helping reduce the groups debt by E23.8 billion.
Looking ahead, France Telecom - still majority-owned by the French state -confirmed that it expected revenues to grow three per cent to five per cent on a like-for-like basis this year and next.
Its mobile phone
operator arm Orange, made an annual net profit of E4.4 billion, overturning
a loss in 2002 of E4.36 billion. Revenue increased slightly from E17.08 billion
to E17.94 billion. The delay in launching its 3G mobile services in the UK
played its part in reducing the group's investments in tangible and intangible
assets.
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Dutch cable operators are preparing to fight the proposed sale of Canal Plus Netherlands to a local group that includes rival pay TV operator Cinenova. Opponents argued that the merger would create a US-owned monopoly for pay movie services in Europe's most densely cabled market.
"It is unprecedented anywhere in the world that a channel owned by the Hollywood majors would have a stranglehold on the film output from all of the major studios," one senior cable executive was reported as saying. "With no competition, the American majors will be in a position to dictate commercial terms to us."
Cinenova is owned by Walt Disney and Sony Pictures Television, and features product from the two studios. Canal Plus Netherlands has exclusive programme supply agreements with Dreamworks, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.
Cable opponents
of the merger have sought support from the European Commission, which recently
cracked down on the ‘Most Favoured Nation' provision in Hollywood studios'
contracts with Europe's pay TV operators.
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Tandberg Television is to provide Time Warner Cable's new channel, ‘News 10 Now,' with MPEG-2 encoders and decoders with specialised IP modules, to transfer video and audio between the 24-hour news channel's headquarters and five regional news bureaus within central and northern New York State.
According to
Eric Cooney, Tandberg's President and CEO, there is a growing number of cable
providers turning to IP as a cost-effective and revenue-generating means of
delivering video and audio, whether for television, content exchange, or other
broadcast and production capabilities.
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Hong Kong's Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting has commenced a trial launch of its digital pay TV service.
The exTV service will use NDS' conditional access , middleware, set top box integration, a customised electronic programme guide (EPG) and two interactive games. It will provide more than thirty channels that cater particularly to the tastes and interests of the Hong Kong TV audience.
Galaxy Satellite
Broadcasting commenced the exTV technical pilot on December 18, 2003, and
the full service is scheduled to commence on February 18, 2004.
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Serbia Broadband (SBB), the largest cable and broadband operator in Serbia
and Montenegro, is deploying Scientific-Atlanta Europe equipment to improve
its cable network. This will enable SBB to roll out a network capable of delivering
a portfolio of around 50 free to air TV channels along with high speed Internet
connectivity and data services for businesses. Network improvements began
in the capital Belgrade, swiftly followed by Novi Sad and Kragujevac to create
one larger network based on Scientific-Atlanta's platform.
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Global satellite operator New Skies Satellites announced a new teleport in Athens, Greece, which will serve as its primary European gateway to the Middle East, Africa and Asia, relaying broadband Internet, voice and data traffic, as well as digital video transmissions via the NSS-6 satellite. The hub will be provided by Greece's Unitel Hellas, the latest partner in New Skies' global mediaport network.
New Skies also
announced the launch of a new IPsys IP transmission platform at the mediaport,
which will be capable of providing a number of value-added services, including
direct Internet backbone connectivity and Voice over IP (VoIP) transmissions.
The new platform will be dedicated to Internet Service Providers, telecommunications
carriers, government agencies and businesses located throughout Europe and
the Middle East.
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Moscow based Pay TV operator Kosmos-TV has selected Irdeto Access's large-scale content protection solution, Irdeto Pisys.
The MMDS operator decided to upgrade its Irdeto M-Crypt system, to the large scale Irdeto PIsys system to enhance its digital Pay TV services and additional programming.
Kosmos-TV was
the first Pay TV platform in the Russian capital and one of the first operators
in Eastern Europe to introduce its own digital TV platform. The company launched
a range of digital Pay TV services in December 2000. Subscribers receive a
mix of news, sport and entertainment on up to 70 microwave-distributed channels
in twelve languages, catering to a local and expatriate market with a potential
of three million subscriber homes.
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Dominant UK telco BT aims to reach a target of 100 per cent broadband coverage of every UK community during 2005, announcing that by February 6, 2004, it had an installed base of 1.93 million ‘Wholesale' broadband lines, three times the number of connections 12 months ago. Net additions are growing at more than 33,000 per week.
According to
the company, which announced Q3 revenues of E6.4 billion, down 2.6 per cent,
increased investment meant that broadband services were available in exchanges
serving 85 per cent of UK homes. BT plans to increase coverage to 90 per cent
by summer 2004. This growing base was reflected in a 129 per cent increase
in broadband revenues, to E179.2 million in the quarter.
BT's figures were released shortly after the publication of a UK government
committee report which concluded that it was not desirable for the telco to
be broken up and that the regulatory regime currently being developed needed
to encourage further investment.
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Gulf DTH which owns and operates the Showtime pay-TV platform in the Middle East, is relocating its headquarters and broadcast centre operations from London and Cairo to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The said that move will consolidate the network's broadcast operations which are currently split between a purpose built facility at the MTV/Viacom studios in Hawley Crescent, London, and a complementary uplink centre at 6th October City, Cairo.
Sony Professional
Services has been selected as the system integrator for the network operations
centre, with Digital Video Broadcast systems from Harmonic and Omneon providing
central server and ingest operations hardware and Pebble Beach Systems supplying
playout automation equipment.
Showtime broadcasts 50 channels of predominantly Western entertainment to
the Middle East and North Africa from the NileSat position at 7 degrees West.
The network also has customer contact centres located in Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
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US wire, cable, and fibre provider Belden Inc and network connectivity specialist Cable Design Technologies are to merge, creating a market leader in copper cable for speciality electronics and data networking. The combined company - to be headquartered in St Louis - will be called Belden CDT Inc. The new entity - with sales of approximately $1.3 billion – will be among the largest US-based manufacturers of high-speed electronic copper cable. Under the terms of the agreement, which is expected to complete during the second quarter of 2004, each Belden share will be exchanged for two shares of CDT.
Bryan C Cressey,
chairman of the Board of CDT, said that the merger provided the opportunity
to increase shareholder value by reducing costs, broadening the product portfolio
and diversifying core markets. "These benefits and the strength of the
combined balance sheet will provide financial flexibility and set us apart
from others in our industry," he added. According to C Baker Cunningham,
chairman, president and CEO of Belden, the combination of well-known speciality
brands would ensure a more comprehensive array of products and a broader range
of preferred cabling and connectivity solutions. He expected synergies of
some $25 million, through the implementation of best practices and elimination
of duplicate costs, which would make Belden CDT more competitive in providing
value to its customers.
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Telenor has completed the acquisition of 46.5 per cent of the shares in specialist telecoms operator Sonofon from former partner BellSouth, the US regional telco. This acquisition has brought Telenor's holding in Sonofon from 53.5 per cent to 100 per cent.
Telenor signed
a final share purchase agreement to acquire Sonofon in December 2003, subject
to approval by the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency and the European
Union. The final regulatory clearance was received on 5 February 2004 and
Telenor has now completed the acquisition. The purchase price for the shares
is E409 million. Telenor will consolidate Sonofon in its financial accounts
from 12 February 2004.
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Central European Media Enterprises (CME) announced a final settlement with the Dutch Tax authorities with regard to the tax payable on the international arbitration award between its Dutch subsidiary and the Czech Republic.
According to the settlement, broadcast station operator CME has paid $9 million to settle taxable matters for all years up to and including 2003. As a result of the settlement CME has released the remaining $53 million of its $ 62 million restricted cash.
Commenting on
the settlement, Michael Garin, CME CEO, said, "The agreement means that
CME has all of its considerable cash resources available to execute its carefully
developed growth strategy."
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Zee
to raise $90 million for its CAS and DTH services
From Shveta Malik in New Delhi
Indian private broadcaster Zee Telefilms is planning to raise up to $90 million funds, through a bonds issue in the international market to finance its new ventures including the conditional access system equipment and direct-to-home platform.
Zee, which had launched its DTH service in the last quarter 2003, is the first company to introduce DTH service in India.
The funds would also be used for producing feature films made by the Zee Telefilms films division.
The Zee group
(comprising Zee Telefilms, Padmalaya Telefilms and ETC Networks) has reported
consolidated revenues of $81 million in the third quarter of the current fiscal
year. The group managed a 21.8 per cent growth over the corresponding quarter
in the previous fiscal.
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Opera Software
and Motorola's Personal Communications Sector (PCS) have signed a licensing
agreement to deliver Opera's Internet browser on multiple Motorola PCS handsets.
The agreement also provides Motorola PCS with a licensing power for the Opera
Platform, a full integration solution between handheld devices' local applications
and operator's online content. This announcement complements last week's Opera
and Motorola Global Software Group joint product and distribution agreement
announcement.
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BSkyB:
good half-year, dividend restored
AUNA
speeds up digital upgrade
Burg n'surf, free in France
Spain's ONO buys 61 per cent of
Retecal
Regulatory
regime 'holding back broadband'
Singtel
want Optus to focus on pay TV
Viacom
to spin off Blockbuster
Hughes
mixed results
Wanadoo
sustains growth
Encoda
wraps up ITV ad deal
BSkyB has reported a jump in first-half earnings and restored its dividend – suspended for several years while it rolled out its digital TV service, new CEO James Murdoch announced an interim dividend of 2.75 pence per share.
The company said the number of DTH subscribers was up 193,000 in the quarter ended December 31 2003 to 7.2 million. Revenue for the half-year increased 17 per cent year-on-year to £1.7 billion (E2.4 billion), while operating profit before exceptionals soared 84 per cent to £283 million (E396.2 million).
Murdoch commented: "These results show a business that continues to improve. We enter our second half with good momentum, robust financial health and a full programme of work."
Among all Sky customers, churn remained stable at 9.4 per cent, while annualised average revenue per subscriber increased five per cent to £369 (E516.6). Subscribers to Sky+, the personal TV recorder service, more than doubled to 250,000 between from October to December thanks in part to heavy marketing. Interactive revenue grew strongly up 62 per cent at £147m (E213m), fuelled mainly by betting.
While investors welcomed the return of the dividend, they were less happy with executive pay. BSkyB Finance Director Martin Stuart, who announced his decision to quit last week, stands to gain at least £4 million (E5.6 million) when he leaves the company later this year based on his remaining share award schemes and the payment of a year's £400,000 (E560,000) annual salary.
Rupert Murdoch,
BSkyB's Chairman, ordered an internal review of the group's corporate
governance and remuneration policies last year, after facing down a shareholder
rebellion, over the appointment of his son, James, as CEO of Sky.
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Auna, one of the Spain's largest cable companies, is speeding up its migration to digital. With half of its six cable networks already operating in digital, Auna is intensifying its efforts to complete the digital migration.
The company has just signed an agreement with Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB), vendor of digital TV set-top-boxes and software solutions for interactive television, for the provision of an additional 100,000 cable digital set-top-boxes during 2004 and 2005. Since 2002, ADB has delivered over 140,000 cable boxes to Auna enabling the company to offer its subscribers the digital TV interactive experience at a competitive price.
ADB will maintain
deliveries to AUNA of the current digital cable set-top-box, the ABQ-1H4G,
a DVB and MPEG-compliant decoder incorporating ST
Microelectronics‚ STi5516 multimedia process.
This STB supports
NDS conditional access and incorporates software based on OpenTV middleware.
Later this year, ADB plans to introduce a new compact set-top-box enhancing
all the current features and based on ST Microelectronics‚ 5100 chip
set.
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McDonalds have introduced free Wi-Fi in their restaurants in France. At present the service is available in 30 restaurants, mainly in and around Paris. It will be rolled out to 150 McDonalds owned restaurants during the year and franchised outlets will also be encouraged to install it.
Although Wi-Fi is available in McDonalds in other countries, France is the only country where it is provided free of charge, according to the company. McDonalds has already deployed Wi-Fi in the USA for a year; where prices are determined individually by each restaurant.
"The deployment
of hotspots is an important part of our image as a modern company," said
Anabelle Jacquier, product manager at McDonalds France. She says it costs
under E10,000 per restaurant spread over three years. McDonalds is providing
the hotspots in conjunction with suppliers Intel and Meteor. The customer
needs only open the browser on his laptop or PDA and is directly on the web,
without any need for specific configuration. However, the system blocks access
to downloading movies, peer to peer and ‘adult' sites.
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Spanish cable operator ONO has completed the purchase of a 61 per cent stake in regional cable telecoms operator Retecal in return for eight per cent of its own share capital.
Unlisted ONO, which holds cable licences mainly for southern and eastern Spain, said in a statement that the acquisition of Retecal would allow it access to the central region of Castilla y Leon. ONO, whose main competitors are multinational Telefonica and Spanish telecoms group Auna, said the acquisition would have no direct impact on the financing arrangements of its parent company, telecoms holding Eurocable.
Retecal currently
has around 500,000 homes passed and approximately 100,000 customers, ONO said.
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A report from the UK's Trade and Industry Select Committee on the broadband market said telecoms companies and internet service providers, excluding BT, lacked confidence in the regulatory regime. "It is imperative that those looking to invest in the market have confidence in the robustness of the regulatory regime," the report said. "It may be the advent of Ofcom gives the opportunity to re-establish confidence in the regulatory regime where currently it is lacking."
According to a report in the Guardian, the Broadband Industry Group said: "The report confirms what the industry already knows - that the current regime has not delivered, and competition in the wholesale broadband market does not yet exist."
It added: "Ofcom
now has a unique opportunity to create a level playing field where true competition
is possible.... Without decisive action a true mass market in broadband will
remain beyond our grasp."
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Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) wants to focus on revenue from its Australian pay TV interests as it attempts to increase the average revenue per user.
SingTel bought Optus in 2001 for $7 billion in 2001 in a deal which included the Australian company's fixed line, mobile and pay TV services. Although pundits suggested that the price tag was too high, Optus has helped to spur SingTel's results forward, partially thanks to the sharp rise in the value of the Australian dollar. The growth is especially welcome as Singapore sales fell 8.4 per cent in fiscal 2003 because of increased competition and a market that is approaching saturation levels.
SingTel generated 69 per cent of its profit before taxes from Optus' 5.37 million subscribers and in Singapore dollar values, the rising Australian currency produced by these sales meant a 43 per cent rise in revenue and a sevenfold profit increase as the latter grew 31 per cent against the latter in the last 12 months.
Chief Executive Lee Hsien Yang said the challenge was now to build growth within the consumer division that supplies mobile phones and pay TV to consumers. Cross-selling services like pay TV and Internet access meant that by the end of October 2003, 63 per cent of customers using residential phone services were also accessing the Internet or pay TV, a year-on-year increase of four per cent. The take up of pay TV was also helped by the increased interest in the Optus platform thanks to a programme-sharing agreement with rival platform Foxtel that is estimated to have saved Optus $23 million a year.
Optus is also
pressing ahead with plans to build two satellites that will supply programming
to customers like Sky Network Television in New Zealand.
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Strong subscriber growth boosted revenue at Hughes Electronics in the fourth quarter, but reorganisation charges pushed the company to a net loss.
Hughes' strong fourth-quarter revenue numbers didn't come as much surprise since the satellite TV provider had announced its subscriber figures in January. Hughes added 405,000 subscribers during the quarter, ending the year with 1.19 million users. Revenue jumped more than 20 per cent from year ago levels to $2.95 billion. The company said that higher average revenue per user, or ARPU, also helped boost revenue. ARPU rose 11 per cent to $71.70
The company,
which is 34 per cent owned by News Corp, posted net loss of $310 million,
compared with a net gain of $113 million a year ago. Hughes blamed the unfavourable
comparison on charges including a $193 million expense related to DirecTV
Latin America's bankruptcy filing, a pretax charge of $132 million related
to severance costs, a $275 million special dividend that was paid to GM stockholders
as part of the acquisition deal. 2002 results were boosted by a pre-tax gain
of $600 million from a settlement with EchoStar.
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French ISP Wanadoo posted consolidated revenues of E2.6 billion for full-year 2003, up 26 per cent over 2002.
Wanadoo had net
income of E159 million euros in 2003, up from E30 million in 2002. This significant
improvement in net income can be attributed mainly to better operating performance
across the Group, already apparent in the first half of the year.
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Broadcast automation specialist Encoda Systems has secured a multi-million pound deal to supply its Landmark air-time sales solution to ITV, the UK commercial broadcaster formed by the merger of Carlton and Granada, which controls over 50 per cent of the UK's TV advertising.
Angelica Bergmann, president, EMEA for Encoda, noted that although Encoda was an existing supplier, broadcast company mergers often result in managers wishing to implement completely new systems. "As they've chosen our solution, it's a sign of confidence in our products."
Bergmann added
that at a strategic level, Encoda would be introducing automation solutions
that would help bring broadcast and broadband products together. "We
have a new target audience of cable operators. We can become a value ad in
their supply chain."
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Top
takes BBC to Ofcom
Diller's e-commerce group pays
off
Psion
shares fell
City
man to head ITV?
UK: 4.8 million broadband users
by year-end
Liberty
Media to invest in Japan's Mediatti
Telefonica
plans network upgrade
NDS inks
deal with Korea's BSI
Pace
and OpenTV: new licensing agreement
Amore
channel brings romance TV to Sky
AOL
video conferencing
Top-Up TV formed with seed capital of £10 million -£20 million from investors including US private equity group Access Industries, is supposed to launch next month with some promotional material due to be available on air next week. However, the company, headed by two former BSkyB executives, David Chance and Ian West, has had to put its plans on hold until it resolves a dispute with the BBC.
Top Up is in dispute with the public broadcaster over how to display its 10 subscription channels alongside the corporation's stations on the Freeview platform EPG. David Chance, said "It looks to us as if the BBC is stalling on this issue, and we think that they are out of order."
Ian West added that, unlike other partners in the Freeview Digital Television Group, the corporation wanted all Top-Up's channels put in slots after channel 30, despite there being other vacant positions available - such as slot 14, which was occupied by E4 in ITV Digital days. He said there should be a mix of pay and free channels available to viewers as they work through the Freeview station line-up.
The BBC, however,
said it did not receive any notice of Top Up TV's channel application until
10 days ago, and denied claims that it was obstructing the launch. "We
are only concerned about confusion in the marketplace over what is freely
available and what is a subscription service," said a BBC spokesman.|
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Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp posted a five per cent rise in fourth-quarter profit to $153 million on revenue of $1.81 billion, up 36 per cent.
Turnover at the e-commerce powerhouse was boosted by a 41 per cent rise in its travel business, which includes Expedia and Hotels.com. InterActiveCorp also owns Ticketmaster and dating site Match.com.
Diller was confident about the outlook, despite tough competition, particularly in the online travel business. "We are now and for ever committed to harnessing the power of interactivity to make people's lives easier," he said.
The travel division lifted operating income by 111 per cent to $150.2 million. This reflected stronger sales of hotel rooms and travel packages, which grew by 58 per cent to $82 million, as well as international business.
Profits from the Home Shopping Network and other electronic retailing activities increased 35 per cent to $73. 8 million on revenues up 11 per cent to $521.3 million. Ticketing profits grew from $23.5 million to $34.6 million.
The number of
subscribers to IAC's dating services grew by 30 per cent to 939,000 with international
operations contributing 25 per cent of paid subscribers, up from 14 per cent
a year earlier.
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Psion shares
fell 32 per cent yesterday as the UK technology group announced it was selling
its stake in mobile operating system consortium Symbian to Nokia for £136
million. Analysts considered Psion had struck a poor deal. "We believe
that the announced deal is a significant negative for Psion, given that its
Symbian stake was the key valuation driver for the stock. Moreover, we believe
that the proposed price paid by Nokia is significantly below the potential
value Psion may have been able to crystallise in the event of Symbian's potential
IPO," said Merrill Lynch.
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to top
City investment manager Donald Brydon, has emerged as a leading candidate for the job of ITV chairman. He fits the board's brief of somebody who knows his way around the City and can get on with government.
It is understood that Sir Christopher Gent, the former Vodafone CEO, who staked a claim for the job at the weekend, has been ruled out for political reasons. Gent has a close relationship with the Conservative Party, to which he is a major donor.
Greg Dyke, the
ousted director-general of the BBC, is also thought to have been deemed inappropriate
– in the past he has made donations to the Labour party. The ITV board
believes that one of its main tasks is tackling the regulatory burden the
company works under. A large part of the job of the chairman will be to lobby
the media regulator, Ofcom, and ministers, to reduce the amount that ITV pays
for its broadcast licences.
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The UK will have almost five million broadband users by the end of the year, according to Continental Research.
With some 3.6 million broadband users in the UK at the moment, Continental Research's Spring 2004 Internet Report reckons that the UK's continued "strong interest" in broadband should result in 4.8 million connections by the end of the year.
This is based on research which found that three in ten of the UK's population of dial-up users "expressed some likelihood" that they would upgrade to a faster connection within the next 12 months.
Continental Research's
Colin Shaddick said: "With 12.6 million homes now connected to the Internet
there is a still a huge opportunity available for telecoms companies to persuade
people to up-grade onto faster connections, especially as we are seeing a
strong interest and demand by consumers to do so."
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US media giant Liberty Media said it will invest up to $82 million as it acquires a stake in Japanese cable company Mediatti Communications. Liberty Media will initially acquire a 23 per cent stake in Mediatti, with the option to increase ownership.
Mediatti owns
and operates broadband networks available to 600,000 households, mainly in
the Tokyo area. It is controlled by Olympus Capital Holdings Asia, a private
equity fund manager, and Tomen Corp. Liberty Media is already a primary investor
in Jupiter Telecommunications, one of Japan's largest broadband and cable
service providers.
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Seeking to provide a better and more reliable broadband service, Telefonica de Espana announced that it is about to complete a wide-scale upgrade of its RIMA IP Network to provide better and more reliable broadband services based on Cisco Systems technology.
The upgrade, which will be aided by Cisco's Professional Services division, is expected to be completed in 10 weeks without any interruption in its DSL service.
The network is
the foundation for Telefonica's converged broadband services, such us multimedia
streaming and dynamic bandwidth on demand.
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NDS Group is to provide security technology to Broadband Solutions Inc. for its digital and interactive cable TV network expansion.
BSI is one of the largest digital media centres in Korea, and the company is at the forefront of the digital broadcasting rollout. BSI offers services that include aggregating digital video and managing the end-to-end infrastructure for the delivery of services from the head-end to the home.
In 2003, Dacom invested $20 million in BSI, creating a strategic partnership between BSI and Dreamcity Media, another of Korea's largest cable operators. In 2004, BSI plans to construct regional digital broadband media centres controlled by a centralised headend, initially serving the Dreamcity Media cable TV network, Gangnam Cable TV and then aggregate additional cable TV networks.
In line with
the OpenCable standards requirements of Korea, the system will adopt NDS's
VideoGuard CableCard, a part of the VideoGuard conditional access system and
will deliver the same level of digital security that is deployed by NDS today.
The CableCard security module is a removable, renewable security system for
digital TV services using NDS smart card technology.
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Pace Micro Technology, a developer of digital set-top boxes, and interactive TV company OpenTV, have signed a five-year licensing and porting agreement. Under the agreement Pace can offer OpenTV's middleware products on its wide range of digital set-top boxes, including personal video recorders.
The licensing
agreement enables Pace to add OpenTV Core 1.1. middleware to the range of
OpenTV products Pace has incorporated into its set-top boxes.
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BSkyB will launch the UK's first dedicated romance channel, Amoré this September. The channel will deliver "a heady mix of romantic feature films, tear-jerkers and loved-up dramas".
"Amoré
is perfect for those who love hearts-and-flowers romance, a bit of edgy flirtation
and good old-fashioned happy endings," says Amoré MD, Tony Hazell.
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America Online has incorporated a new feature to its Instant Messenger service, with the launch of video messaging that uses iChat AV video conferencing software from Apple.
AIM version 5.5
enables PC users to hold video instant messaging conversations or conferences,
connect multiple AIM screen names from the same session and conduct multiplayer
online games through an IM connection. The live video offering is compatible
with Apple's iChat AV 2.1, bringing AOL customers on PCs together with iChat
users on Macs.
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Founders and former BSkyB executives David Chance and Ian West are joined by Matthew Seaman, the former Sky executive who quit his role as general manager of the BBC-backed Freeview last week, to head up the service.
The BBC admitted that room for increasing Freeview's present suite of 33 channels would be restricted by the new venture, which has taken up most of the remaining digital terrestrial spectrum, it believed perhaps only one more free channel could be added.
The service also
aims to be low-cost and will employ fewer than 10 staff, compared with the
1,500 who worked for the collapsed ITV Digital. The backers say it aims to
break even with 250,000 subscribers.
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Psion, the UK palm-top maker has agreed to sell its 31.1 per cent stake in Symbian, the mobile wireless operating system consortium, to Nokia for £135.7 million (E197 million).
The payment will be structured over two years, and could result in extra cash for Psion should the Symbian operating system be deployed in more hand-held devices than expected. Psion will also benefit from an additional cash payment if Symbian floats before December 2005 at a share price higher than the transaction price paid by Nokia. Psion needs the approval of shareholders; Psion chairman David Potter has agreed to back the deal with his 12 per cent stake. Nokia needs to obtain clearance from relevant competition authorities.
Potter says an
IPO for Symbian (where Psion was a founder) had been Psion's favoured option,
but "changes in the wireless industry mean that the practicality and
timing of the IPO is uncertain".
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China is officially lifting its ban on foreign investment in television and film production companies, as part of a package of landmark reforms intended to revitalise its state-dominated media industry reports the FT.
The move underlines Beijing's determination to commercialise media organisations from newspapers to TV stations - all of which have long been run as arms of the state and its ruling Communist party. Under the new policy, "strong and influential" foreign companies will be able to hold minority stakes in Chinese production companies.
Beijing is hoping a dramatic increase in private sector involvement will raise the quality and quantity of the content produced for the local market.
Local private
companies will also be allowed jointly to develop pay channels, a reform that
is intended to help attract the investment needed to fund China's ambitious
plans for the expansion of pay television and digital TV services.
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Lagardere Media revenue dropped by 1.9 per cent in 2003 to E7,944 million, compared to E8,095 million the previous year. However, the group points out that when the figures are compared on a like for like basis revenue rose by E2.1 per cent.
Television activities
experienced a double digit growth rate as a result of growth in the production
division as well as the success of the thematic channels on CanalSatellite,
their main distribution platform. Lagardere Active Broadband revenues decreased
by approximately a quarter, given the poor performance of its German subsidiary
on the audiotel services market. However it benefited from a strong acceleration
of its mobile activities, notably in France, with a development during the
last quarter sustained by the launch of new services and the growth of the
number of multimedia mobiles.
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The BBC has narrowed down the shortlist of bidders for its technology arm. The sale is subject to government approval. The contract is worth up to £2 billion (E2.8 billion).
Among the shortlisted
bidders are CSC, Fujitsu, EDS, Capita, Accenture,
IBM, Logica and HP. BBC Technology, which provides the backbone for the corporation's
websites and IT support as well as third parties including ‘3' and ESPN,
was put up for sale in November.
The move to procure
a new technology contract followed an internal strategic review of the BBC's
technology requirements for the next decade. The review identified potential
annual savings for the BBC of at least E28 million if its technology services
were outsourced.
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Microsoft and Disney are joining forces to deliver entertainment to mobile phones, personal computers and digital televisions. The companies will this week announce a multi-year collaboration designed to improve the quality and security of digital content, from movie clips to full length feature films, which can be delivered to homes over the internet.
Disney will license
Microsoft's digital rights management technology that prevents illegal distribution
and copying of audio and visual content stored digitally. The aim is that
entertainment can be delivered to any device and transmitted between devices
in the home. The two companies are already partners through Movielink, an
internet-based movies-on-demand service in the US.
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Nielsen Media Research, has signed an agreement with DVR pioneer TiVo to provide information on digital video recorder usage.
Television networks, concerned about declining ratings, have complained that Nielsen's measurements don't reflect the growing usage of DVRs. After many years of slow acceptance by consumers, DVR sales picked up last year and are expected to increase even more as cable companies build the product into their receivers. Forrester Research estimates there are three million DVRs in use today, up from 1.7 million in 2002.
The companies
said they will measure usage by forming a panel of TiVo subscribers.
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BSkyB's CEO James
Murdoch, who joined the satellite pay-TV company three months ago, has yet
to sign a contract or agree payment terms with the company. He has declined
to sign a contract until a review of the company's remuneration has been completed.
The BSkyB board is due to discuss remuneration policies next week and is also
expected to agree the appointment of a new set of external remuneration advisers.
Murdoch senior commissioned the review of executive pay last year.
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The UK Government
is advertising for a new BBC chairman. The post carries a salary of £81,320
(E113,48) for four days work a week, far too little according to headhunters
contacted by the Financial Times. "The chairman of the BBC should be
receiving about £300,000 (E420,000) a year," they say.
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Conax AS, the supplier of conditional access technology for digital TV, has signed a contract with Communication Trends Network Ltd (CTNL), a MMDS operator, to provide all security technology for its new DTH platform, covering the English speaking population in West Africa. Launch of 32 channels will take place in March 2004.
CTNL satellite
TV service, branded TrendTV, will operate in the largest MMDS network in Africa,
with locations in 14 major Nigerian cities.
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Premiere:
03 success
BSkyB
set to unveil dividend date
Results:
Canal Plus, Canal Satellite, Numericable
Tandberg
inks deal with C-COR
BT:
total UK broadband coverage by 2005
Dyke to get E1.4 million for book
DirecTV/Pegasus mediation off
Cable-TV
satellite launches into orbit
German digital pay TV platform Premiere announced an increase in subscriptions of 311,000 to 2.908 million by the end of 2003. It also revealed a 16.6 per cent increase in gross revenues to E963 million.
Premiere CEO Georg Kofler promises an operational breakeven in 2004, in 2003 the losses shrank to E10.5 million from E339.2 million the previous year. In the last quarter losses were lower than the company's own forecast.
At the same time,
Premiere announced a new structure of the management to foster the expected
growth. Markus Schmid will head all marketing activities including the management
of the Austrian branch and the publishing and online activities. Friedrich-Carl
Wachs is heading the strategy and new business department. Hans Seger remains
in charge of programming, Michael Boernicke of finance and Wilfried Urner
of technology including the management of the digital play out centre.
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BSkyB CEO James Murdoch, is this week expected to unveil the date for the resumption of dividend payments by the satellite broadcaster after a gap of more than five years.
Murdoch will
reveal the date on Wednesday when BSkyB announces its interim results. He
is expected to give shareholders information on the size of the dividend.
Rupert Murdoch, James's father and the chairman of BSkyB, said after the company's
annual meeting in November that dividends would be resumed before the end
of this financial year, which runs to September.
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Vivendi's group figures released last week show consolidated revenue for the Canal Plus group in 2003 was E 4,158 million, compared to E 4,833 in 2002.
The overall number of subscribers to a pay TV service (Canal Plus, Canal Satellite, NC Numericable) from the Canal Plus group in France was up 135,000 to reach 8.1 million at the end of December 2003. On the other hand, the number of subscribers specifically to the premium channel Canal Plus was down 110,000 during the year, finishing at 4.91 million. The decline was limited by the sustained recruitment of new subscribers which rose by 10 percent during the year.
CanalSatellite continued to grow, ending the year with 2.75 million subscriptions, for a net annual increase of approximately 230,000 subscriptions.
Production company StudioCanal revenues were down 23 per cent, in line with the company strategy to be more selective on its movie investments.
The group's cable operator, NC Numericable, lists 28,000 new TV subscribers during the year, an increase of 3.7 percent to 781,000. NC Numericable recruited 41,000 new cable internet subscribers during the year, bringing the number of subscribers to ‘NC Internet' to 76,000. The overall number of new subscribers (Internet or TV) was up 69,000, to reach a total of 857,000.
Meanwhile, TF1
has confirmed that the what seemed an unlikely merger between its' TV Breizh
and Lagardere's Match TV, will not, after all, go ahead. TV Breizh is a Breton
channel while Match TV is modelled on Lagardere's Paris Match magazine.
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Tandberg Television has signed an agreement with C-COR.net, that will enable cable operators to easily deploy Video on Demand services. The agreement will see C-COR market Tandberg's high-density Edge QAM technology together with their leading IP network infrastructure technologies to deliver an end-to-end solution for content on demand.
The Edge QAM technology will be marketed in the Americas by C-COR under the brand name EdgeMax 5500. It provides the bridge between C-COR's digital IP transport solutions in the core network and its optical and RF products in the HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coax) plant.
Meanwhile Tandberg
Television reported a strong Q4 with revenues up 24 per cent to E34.3 million
compared to the same period last year. The revenue for the full year 2003
was E119 million, with a pre-tax profit of E8.4 million.
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BT Group announced it would extend high-speed broadband internet coverage
to 90 per cent of the UK population by the summer. The group is targeting
100 per cent coverage in 2005 through additional public private partnerships.
Pierre Danon,
CEO of BT Retail, said BT will have invested E30.8 million by 2005 in setting
up public private partnerships to roll out broadband in less densely populated
areas. BT intends to fill the remaining 10 per cent population coverage gap
using radio broadband technologies.Radio broadband will be targeted towards
those exchanges in remote rural areas where low demand is unlikely to justify
investment in fixed-line exchanges for broadband.
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Greg Dyke, the former BBC director-general has said he would consider returning to the BBC if he was asked to do so. This is extremely unlikely so, instead he's turning his attention to a book about his time at the Corporation.
It is reported he's been offered up to £1 million (E1.4million), ironically by Harper Collins the imprint of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Meanwhile, headhunters
are to be appointed to draw up a "long shortlist" of Director-General
candidates to submit to the next chairman, who should be in place by April.
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US satellite operator DirecTV said it terminated all mediation discussions with Pegasus related to their pending litigation, effectively ending a court-ordered process that began in January 2003.
Hughes President and CEO Chase Carey said the company believes "there are fundamentally irreconcilable differences between DirecTV and Pegasus that cannot be resolved through mediation."
In a statement Carey said: "We believe that Pegasus has an unrealistic view of its contractual position and, therefore, of its resulting business prospects and fundamental valuation. With every day that passes, both Pegasus' significance to DirecTV and its value as a standalone enterprise diminish."
The Pegasus/DirecTV
litigation concerns the company's contractual and marketing relationships
and access to key premium programming services. Pegasus sells DirecTV in rural
areas through its affiliation with the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative.
Last year, the NRTC and a section of its members reached a settlement with
DirecTV on similar litigation.
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The Americom-10
satellite, which will be dedicated to high-definition television, succesfully
launched aboard an Atlas IIAS rocket provided by International Launch Services.
The AMC-10 and its twin, AMC-11, to be launched in May from the Cape, will
provide service to a number of popular cable television networks.
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