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NEWS Monday 29th August to Friday 2nd September 2005
Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
| Tuesday* | |||||
Disney, Kudelski VOD STB venture
Walt Disney Television International and the Kudelski Group (Nagravision) have announced a joint venture to develop and market ‘turnkey' Push Video-On-Demand (VOD) and Digital Video Recorder (DVR) services. The Push VOD solution is designed to run on standard satellite, cable, terrestrial and IP Digital Video Recorder hardware platforms, and will be made available to digital television operators worldwide (but not the US, Canada and Japan).
The complete set top box system will offer a selection of movie and other TV content delivered to its hard drive for users to view with full on demand functionality, plus the capacity for subscribers to record personal content from existing channels. Operators will also be able to add their own local content to the service.
WDTV-I and the Kudelski Group will work together in the development of technology and the acquisition, management and playout of content for this offering. The system will use proprietary Push VOD technologies and easy-to-use navigation systems developed by The Walt Disney Company and the Kudelski Group.
Laurie Younger, President, Buena Vista Worldwide Television (on behalf of WDTV) said: "We believe this offering will simplify the process for broadcasters looking to launch their own bespoke VOD and DVR services, harnessing the latest technology to bring content to viewers in new and flexible ways."
André Kudelski, Chairman & CEO, Kudelski Group said: "We are very pleased to benefit from WDTV-I's in depth experience with viewers and to be able to support attractive new business models thanks to our own creative state of the art technology".
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Leading pay-TV group Sogecable is finalising its new commercial TV channel, called Cuatro, to be launched by the beginning of November.
Cuatro will broadcast 24 hours per day of entertainment programming with also special emphasis on news programmes. The group has recruited one of the most popular radio news anchorman, Inaki Gabilondo, to anchor the evening news programme.
Sogecable has been working on this new commercial TV channel over the last months, above all following Government's decision to allow the company to turn Canal Plus into a commercial TV channel. Cuatro will use the same spectrum as Canal Plus. Canal Plus will remain as a premium channel only available to subscribers to digital satellite platform Digital Plus, also owned by Sogecable.
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Shopping, interactive services and pay-per-view accounted for a fifth of digital channels' revenues in 2004 and direct consumer spending now accounts for over 60% of all TV industry revenues, with advertising accounting for less than 40%.
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Sony's new handheld games and entertainment console, the PlayStation Portable (PSP), is finally on sale in Europe after months of delay. It arrives in Europe nine months after it hit Japanese stores and six months after the US.
It is a games console that can also play films and music, and be used to browse the web wirelessly. Some shops in the UK have already sold their allocation of machines, which retail for £179 (E249). In the US the console sells for $249 (£138) plus tax.
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Sirius urged the Wireless Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission to reject XM's proposed acquisition of WCS Wireless until the satellite radio competitor "remedies any risk of harmful interference" to its customers.
Sirius also said in its filing on the XM/WCS deal that the FCC should first conclude its terrestrial repeater rulemaking before moving on the proposal. The Sirius comments took aim at XM's application at the FCC to acquire WCS Wireless, which holds licenses for spectrum adjacent to frequencies where XM conducts its operations.
Sirius said XM's use of WCS spectrum "would deliver interfering signals that would incapacitate Sirius receivers in the near vicinity of XM's numerous collocated sites. Moreover, if the transfer is approved, it would permanently derail the terrestrial repeater negotiations by creating a situation where XM would have the incentive and ability to favor its combined business while simultaneously disadvantaging Sirius' satellite digital audio radio operations."
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NTL has expanded its video-on-demand service after securing new content deals with BBC Worldwide, Granada and Channel 4, along with a music video deal with Sony BMG.
Launched in January 2005 in Glasgow , NTL On Demand offers a selection films, TV shows, children's programmes and music videos available to view on-demand. The service has since been rolled out to other parts of the UK. It launched in Surrey and Hampshire today, and NTL claims that 400,000 customers have now signed up to use the service.
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Helen Coonan, the Australian communications minister, said yesterday: "The long-term objective of media reform should be to move to an open and competitive market environment without artificial and arbitrary restrictions." The Government will introduce legislation into parliament early next year. The proposed changes are likely to spark a host of media deals, with firms already holding informal talks about mergers.
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Scopus Network Technologies announced it is officially changing its name to Scopus Video Networks. The name change embodies and highlights Scopus' vision as a leading provider of digital video networking products that deliver video over broadcast and broadband, IP-based networks.
"With the introduction of new bandwidth-intensive services, such as HDTV, personalized content and mobile video, we expect video networks will become increasingly complex and bandwidth constrained," commented Ovadia Cohen, Scopus VP Marketing and co-founder.
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Harmonic Inc announced that Telewest is using its Narrowcast Services Gateway to deliver its new TV-on-demand service, Teleport. The recently introduced service is currently available in the South West of the U.K. and is being rolled out across Telewest's entire network.
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Latens the supplier of dynamic, software-based Conditional Access, claims it is the first software-based supplier to have proved that its systems scale efficiently to protect Pay-TV and IPTV networks with millions of subscribers.
The extensive testing process took place during the summer of 2005 at a test-bed run by an independent and globally recognized systems integration partner of Latens. Latens says the test results show its CAS scales easily to manage multi-million Pay-TV networks and, in terms of provisioning and making changes to a consumer's service, Latens Content and Revenue Protection provides unparalleled levels of efficiency and flexibility.
The objective of the test process was to validate performance and prove scalability of Latens CAS for a large scale, two-way cable/IP broadcast TV system. To do this Latens says it used real data from a major, multi-region architecture, broadcast TV operator.
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Spending on taxis by the BBC increased last year by 3.5% to £11.8m (E17m), despite attempts by the director general Mark Thompson to cut back. The above-inflation increase may actually be higher, as the figures exclude those cabs that staff may have arranged and paid for through other means.
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Microsoft has increased its presence in the fast-growing internet phone sector by purchasing leading player Teleo whose technology allows computers to make and receive standard phone calls.
The purchase mirrors Yahoo's acquisition of internet phone company Dialpad two months ago. Microsoft currently uses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology in a number of its products, including its instant-messaging service. It said it planned to incorporate California-based Teleo's telephone service into instant messaging. Teleo's technology includes a feature that lets users start a call by clicking on a number listed on any website, a service that could be linked to the "pay per click" advertising model that supports Google and other search engines.
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The French satellite platform CanalSat now has now topped 3 million subscribers and should reach 3.2 million by the end of the year, according to its Director General Guy Lafarge, appointed a year ago, speaking at the platform's annual "back to work" press conference.
CanalSat's DSL spin-off, CanalSatDSL, has topped 100,000 subscribers he added. Sales are around E940 million. Subscriber recruitment for the first half of this year was described as "extremely satisfying" with 200,000 new subscribers added. Churn is "extremely low" at 8.6 percent, reflecting an "excellent" satisfaction index.
Speaking about DTT, Lafarge considers it "an excellent opportunity" and a "favourable element" which has enabled many people to discover multichannel television. From 1 September, Canalsat will introduce a new decoder that will combine satellite and DTT reception. This will enable satellite subscribers to have access to the digital versions of the terrestrial channels TF1 and M6, which have consistently refused to be carried on the satellite platform. The platform is to add a further 14 channels in September, exclusively available via its platform.
At the end of the year, it is to introduce a new type of satellite antenna that is extremely compact and suitable for self-install, developed in collaboration with the Korean company Neovia. It is small and flat, about 30 x 20 cm and 5 cm deep.
Finally, Lafarge stated that the group is working on HDTV and intends to offer many of its premium channels in high definition in the first months of 2006.
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France Telecom announced a E3bn share issue to help fund its acquisition of Amena, the Spanish mobile telephone operator. The capital increase will further dilute the French state's 34.9 per cent stake in the group.
France Telecom agreed in July to buy 80 per cent of Amena for E6.4bn in order to strengthen its position in Spain. It said at the time that it would refinance the deal through a E3bn capital increase that would either be reserved for Amena's owners or carried out through a public offering with preferential subscription rights for existing investors. It has chosen the latter option.
The French state has indicated that it will not take part in the capital increase, a move that will cause its stake to fall to 33.1 per cent according to France Telecom. The French government last cut its stake in France Telecom in June through the sale of 152m shares.
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A group led by Carl Icahn is considering boosting its stake in Time Warner to 10 percent to pressure the media giant to buy back more shares and spin off its cable division, say US reports.
A tender offer for another seven percent or more of Time Warner could cost some $6 billion. Icahn, who is known for buying large stakes in public companies and agitating for change, wants to build a large enough position to have significant influence over Time Warner. Icahn met with top executives of Time Warner two weeks ago to discuss his demands, which include a $20 billion stock buyback program and a cable division spinoff.
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Premiere, the German pay-TV broadcaster, plans to branch into free-to-air television as part of a deal which has secured the German rights to show Uefa Champions League soccer for the next three seasons.
The company is paying an estimated E50m for each of the three seasons from mid-2006, beating commercial rivals ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL for the rights. To assuage the concerns of sports bodies – which fear that viewers could be turned off if all matches are only available via pay-TV – Premiere guaranteed it will broadcast 13 of the 125 matches each season on a free-to-air channel.
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To further promote standards-based solutions within the IPTV market, the Internet Streaming Media Alliance has formed an IPTV workgroup.
The goals of the workgroup are to monitor developing standards or specifications for deploying an IPTV system, to create an interoperability conformance programme for IPTV and to
promote solutions that pass conformance testing.
"IPTV deployments relying on proprietary solutions for one carrier network may not be applicable to another network. This creates additional development and integration costs for all the players such as carriers, headend providers, network equipments providers, and set-top box providers. Recognizing a clear need for standardization in many areas, the ISMA has created an IPTV work group to recognize and promote interoperable solutions where multi-vendor competition can be assured," said Jean-Francois Fleury, Chairman of the ISMA IPTV workgroup.
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The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has announced a new initiative to encourage practical, high-end solutions to the challenges of the new digital environment for the Asia Pacific pay-TV industry. This initiative, which encompasses support by the CASBAA Technical Committee for a series of technical solutions to digital copyright controls – especially digital outputs – follows a six-month consultation process involving the entire CASBAA membership, including pay-TV channels, platform operators and hardware suppliers.
"Although CASBAA is not a standards-setting organisation, the objective is to provide guidance for the likes of the chipset and set-top box manufacturers, as well as the consumer electronics industry within Asia," said Marcel Fenez, the chairman of CASBAA.
Fenez emphasised that the technical specifications referred to in the documentation are voluntary. "This is an open-ended process which we hope will encourage further input from our members and the rest of the industry. The strength of CASBAA is its wide and diverse membership."
Karl Rossiter, the chairman of the CASBAA Technical Committee, said: "The CASBAA technical recommendations cover localized interconnection of consumer devices and secure digital home networking. We also advocate the use of open and proven international standards and will take into account copy protection technologies that are yet to emerge within Asia."
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OpenTV has developed and integrated an enhanced digital interactive application for EchoStar's DISH Network, allowing viewers to simultaneously watch six video windows of popular networks including CNN, The Weather Channel and E! displayed on a full-motion video background.
The OpenTV-developed service allows viewers to navigate through each of the six video windows using the remote control's directional arrows, the iTV company said. As they navigate, the audio changes to correspond with the highlighted video window. Full-screen video and audio appear when a network window is selected.
In addition, a text ticker allows EchoStar to provide up-to-the-minute news and events.
The new DISH Home channel is configurable, enabling EchoStar to refresh the six video services, interactive offerings, banner ads, and background and text ticker with new content at any given time. DISH could swap out the six video windows with different video feeds of a single event and update the full-motion video background to reflect the theme of the event.
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Harmonic has introduced the DiviCom MV 3500 encoding
platform, the first multi-format high definition (HD) encoder supporting the use of either MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), SMPTE VC-1 or MPEG-2.
Harmonic says it is the most powerful encoder of its kind, and leverages its' leadership in HD, established by the DiviCom MV 450, and advanced codec expertise, developed through the success of the MV 100 multi-codec standard definition encoder.
This full-featured encoding platform brings the performance, video quality and proven interoperability - from the headend to the subscriber premises - that operators need to offer a rich HD experience at low bit-rates, says the company.
"As with our groundbreaking DiviCom MV 100, which is now the industry's most widely deployed multi-codec standard definition encoder, the DiviCom MV 3500 has the performance and capabilities that satellite, telecom and terrestrial broadcasters need to deliver a compelling HDTV experience," said Patrick Harshman, President of the Convergent Systems Division of Harmonic Inc.
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iDirect Technologies a company that designs, develops and markets the bi-directional satellite-based broadband access solutions, announced the company is merging with Vision Technologies Electronics, Inc (VTEE) to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of VTEE. VTEE is a subsidiary of Vision Technologies Systems (VTS), the US headquarters of Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering) and will acquire iDirect at an enterprise value of US$165m.
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Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS), Canada's third-largest national telecoms company, has launched on-demand programming to over 40,000 television subscribers in Winnipeg. Using on-demand software and servers from SeaChange International, the popular and growing MTS TV service now includes Hollywood blockbusters, kids' programmes and more with on-demand control and convenience.
"We're making a substantial leap into on-demand programming. We've put into place a network and an on-demand platform that will continue to redefine consumer expectations of television with new services and unmatched convenience," said Cheryl Barker, President, MTS.
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Digita, Elisa, MTV, Channel Four Finland, Nokia, TeliaSonera and national broadcaster YLE jointly conducted the pilot in Finland between March and June 2005 with 500 users accessing mobile TV using the Nokia 7710 smartphone and DVB-H technology.
According to the results, participants not only wanted to watch familiar programmes, but they would also welcome mobile TV content that is suitable for short and occasional viewing. In general, mobile TV users spent approximately 20 minutes a day watching mobile TV, although more active users watched between 30 to 40 minutes per session. Participants also watched mobile TV at different times than traditional TV peak hours. Mobile TV was most popular while travelling on public transport.
The potential commercial benefits of mobile TV are clearly evident from this pilot with 41% willing to pay for the service. Pilot members were charged a monthly fee of E4.9 although half of those that took part thought E10 euros per month was a reasonable price to pay. Overall, users preferred a fixed pricing model although many were also interested in a pay per view model.
The pilot results also reveal the key requirements from consumers in order to use mobile TV services:
- Easy and intuitive service usability
- Good technical functionality and reliability
- Content that is also suitable for short period viewing
- Mobile phone functions must not be compromised by the TV application
"The Helsinki pilot reinforces our belief that mobile broadcast TV is a significant opportunity," said Richard Sharp, Vice President, Rich Media, Nokia.
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Intelsat has unveiled a $3.2bn all cash offer to buy PanAmSat. If approved by shareholders and regulators, the combined firm will have annual sales of about $1.9bn. It will also mean a major bonanza for the private equity groups that bought Panamsat from DirecTV over a year ago.
The new company would be the largest satellite operator outranking SES Global. It will look to cut costs and consolidate capacity in an over-served market that has depressed profits at all satellite operators.
PanAmSat's board will recommend the deal and the private equity shareholders controlling 59% of the company have already agreed to back it. The rest of the business was floated earlier this year in a $900m IPO. The company was bought for $2.6bn just over a year ago by a consortium of KKR, Carlyle and Providence.
"The combination of Intelsat and PanAmSat creates an industry leader with the ability to provide competitive communications and video services to consumers and businesses," said David McGlade, Intelsat CEO, who will continue that role in the combined group.
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Cablecom Holding, Switzerland's biggest cable TV group valued at $2.9-3.2bn, is now reported to be considering a trade sale as an alternative to IPO and is talking to Liberty Global.
Apollo Management, Soros Private Equity Partners and Goldman Sachs Capital partners which together own more than 51 per cent of Cablecom are gauging interest from strategic buyers and apparently approached Liberty.
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A European website shut down by the Hollywood clampdown on piracy has appealed for public donations to help with legal costs. The Realworld, which was forced to close after two rounds of lawsuits from the Motion Picture Association of America, is today appealing for donations.
The MPAA said the site contained more than 900 links to programmes including Lost, 24, Friends and Desperate Housewives. The site was forced to close the site last week after a German court granted the MPAA a request for an injunction.
According to a recent Envisional report, TV piracy has as fans of American TV shows download episodes before they are shown on television. The survey said Britain led the world in online TV piracy, accounting for a fifth of illegal downloads, compared with 7% in America and just 2% in Spain.
Meanwhile, Cache Logic, whose Streamsight software monitors and identifies internet traffic for many of world’s leading ISPs, reveals that P2P file sharing is by far largest proportion of all traffic accounting for over 60% by the end of 2004, with 62% of those files video and of those 75% in the Microsoft Media Player format.
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Verizon announced content agreements with The America Channel, Blackbelt TV, Expo TV, LIME and the Pentagon Channel, giving future Verizon FiOS TV viewers more choices of entertainment and informational programming. Verizon will carry the channels on Verizon FiOS TV when it launches later this year. They will complement other major cable and network channels available to Verizon subscribers.
"These specialty channels add to the robustness of our channel lineup," said Terry Denson, vice president of programming and marketing for FiOS TV. "Viewers are looking for programming that speaks to their specific interests, and these channels deliver quality content to their audiences 24 hours a day."
Verizon previously announced agreements with network groups such as NBC Universal Cable, Starz Entertainment Group, Showtime Networks, A&E Television Networks, Discovery Networks and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., and is close to finalizing agreements with several other major content-partners.
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RealNetworks announced that it is boosting its long-term relationship with UEFA by offering the uefa.com Action channel as part of SuperPass Europe.
SuperPass European Edition subscribers will be able to catch every goal and penalty shootout, as well as access to extended highlights and full match replays from midnight on the night of the game. In addition, subscribers will have access to an archive of more than 5,000 clips from over 13 years of UEFA Champions League.
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Apple Computer and Motorola plan to unveil a cell phone with Apple's iTunes software say reports.
The long-awaited phone will be made by Motorola and marketed by Cingular Wireless, the New York Times reported. The report said having iTunes software on the phone would allow people to transfer songs from their personal computer to the phone.
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The most recent consumer study from Horowitz Associates found that 37 percent of cable and satellite TV customers would be willing to switch to a telco company if they delivered a competitively-priced video offering. Horowitz said interest is highest among digital cable subscribers (42 percent). One third (35 percent) of current analogue subscribers and 34 percent of satellite subscribers also suggested they would consider switching.
The Horowitz study, a phone survey of 800 cable and satellite consumers in areas where digital cable service is available, tracks the growth of the market for digital cable and satellite services.
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NDS and Frontier Silicon - the leading fables maker of semiconductors for mobile digital television (DVB-H & T-DMB) and DAB digital radio products - have signed a collaborative agreement for joint development and marketing of secure content protection and digital rights management (DRM) for mobile digital TV and DAB digital radio.
The agreement between the two companies will address the security concerns that content providers have in releasing premium content into the high growth MDTV (mobile digital television) and DAB radio markets. NDS and Frontier Silicon will develop a secure end-to-end solution with content securely encoded at the head-end, transmitted and securely received or consumed by users with appropriate digital rights. The tight coupling of
NDS' content protection technology, mVideoGuardR, to Frontier Silicon's hardware will ensure content providers get one of the most secure mobile TV and radio delivery mechanisms in the industry, say the companies.
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To complement their collaboration on IPTV encoders, Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced that they are working together on IP set-tops for initiatives to support the growing demand for IPTV, including SBC's Project Lightspeed.
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Amino announced its advanced software stack for IPTV set-top boxes will be combined with Philips Nexperia home entertainment engine PNX8550 to be ported to the STB810 semiconductors reference and development platform for set top boxes.
The integration of Amino's software will create a ready to use set-top box blueprint for manufacturers, ideal for the rapidly growing IPTV market. The combined platform will allow set-top box manufacturers to bypass much of the software research and development and enable them to launch reliable, high-performance products in a minimum period of time, says Amino.
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ProSiebenSat.1, the German commercial broadcaster, saw a sharp rise in its pre-tax for the first half of 2005.
The company, which is due to be taken over by Axel Springer, reported pre-tax profit rose 40.1 per cent to E164.3m compared to the same period last year, but its EBITDA was relatively flat up only two per cent to E191m. Group turnover was also flat at E938m.
The group was boosted by its diversification division where it received higher revenues from online advertising and its added-value telephone services at SevenOne, the group's multimedia subsidiary. ProSiebenSat.1 said the acquisition of Euvia Media Group, the interactive media company, completed in June had a positive impact on its profits.
The group said it was difficult to predict the state of the TV advertising for the rest of 2005 and said under these conditions it would be hard to place a reliable projection for advertising client's spending behaviour.
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Channel 4 is now looking to the independent production community to come up with content ideas for commissioning in the same way as TV shows. "We're now a commissioning department in the same way as TV is," said Channel 4 mobile editor Sheena Pierse. "No one has commissioned content specifically for mobile like this before."
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Hutchison Whampoa promised that its E18bn, five-year foray into 3G mobile phones would pay off this year, saying the business would be able to survive on its own profits after a final E1bn investment
Frank Sixt, Hutchison's finance director, said 3G would need a further E600m-E1bn, to come from the company's resources, before being able to fund itself. Ending 3G funding, which began in 2000-2001 when Hutchison spent an estimated $12bn buying 3G licences across the world, would enable it to repay debt and devote resources to other parts of the group.
In the six months to June, 3G reported a loss before interest and taxation of HK$10.6bn ($1.4bn) compared with HK$14.3bn in the same period last year. However, this year's result was flattered by a HK$9.4bn exceptional profit on Hutchison's purchase of minority interests in its UK business. HW reiterated its plan to spin off 25 per cent of the Italian business – with more than 4.5m customers – in Milan this year. Analysts estimate the initial public offering could raise E1bn-E1.5bn.
His comments came as Hutchison reported an 8 per cent decrease in pre-tax profit to HK$7.8bn – from HK$8.5bn in the same period last year – in the six months to June on turnover of HK$109bn, up from HK$82.2bn last year.
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Modern Times Group announced the launch of the new TV channel TV1000 Russian Kino. The new premium movie channel will be available to Viasat's premium DTH subscribers in the Baltic region and to subscribers to third party cable operators in Russia, Ukraine and the CIS States, with effect from 1 October 2005.
TV1000 Russian Kino provides viewers with original Russian movies, ranging from classic titles to more recent blockbusters. The channel will be broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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China Unicom, the country's number two wireless operator, said its profits fell 19 per cent year-on-year to Rmb2.33bn ($288m) in the first half of 2005 amid stiff competition and continuing losses at its flagship CDMA mobile network
The first-half result highlighted the difficulties China Unicom faces in competing with China Mobile, the country's dominant wireless carrier. Concerns about China Unicom's ability to compete have fuelled recent speculation over the future of the company, which has long laboured to meet the challenge of simultaneously operating two national networks using different GSM and CDMA technologies.
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SwitchCo, the UK government-backed body set up to oversee the switch from analogue to digital television, is said to be preparing a £300m (E435m) advertising campaign from its launch next month. The campaign would seek to promote benefits of digital TV such as interactivity and increased channel choice. Ads initially will be spread nationally, and will be targeted to specific regions once the planned phased switchover gets under way.
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French pay-TV operators Canal+ and TPS have been authorised by broadcasting regulator the CSA to begin trial programming service broadcasts in MPEG-4 on their respective DTT multiplexes. The trials will run until the scheduled launch of DTT pay channels, specified by March 1, 2006 at the latest.
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Harmonic announced that Video Networks Limited, provider of HomeChoice, has completed the migration of its broadcast line-up to MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), becoming the world's first revenue-generating broadcast television service delivered exclusively using an advanced compression technology.
This landmark event is enabled by Harmonic's versatile DiviCom MV 100 multi-codec encoding platform, definitively validates the promise of MPEG-4 AVC.
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The BBC has appointed the former ITV director Etienne de Villiers to chair its commercial board. de Villiers, who left Disney after 15 years in 2001 and quit the ITV board last year, will be the first independent chairman of the BBC's commercial holdings board. The board oversees businesses including commercial channel BBC World, outside broadcast division BBC Resources and the corporation's merchandising subsidiary, BBC Worldwide.
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IPTV specialist Kreatel Communications is celebrating its continued collaboration with Norwegian broadband provider Lyse Tele AS. Under the terms of the agreement, Kreatel remains the provider of IP set-top boxes for Lyse's solution and will deliver an additional 45,000 units over the coming two years.
The agreement covers deliveries of four different IP set-top box models – Kreatel IP-STB 1510, 1550, 1710 and 1750 – as well as the Kreatel TV Software, the software platform that enables the integration of all models in the same solution. Lyse will now be able to include advanced video codecs and high definition television (HDTV) in its service package.
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Extreme Entertainment (EE), a leading distributor of Action Sports programming has added major 3G operators, Orange, Hutchison 3G and US based Starz Entertainment to its growing network of mobile content clients.
Extreme Entertainment has licensed 55 hours of content to
the channel which launched at the end of May, 2005. EE see this as a firm
indication of the expanding youth-driven market for mobile programming.
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