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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday Friday 23rd February
Italy grants new decoder subsidies
Sat 1 profit up 10%
Alcatel-Lucent sets up IPTV R&D in Madrid
Italy has 350 digital TV channels
BBC Trust defers web ad decision
iPhone name battle over
SeaChange adds on-demand TV navigation
Anevia VOD service for Alice
Aggregator’s train spotter TV
Italy grants new decoder subsidies
Branislav Pekic from RomeWith the confirmation of the switchover of the Rai Due and Retequattro channels from analogue to digital terrestrial from March 1 in the Cagliari area (Sardinia), the Italian Government is once again providing subsidies for the acquisition of digital decoders.
An estimated 560,000 Sardinians who are regularly paying the TV license fee qualify for a E70 discount on the purchase of a DTT box. Announcing the new subsidies, the president of the DGTVi consortium, Andrea Ambrogetti, also revealed that Retequattro will launch HD (High Definition) trials. Two years since the switching-on of the digital transmitters in simulcast mode, more than 80 per cent of Sardinian households are reached by a digital signal. In practice, four out of five families can watch the digital channels via terrestrial transmitters or satellite. The two channels that are due to become digital-only have a 25 per cent share of the total TV audience.
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The ProSiebenSat.1 Group closed out 2006 with a record operating profit profit up 10.3 percent to E386.7 million. The Group generated revenues of E2.105 billion, outperforming the prior year by 5.8 percent and return on revenues climbed to 18.4 percent from 17.6 per cent.
"The ProSiebenSat.1 Group had a very successful 2006. We increased our TV advertising revenues and enhanced our stations’ profitability even further. Our new lines of business sped up the Group’s growth even more," said Guillaume de Posch, CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG. "Strategically, we accomplished a great deal during the year. We ensured digital distribution of our programming, and we put new services on the market, like our two Pay TV channels. In Call TV, Mobile TV and video-on-demand, we are already the largest provider in Germany. We’ve positioned the Group successfully for the digital future."Revenues in the advertising-financed TV segment grew 3.1 percent to E1.866 billion. Contributions to revenues from the Transaction TV and Other Diversification segments totaled E238.1 million for 2006. This is equivalent to an 11.3 percent share of Group revenues.
Alcatel-Lucent sets up IPTV R&D in Madrid
From David Del Valle in MadridAlcatel-Lucent has set up an IPTV R & D (Research and Development) ‘factory’ in Madrid aimed at developing all IPTV applications and projects for all its worldwide divisions, including the new MyViewTV.
Michael Rahier, president of Fixed Communications at Alcatel Lucent, said that Spain has become one of the most relevant countries for the group due to the push of all operators. The main Alcatel Lucent's client in Spain is Telefonica's IPTV service, Imagenio, which currently has more than 400,000 clients.
Alcatel Lucent is currently developing 115 IPTV projects around the world, with 40 projects offering the triple play.
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Italy has 350 digital TV channels
Branislav Pekic from RomeA study conducted by the e-Media Institute claims that there are a total of 270 TV channels (FTA and pay-TV) distributed via the various Italian digital TV platforms. If the single PPV channels, on-demand services and "time-shift" channels are added, the total figure is close to 350. The most numerous are adult channels with 23 services (8.5 per cent of the overall channeld distributed in Italy).
Meanwhile, another study produced by the Studio Figurelli has revealed that 54 per cent of DTT decoder owners have a Mediaset Premium smart card and that, by 2008, the number of owners of rechargeable smart-cards will reach the total number of subscribers to the Sky Italia satellite pay-TV service. At the end of 2006, out of a total of 21.8 million Italian families, 18.1 per cent were subscribed to Sky, 20.8 per cent had a decoder, 17.7 per cent had their decoder always connected, 11.3 per cent owned a Mediaset smart card, while 3 per cent had a La7 card.
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BBC Trust defers web ad decision
The BBC Trust has deferred the decision on whether or not to allow advertising on its international website BBC.com until later this spring.
Management have been asked to do further work on the proposal, in particular how "advertising revenue would be reinvested in BBC Global News and the BBC's UK public services for the benefit of licence fee payers".The Trust's own research department has also been asked to ensure all "potential fair trading questions have been addressed".
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Cisco and Apple have resolved their dispute over the use of the iPhone trademark with an agreement that will see both companies free to use the brand on products globally. The agreement comes a day after a deadline that Cisco issued to Apple to respond to its lawsuit over the use of the name.
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SeaChange adds on-demand TV navigation
SeaChange International, provider of end-to-end solutions for IPTV, has secured a US Patent for its Channel Overlay application
Channel Overlay organises a subscriber's experience according to programmes currently being watched. Triggered by a remote control command, the application overlays video with a menu of hotlinks to relevant on-demand content options and linear broadcast channels. It empowers television operators to create intuitive navigation that aggregates on-demand content and live channels within the context of programming genres (sports, game shows, children's, etc.), studio and network brands, niche markets and other factors.
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Anevia VOD service for AliceIPTV solution specialist Anevia is to supply Alice, the French part of Telecom Italia, with its latest Video on Demand solution. Alice TV customers will be able to choose and watch, instantaneously, a movie or a show from a selection of 1000 titles, and carry out play, pause, stop, fast forward and rewind through their set-top box.
IPTV outfit Aggregator has launched its latest TV-over-broadband (TVoBB) service. The new service, RailTV.tv is Aggregator’s first global offering and will enable the publisher/platform operator to build an international community. RailTV.tv offers rail enthusiasts a downloadable, on demand television service with immediate access to content that usually has to be bought on DVD.
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Thursday 22nd February
Neuf-Cegetel swallows Erenis
Downloading worth $4bn by 2011
Google hunts TV network
Virgin and Sky seek carriage deal
Five's digital head steps down
EchoStar invests in TU Media
Yahoo teams with Eurosport
VeriSign and Entriq combine
Europeans interested in ONDAS
Digiturk chooses HTTV
Neuf-Cegetel swallows Erenis
From Sotires Eleftheriou in ParisFrench telco Neuf-Cegetel is to acquire Erenis, the last independent optical fibre operator. The E70 million deal should be completed in March. Erenis has been deploying fibre to the curb in Paris over the last few years, using VDSL to distribute to the home. Its service reaches 55,000 dwellings and it has over 10,000 subscribers to its 60Mbps (to be upped to 100 Mbps next month) triple play service, paying E30 a month. Erenis had been in the process of raising more capital when it was approached by Neuf-Cegetel.
The deal means Neuf-Cegetel will gain on its rivals Free and France Telecom in the race to cable France with optical fibre. Free is investing E1 billion in optical fibre by 2010 and France Telecom is hoping to have 150,000 – 200,000 optical fibre subscribers by the end of 2008.
Cable, now in the hands of a single operator following the spate of mergers (still operating various brands), is also deploying optical fibre and it has been reported that it is negotiating to take control of Free. Many observers believe that if the cable + Free merger does not go ahead, cable would turn its attention to Neuf-Cegetel.
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Downloading worth $4bn by 2011
Annual consumer spending on downloads of movies and TV will top $4 billion in 2011, up from just $111 million last year, according Adams Media Research.
"The Internet is going to revolutionize the distribution of video," says Adams Media Research President Tom Adams. Adams Media Research is betting that video downloads will ramp up gradually as Apple TV and other white label Internet TV devices win acceptance among consumers.
The market researcher forecasts that sales of video downloads will total $472 million in 2007, $1.2 billion in 2008, $2 billion in 2009, $3.1 billion in 2010, then hit $4.1 billion in 2011. It also predicts that advertiser spending on Internet video streams to PCs and TVs will approach $1.7 billion by 2011.
Google hunts TV networkGoogle is stepping up its quest to find a willing television partner, according to the WSJ. It looked like it had found its match with Viacom’s CBS in a deal that would have allowed YouTube viewers to watch network shows and guaranteed the television network more than $500 million in ad revenue. But the deal stumbled as both companies were unable to agree on how long the deal would run.
Google continues to face problems from big-name networks which claim YouTube is infringing on copyrighted material and have ordered it to remove unauthorized videos.
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Virgin and Sky seek carriage deal
BSkyB and Virgin Media are meeting this week to try and hammer out a carriage deal for Sky's basic channels on Virgin cable before the current contract ends on February 28th.
Executives from the two firms are attempting to reach an agreement on the price Virgin will pay for Sky's basic package, which includes channels such as Sky One and Sky News. In theory Sky could withdraw the channels if a deal isn’t reached – it wants to cut the per home remit paid to Virgin.
Five's digital head steps down
Nick Thorogood, the controller of Channel Five's digital channels Five Life and Five US, is to leave to be replaced by Hannah Barnes from BSkyB less than five months after the channels were launched.
Since they first aired in October, the channels have struggled to make an impact in the multichannel market. Five Life's share in multichannel homes stands at 0.38 per cent in the year to date, while Five US's share is 0.42 per cent. That compares with a 2 per cent share for ITV2, 2.03 per cent for E4 and 1.55 per cent for Sky One.
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US DTH operator EchoStar Communications has invested $40 million (E30m) in TU Media, South Korea's only operator of satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (S-DMB) services with more than one million subscribers. As a result of this transaction, EchoStar becomes the second largest shareholder of TU Media Corp.
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Yahoo teams with EurosportYahoo has joined with Eurosport to launch a range of community-focused sports websites across Europe. Under the deal Eurosport will effectively power Yahoo!'s sports websites by providing all editorial content such as sports news, videos and information.
Yahoo! will enhance the service by building a community around the content and incorporating user-generated content elements such as photo-sharing through Flickr.
VeriSign, provider of digital infrastructure has entered into a strategic alliance with pay media solutions company Entriq. The combined outfit will offer media and entertainment companies a variety of delivery options for monetising their media assets, including streaming, download and progressive download.
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Europeans interested in ONDAS
European satellite company ONDAS Media has revealed the results from its consumer research study into the European satellite radio market. It showed that 68 per cent of the seven thousand respondents, originating from seven countries across Europe, were interested in ONDAS’ satellite media and radio service with 86 per cent confirming they believed that ONDAS Media’s service is new and different.Particular enthusiasm was demonstrated in ONDAS’ unique selling points with 80 per cent finding continuous coverage while travelling by car attractive and 75 per cent interested in the digital quality sound that satellite radio will provide.
"This is the third major research study we have commissioned," said Celso Azevedo, CEO of ONDAS, "It demonstrates that satellite radio is not just for the elite and showed that every target market group was willing to pay subscription fees for the service."
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Turkish satellite operator Digiturk has chosen HTTV’s B2Stream solution to broadcast its new generation of interactive services. httv’s Streamer product will allow Digiturk to broadcast interactive content in real time through their existing digital television broadcast infrastructure and to their set-top-boxes.
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Wednesday 21st February
Viacom content for Joost
Will XM, Sirius merger pass regulators?
EC presents radio spectrum strategy
Warner Bros join Virgin TV library
Rake for BT
Avail Media opts for Intelsat
Ericsson IPTV solution to Vodafone Iceland
TEO and Scientific Atlanta for Lithuania IPTV
2,000+ channels on Astra/Sirius
Viacom content for JoostViacom has followed up ordering its content off YouTube by announcing a broad licensing deal with Joost, the new Internet TV service. The anticipated deal involves licensing hundreds of hours of programming from Viacom networks such as MTV, Comedy Central and Spike as well as movies made by the company's Paramount studios.
The companies declined to disclose financial details. In similar deals in the past, Viacom has received two-thirds of the advertising revenue. "We're interested in distribution of our content on as many platforms as possible, provided we can operate in a secure environment," Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said. "This assures any potential partners that we're open for business and that we're able to enter into transactions with companies that respect our content and the considerations of our business."
Dauman said Joost's promise that it would protect Viacom's copyrights was a major factor in his decision to pursue the deal. The same issue was a stumbling block in the company's talks with Google.
Joost, previously known as The Venice Project, was started last year by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the two men behind Kazaa and Skype. Joost has deals with a number of content providers, including Warner Music and Endemol, but the Viacom agreement is its most far-reaching deal thus far.
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Will XM, Sirius merger pass regulators?The proposed $11.4 billion merger of satellite-radio operators XM and Sirius sets up a crucial test for the FCC. The deal is structured as a 50-50 "merger of equals," giving XM and Sirius shareholders an equal stake in the combined company. The agreement calls for Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin to serve as CEO of the new entity, which would have more than $2.3 billion in long-term debt. XM Chairman Gary Parsons would be chairman.
But as XM and Sirius are the only two companies licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to offer satellite radio in the U.S., the deal is likely to face significant regulatory obstacles. Other broadcasters said they will fight the merger, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin released a statement saying that the two companies will face a "high" hurdle, since the FCC still has a 1997 rule specifically forbidding such a deal. The transaction also requires the Justice Department's blessing.
Some reports speculated XM and Sirius may be rushing into a deal because they sense the regulatory terrain will only get tougher. Recognizing it could be a long haul, the two companies have set March 1, 2008, as their "drop-dead date," after which either side can walk away if approval is not granted.
The coming regulatory battle is likely to focus on the definition of satellite radio's market. The two companies are expected to argue that the rules established a decade ago, which require two satellite rivals to ensure competition, simply don't apply in today's media landscape as since 1997 a host of new listening options have emerged, making the issue of choice in satellite radio less important for consumers. Executives cite HD radio, iPod digital music players, Internet radio and music over mobile phones as competitors that didn't exist when the satellite licenses were first awarded.
Both XM and Sirius have continued to lose money. In 2005, the companies had combined losses of $1.5 billion, after losing a combined $1.4 billion the year before. Their 2006 results haven't been released, but Goldman Sachs estimates that Sirius lost $1.1 billion on revenue of $628.8 million last year, while XM lost $658.2 million on revenue of $914 million.
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EC presents radio spectrum strategy
The European Commission (EC) has delivered what it sees as a boost for more innovative use of radio spectrum, by unveiling its strategy for introducing more flexible radio frequency usage in reaction to evolving market demands.
"Europe must fully exploit the potential use of certain spectrum bands by new wireless products and services, so as to encourage market development," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "We seek to provide new opportunities for industry through less restrictive regulatory conditions that strengthen competition and increase consumer choice. However, this is a gradual process which will not happen overnight."
Radio spectrum is used by a broad cross-section of European industry for its communication services, with a total turnover estimated to have been between E240 and E260 billion in 2006. However, the EC notes that existing spectrum regulations are increasingly inadequate for keeping pace with the convergence of mobile, television and Internet services, all of which use wireless communications. The introduction of market-based spectrum management combined with flexible spectrum usage rights could yield a further gain of E8 billion to E9 billion per year across Europe.
Some steps fall under current telecom rules, including opening up the frequency bands formerly reserved for GSM mobile communications, e.g. for 3G mobile services, and giving new products and services access to the frequencies released by digital broadcasting’s more efficient use of spectrum (the so-called ‘digital dividend’
Warner Bros join Virgin TV library
Virgin Media and Warner Bros have confirmed a deal will see episodes from Warner Bros series made available on Virgin Central, Virgin Media's new TVoD-enabled channel. The agreement also includes the provision of high definition versions of the programmes in the future.
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Sir Michael Rake, the current chairman of KPMG International, will succeed Sir Christopher Bland as chairman of BT group.
Sir Michael said: "I am thrilled to be joining a company which has achieved so much in recent years and has such ambition for the future. Sir Christopher Bland has done a magnificent job setting BT on a secure financial footing and developing a strategy for the future. Ben Verwaayen leads an outstanding team. I look forward to working closely with him, the board and my new colleagues."
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Content solutions specialist Avail Media is to offer Intelsat’s MPEG-4 content aggregation and delivery service - Intelsat IPTV. The service combines the strong video communities on the satellite service provider’s legacy PanAmSat fleet and the technical innovation in IPTV of legacy Intelsat.
Avail Media will be able to offer an enhanced IPTV solution, powered by Intelsat IPTV, to its customer base consisting of telco operators fibre-to-the-home providers and independent cable operators. Avail will offer its IPTV solution starting in the second quarter of 2007. Jon Romm, EVP, sales for Avail Media said that Avail Media would be able to distribute high-quality video and audio services to its clients in a robust fashion, and offered the opportunity to enhance the offering as the business grew.
The service will launch on satellites in Intelsat’s premium North American Cable Arc, easily accessible by telcos, cable systems and other video service providers throughout the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. "We are providing a service that can deliver a compelling proposition to all service providers in the value chain," said Vicki Warker, Intelsat’s SVP, global marketing.
Ericsson IPTV solution to Vodafone Iceland
Ericsson will deliver the full IPTV solution and end-to-end systems integration services to Vodafone Iceland. The integrated solution will be the first step in the evolution toward converged multimedia end-user services based on Ericsson IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).
Gestur G. Gestsson, CTO, Vodafone Iceland says: "The IPTV system from Ericsson will enable user interaction, for example voting, with traditional TV programs. Together with voice services and the Internet over broadband networks, this IPTV solution is a complete Triple Play service." Vodafone Iceland licenses its brand from Vodafone Group.
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TEO and Scientific Atlanta for Lithuania IPTVDigital content provider Scientific Atlanta has revealed that TEO, the largest fixed-line telephony and Internet related services provider in Lithuania, has launched both IPTV and DVB-T video services from a newly created Scientific Atlanta digital headend.
The new headend and associated systems support content acquisition and delivery, MPEG-4/MPEG-2 encoding and decoding, and digital content and network management. The initial launch offers 20 channels of DVB-T programming.
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2,000+ channels on Astra/SiriusSES Astra has increased the number of broadcast services transmitted via the Astra Satellite System at the orbital positions 19.2° East, 28.2° East and 23.5° East from 1,648 to 1,864 video, audio and interactive channels at the end of last year. In addition, the Sirius satellites at 5° East carry a further 147 channels, bringing the total number of services broadcast via SES satellites in Europe to 2,011 video, audio and interactive channels.
Tuesday 20th February
Media owners deride Google copyright tools
STB market still up on IPTV
Mobile TV not reliable enough
BBC ‘shouldn’t sell net ads’
SES strong growth
14 billion happy Chinese New Year
Vecima acquires Spectrum
Media owners deride Google copyright toolsThe media industry is unimpressed with YouTube over its proposal to offer anti-piracy tools only to providers that have distribution deals with the site. YouTube plans to introduce technology to help copyright owners identify pirated material uploaded by users.
YouTube's biggest rival, MySpace, said it would offer its own version of copyright protection services for free. YouTube's "proposition that they will only protect copyrighted content if there's a business deal in place is unacceptable," Viacom was reported as saying. Earlier this month, Viacom demanded YouTube remove more than 100,000 Viacom video clips from the site after the two sides failed to reach a distribution agreement.
YouTube said the process of identifying copyrighted material is not an automated process and required the cooperation of media company partners. It says a clip of a TV show owned by one company might contain music produced by another, making the process of identifying ownership difficult.
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STB market still up on IPTVThe global set top box market has been experiencing significant growth, largely due to IPTV. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, ‘World Set Top Box Semiconductors Markets’, reveals that this market earned revenues of $1.77 billion in 2006 and forecasts it to reach $4.23 billion in 2010."The introduction of IPTV functionalities such as digital video recording presents a great opportunity for the growth of the set top box market," says analyst Natarajan Krishnamurthy. "In addition, growing penetration of HDTVs into the consumer electronics market has created a strong need for set top boxes to deliver better-quality video."
"The key challenge in set top box technology is to meet the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG)-4 HD requirements," says Krishnamurthy. "Since MPEG-4 HD is expected to have more functionality, OEMs should consider transitioning set top box technology from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, particularly since compression coding techniques are increasingly moving toward providing better- quality video."
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A survey of 22,000 European mobile users commissioned by Tellabs revealed that a high percentage of early adopters of mobile TV and video services are not keen on a second helping. The research, conducted by M:Metrics in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain, brought up an interesting statistic: on average, former users of mobile TV and video outnumber current users by more than 19 per cent. Users cited price, quality and reliability issues as the main reasons why they do not come back for more.
"If services fall short of user expectations on quality and reliability, it (developing content and services) could be money wasted," said Pat Dolan, Tellabs vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa. "So while we share our industry's enthusiasm for mobile TV, the detailed results of this survey provide important food for thought for the global operator community, who want to address network backhaul issues to improve mobile TV and video services."
Forty-five percent of European mobile video and TV users cited pricing issues as a factor causing them to switch off the services. And nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of users who tried mobile video and TV stopped using the services due to concerns about service quality and reliability.
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The British Internet Publishers Alliance (BIPA), which represents commercial online companies, has called on the BBC Trust not to allow adverts to be published on its international websites, saying the plan would hit revenue its members could make online.
Showing adverts to non-UK readers of BBC websites would also undermine the BBC's "worldwide reputation for integrity and impartiality," it added. The BBC argues that readers outside the UK should contribute towards the costs. BIPA, which includes News International, Trinity Mirror and the Guardian Media Group, said the international commercialisation of the BBC website would hurt the corporation's online rivals. "While such revenues might seem superficially attractive as a means of augmenting the licence fee, the collateral damage to the private sector would greatly exceed the benefit," BIPA said.
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SES Global reports another strong set of figures: Revenues rose 28.4 per cent to E1.615.2 billion up on 2005 E1.258 billion. EBITDA grew 22.6 per cent to E1.080.4 billion from E881.1 million. Operating Profit improved 27.2 per cent to E605.3 million from E475.8 million.
President & CEO Romain Bausch commented: "These results again demonstrate SES’s operational and financial strengths, built on our solid industry position. We have once more delivered outstanding shareholder value through the combination of good results, continued investment in our business, increased dividends and our share buyback programme."
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14 billion happy Chinese New Year
China's cellular operators estimate customers will send around 14 billion Lunar New Year text messages during the week-long holiday, the Xinhua news agency said. China Mobile and China Unicom Ltd., the country's two largest mobile operators, said they had prepared their networks for the message deluge to avoid any disruption in traffic. Chinese sent 430 billion short messages with their mobile phones last year, bringing income of about $12.8 million for mobile operators.
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Vecima acquires SpectrumVecima Networks and Spectrum Signal Processing announced the signing of an agreement under which Vecima will acquire all the outstanding shares of Spectrum in a transaction leveraging synergistic technology, administrative efficiencies, and combined sales channels thereby strengthening the market position of both companies.
Consideration will be comprised of cash subject to maximum aggregate consideration of $10,075,000 and a maximum of 820,000 Vecima shares.
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Monday 19th February
Ofcom concern at Sky DTT
BBC trials Freeview VoD
Now Sky hammers Virgin ads
41% of Mobile TV viewers will accept ads
Chelsea on YouTube
Asia to lead DTH growth
Brazil stimulates digital TV
US Broadband Penetration to exceed 50% in 2007
Portugal Telecom IPTV pilot
Bell Canada mobile movie service
Video growth boosts Eutelsat
Nagra for YPSO/Numéricâble IPTV
Ofcom concern at Sky DTTOfcom has expressed concern over BSkyB's plans for a pay-TV service on DTT fearing it might "unacceptably diminish the appeal" of Freeview. The regulator has announced a consultation on Sky's proposals for a four-channel pay service that would sit alongside Freeview channels and require a new set-top box for viewers. Sky needs Ofcom's approval for the launch of a subscription service.
Sky's plans are being interpreted as an attempt to limit the appeal of Setanta's paid-for sports offering, which will bring live Premiership football to DTT from August.
Sky's planned service will offer live football and other sports, as well as movies, entertainment and news. It would replace the company's current free-to-air offering of Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three. Ofcom said it would examine the impact of Sky's plan to use MPEG4 compression technology to squeeze out space for extra programming.
While the change would provide potential benefits, Ofcom wants to assess the "potential detriment associated with a reduction in the number of channels received by existing set-top boxes or digital televisions". It also flags the risk that existing STBs or digital televisions might be "incompatible with multiplexes broadcast using a combination of MPEG2 and MPEG4 coding".
Ofcom is also concerned that Sky's plans could affect consumer confidence in the digital switchover process under which the UK's analogue TV service is being phased out between 2008 and 2012. The regulator said it would examine whether any change in the channel line-up on digital terrestrial TV might "unacceptably diminish the appeal of the channels to a variety of tastes and interests, and whether a reduction in the current range of free-to-air channels would be compensated for by the proposed introduction of the new pay television channels".
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BBC trials Freeview VoD
From Colin Mann in LondonThe BBC is to carry out a research trial of a video-on-demand service through the Freeview DTT service via the platform’s interactive capabilities. The BBC’s director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, told UK broadcasting press members that the corporation was working with a set-top-box manufacturer to segment part of hard drive on Freeview PVRs.
"It’s purely a research project, we don’t intend to launch it," said Highfield. The intention is to produce an easy to use interface for the interactive menu that would enable a viewer to call up from a carousel 50 hours of programming. "There’ll be no latency ," he claimed. "We see that as the future of the interactive service." The service could be made available to other broadcasters on the Freeview platform.
Highfield said that the BBC had talked to other broadcasters about the interoperability of the corporation’s planned iPlayer on-demand TV service with similar offerings as well as considering ways of getting the PC-based iPlayer and content onto other platforms. "The objective is to try to get the best service on every platform", he said, adding that he wanted to avoid what he described as "digital socialism". According to Highfield, "dumbing down would be the worst thing the BBC could do."
Now Sky hammers Virgin adsSky is considering a formal complaint against Virgin Media's latest ad campaign. Ads in newspapers say "The cheapest place to get Sky Sports isn't Sky". The ads claim to save consumers £70 (E101) each year compared with Sky.
Virgin Media said its new Sky Sports package would offer four Sky Sports channels with a range of digital TV channels and a TV on-demand library for £26 per month. However, the package is only available to Virgin Media phone customers, who pay an additional £11 for that service. Sky claim that the minimum price for a package of its four major sports channels would be £34, which would be £3 cheaper than Virgin Media.
Sky said: "For all their talk about honesty and transparency, NTL-Virgin are making misleading comparisons that ignore fundamental differences between our products".
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41% of Mobile TV viewers will accept adsThe US Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has unveiled the first authoritative metrics on audience acceptance of mobile advertising. Results from a survey of more than 11,000 US mobile subscribers indicate that more than 41 per cent of those who view or intend to view mobile video agreed they would watch advertisements in order to watch free mobile video. Additionally, 20 per cent agree they would watch ads in order to watch mobile TV or video for a reduced fee. The research was conducted by M:Metrics.
The report, commissioned by the MMA’s Mobile Video & Television Working Group committee, found that although only one per cent of mobile subscribers currently access TV or video from a mobile phone, 23% of non-video users express some interest in viewing video or television content on a mobile device within the next few months.
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Chelsea on YouTubeChelsea have struck a deal to show archive footage and club news on YouTube, the first such deal by a Premiership football club. Content from the club's subscription channel Chelsea TV appear in a branded area of the video-sharing website titled. The site will feature daily news updates, archive footage of Chelsea games, and other features. Content is produced by Chelsea Digital Media, a joint venture with BSkyB.
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Asia to lead DTH growthNew digital satellite TV subscribers in Asia will help the market generate more than $88bn (E67bn) in revenues worldwide by 2010, according to forecasts.
Subscriber growth in mature markets is slowing, say analysts from US-based research firm In-Stat. "As DTH pay-TV platforms in many American and European countries have been in operation for a number of years, subscriber growth has slowed," said In-Stat research analyst Michael Inouye. "Total net new subscribers are growing each year, but only by single digit percentages."
The satellite TV business is increasingly looking to Asia for growth, where newly-affluent consumers are expected to boost the number of paying digital satellite TV viewers to more than 117 million by 2010.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has launched an ambitious programme to stimulate the development of digital TV in the country.
Under "Support and Implementation of the Brazilian Terrestrial Digital TV System (ProTVD)", E365 million will be allocated for the opening of credit lines for TV companies.State-owned National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), provider of the credit lines, said that ProTVD is aimed at supporting research and development, and the modernisation of the infra-structure and the production of software, equipment and new digital content.
BNDES also said that the program is expected to stimulate investment in local audiovisual projects and contribute to the development of companies specialising in providing solutions for the terrestrial digital TV system.
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US Broadband Penetration to exceed 50% in 2007
Residential subscriptions to broadband Internet services surged 20 per cent in 2006 to exceed 50 million US households, according to "Digital Lifestyles: 2007 Outlook," a new study from Parks Associates. The report estimates US residential broadband subscriptions will surpass 60 million households by year-end 2007, accounting for 55 per cent of all US households.
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Portugal Telecom IPTV pilotPT Comunicacoes, the fixed line unit of Portugal Telecom said that its IPTV pilot project will start in May or June. PTC said that the project will be launched in the urban areas of Lisbon, Porto and Castelo Branco to about 5,000 users.
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Bell Canada mobile movie service
Bell Canada has launched Mobile Movies, the first service in Canada that delivers full-length, pay-per-view movies directly to video-capable mobile phones. Mobile Movies are streamed directly to client phones using the Bell wireless high speed network. The interactive movie software application can be quickly downloaded directly from the phone's menu, and clients can use it to browse movie information, including trailers and plot summaries, before they choose a title.
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Video growth boosts EutelsatEutelsat Communications has reported a 5.2 per cent increase in revenues. In the six months ending December 31, 2006, the Paris-based operator declared revenues of E415.3 million, compared to E394.9m in the same period in 2005. EBITDA was up 6 per cent at E329.6m.
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Nagra for YPSO/Numéricâble IPTVThe Kudelski Group’s Nagravision has been selected by France, Belgium and Luxembourg broadband operator, IPSO/Numéricâble, for the
national rollout of its Video-On-Demand (VOD) and interactive TV
services.
