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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday
Friday 23rd June
C4 simulcasting
Italian Minister plans urgent action on DTT
DTT deployment speeds up in Spain
ITV 1 ads suffering
Mobile TV: 500m subs in 2011
US VoIP users will pay more
Nokia scraps Sanyo deal
Sony promises higher operating margin
Aznar joins News board
BSkyB buys MEMPHIS Encoders for HD Services
Nortel for Liberty VoIP
Amino adds Austrian Telco
NDS for CanalDigitaal
C4 simulcasting
UK’s Channel 4 is to simulcas its television programmes on broadband. "It is our stated aim to make Channel 4's public service programming available across all meaningful platforms and to be the first UK broadcaster to begin simulcasting our content on broadband is a significant step towards delivering on this objective," said the chief executive, Andy Duncan.
The service will only broadcast C4 shows and not acquired programmes and films. The channel already offers a pay-per-view video on demand service for US dramas Lost and Desperate Housewives.
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Italian Minister plans urgent action on DTT
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
"Digital terrestrial is among the areas where the government intends to intervene in the next few weeks and months", according to Italy’s new Communications Minister, Paolo Gentiloni.Speaking during the ISIMM telecom conference in Rome, he pointed out: "Italy needs to adopt a serious switchover strategy with regard to digital terrestrial, which means more than a never-ending series of deadlines which are continually put off." However, the Minister refused to set a date himself but said initial results from the pilot DTT schemes in Sardinia and Val D'Aosta, (where the switch off date is set for July 31) were being reviewed and this may lead to a ministerial decree.
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DTT deployment speeds up in Spain
From David Del Valle in MadridDTT is quickly taking off in Spain, according to official figures. The Ministry of Industry estimates that more than 3 million homes (9 million individuals) are currently receiving DTT. To May 31, 1,750,000 set-top-boxes were sold and 1.3 million homes were getting DTT channels through cable networks and more than 250,000 through Telefonica's IPTV service, Imagenio.
The Ministry claims that another 5.2 million homes would be also ready to receive the DTT signals if they had a DTT set-top-box, as the aerial adaptations have already been done. The digital migration must be completed before April 3, 2010, the analogue switch-off deadline. Currently, DTT covers 82 per cent of the country.
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ITV 1 ads suffering
ITV1, the UK's biggest commercial channel, is expected to see its July advertising revenue fall below £100m, (E140m) the first monthly figure to dip below the level in 12 years.
The figures are likely to strengthen ITV's claims that its flagship channel is being hurt by contracts rights renewal (CRR), the mechanism that prevents the broadcaster from abusing its position and allows advertisers to take out spending from ITV1 without having their discounts on advertising rates taken away . CRR was put in place when Granada and Carlton merged to create ITV. At the time, the broadcaster said the mechanism would provide an incentive to maximise its share of viewing and investment in programmes. ITV is now telling its advertisers that its business model is unsustainable with CRR.
Revenue for ITV's digital channels is forecast to increase 42 per cent to £69m while sponsorship revenues are expected to be up 24 per cent at £21m. Media buyers expect ITV1 advertising revenue to decline eight per cent year-on-year in the first half. The broadcaster promised to deliver efficiency savings of £100m by 2008 and said it was launching a new channel and increasing investment in multichannel programming by £20m in 2007.
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Mobile TV: 500m subs in 2011
In 2011, mobile TV services will have some 514 million subscribers worldwide, up from only 6.4 million at the end of 2005, a new ABI Research study claims. The market for mobile television is beginning to build significant momentum.
"Broadcast will be the preferred method of access to mobile video for most people," says principal analyst Ken Hyers. "Unicast will remain part of the mix, for customers who want to access video-on-demand, but ABI believes that the majority of subscription services will be for broadcast content, and that unicast-only subscriptions will not be a significant part of the market."
Hyers cautions, "Most markets will not be able to support more than two broadcast networks due to the high cost of building them, and the fact that most markets only have three or four major mobile operators selling wireless services to subscribers." The most critical factor will be commitment from mobile operators. "MediaFLO will almost certainly be among the winners in the US," Hyers believes. "Modeo and Hiwire are competing for the business of just three major operators, and one of them will fail."
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US VoIP users will pay more
Users of wireless or Internet-based telephones could see their bills rise, as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved a new plan for funding phone service subsidies.
The FCC ordered Internet telephone services like Vonage to contribute part of their revenue into the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service to rural and low-income areas as well as communications services and Internet access for schools, hospitals and libraries.
The agency also increased the amount wireless telephone providers would have to pay into the fund. Companies offering long-distance and international telephone services as well as high-speed Internet service via digital subscriber lines (DSL) must currently contribute 10.9 percent of that revenue into the $7.3 billion fund.
DSL providers will no longer have to contribute to the program after August, so the FCC had to act to avoid a potential shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. Consumers' DSL bills could go down if the savings were passed through to them.
Under the plan adopted by the FCC commissioners, providers of Internet telephone service, known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, would have to pay about seven per cent of their revenue into the fund under the current contribution factor.
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Nokia scraps Sanyo deal
Nolkia has terminated plans to set up a joint venture with Sanyo after deciding it did not make economic sense. "We feel it would not be in our best interests to make an agreement that proved to be less beneficial than originally anticipated," said Kai Öistämö, executive vice president.
The deal to unite Nokia and Sanyo’s CDMA mobile handset businesses was announced in February and could have given the two a combined global market share of more than 20 per cent. This would have placed it on a par with Korea’s Samsung, the largest manufacturer of CDMA devices. CDMA is the main rival to GSM, the most popular wireless technology.
Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of GSM handsets, selling 34 per cent of the 795m handsets sold in 2005. But it failed to replicate that success in CDMA, which is widely used in the US, Japan, India, Latin America, Korea and China.
Also CDMA technology, as a percentage of total global handset shipments, has slipped from a peak of 21 per cent in Q2 2004, to 18 per cent in Q1 2006. Nokia said: "In addition to an already financially prohibitive CDMA ecosystem in general, recent developments may indicate the CDMA emerging markets business case is looking more challenging."
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Sony promises higher operating margin
Sony is on track to hit its target of doubling its operating profit by the next business year, Chief Executive Howard Stringer says. Announcing its mid-term business plan, Sony said in September it aimed for a group operating profit margin of five per cent for the year starting April 2007. Its operating margin stood at 2.6 percent last business year, when its earnings performance was boosted by investment gains and robust sales of flat TVs.
"As of the year ending March 31, 2006, we are on target with all the tracking plans," Stringer told Sony's annual shareholders' meeting.
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Aznar joins News board
News Corp has appointed José María Aznar, Spain’s former prime minister, to the board. The move comes as the company plans a gathering in July where executives from the newspaper, television, film, satellite and internet divisions contemplate how political, economic and environmental changes will affect the world.
Speakers lined up include Tony Blair, the British prime minister, Bill Clinton, the former US president, Al Gore, former US vice-president, John McCain, the Republican US senator and likely presidential candidate, and Bono, the singer of U2.
Aznar, 53, has been a friend of News CEO Rupert Murdoch for several years. Aznar’s grandfather Manuel was a well-known war correspondent and editor in Spain.
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BSkyB buys MEMPHIS Encoders for HD Services
BskyB has purchased seven Snell & Wilcox MEMPHIS encoders to master content for its new HD services. BSkyB will use the MEMPHIS systems to create high quality HD Long GOP MPEG-2 streams which will then be stored on Omneon Spectrum servers, with which MEMPHIS has been fully integrated. The Omneon servers will then playout HD content in SD, HD (720p or 1080i) or both.
The integration of MEMPHIS encoders and Spectrum servers gives BskyB flexible interoperability for both playout and archiving applications.
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Nortel for Liberty VoIPNortel announced that Liberty Global has signed a global purchase agreement for Nortel’s cable VoIP and optical solutions and services through 2007. The agreement means that Nortel is now an approved vendor of Cable VoIP, optical solutions and Global Services across Liberty Global's cable subsidiaries which include UPC Broadband in Europe, J:COM in Japan, and VTR in Chile. In Western Europe, UPC Broadband's networks "pass" more than 11 million homes and businesses.
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Amino adds Austrian Telco
Amino, IPTV set-top box supplier, announced that it has added another national Telco to its list of customers. Telekom Austria, the country's leading telecommunications operator has ordered additional supplies of the AmiNET110 to meet customer demand for its aonDigital TV service.
The IPTV package was rolled out to subscribers in March 2006, following a customer-friendly soft launch in December 2005 and offers a flexible range of broadcast and video on-demand (VOD) channels to Austrian homes with DSL connectivity.
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NDS announced that CANALDIGITAAL, the largest and fastest growing provider of digital TV in the Netherlands, has selected NDS MediaHighway to be integrated into its new STBs which will be deployed in Flanders, northern Belgium. CANALDIGITAAL will begin distributing new STBs incorporating MediaHighway in Flanders in the coming weeks, giving subscribers access to "TV Vlaanderen", the company's new digital TV platform that caters specifically to Flemish viewers.
NDS’s MediaHighway solution will also provide CANALDIGITAAL with the ability to operate multiple TV bouquets moving forward through its scanning technology, which provides viewers with customized EPGs that display channel listings for content that the viewer has subscribed to.
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Thursday 22nd June
MNO’s partner for 4G
Triple play, no profit
Global media: $18 trillion by 2010 says PWC
Cablevision wireless
DirecTV ultimate package
Vongo, Toshiba partner for portable
NDS betting for Sky Italia
Time Broadband Selects Verimatrix
TANDBERG veteran appointment
MNO’s partner for 4G
Six of the world's leading MNOs have joined together to try and avoid a repeat of the blind auction that distorted the introduction of 3G services as they prepare to launch the next generation of fast wireless broadband.The emergence of this lobby group comes as the industry is working on the specifications for 4G, a super-fast mobile broadband technology that T-Mobile's chief technology officer Hamid Akhavan said will see wireless broadband reach "parity" with its fixed-line counterpart in terms of speed by the end of the decade.
The Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN) Forum – formed after a meeting in Hamburg earlier this year, consists of Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, KPN, DoCoMo and China Mobile. The NGMN Forum, which is to be incorporated in London, will lobby regulators to allow operators to use their existing spectrum to run the super-fast wireless broadband. This will necessitate a renegotiation of the GSM licences awarded - for free - back in the early 1990s as well as the 3G licences.
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Triple play, no profit
A Forrester Research report warns that low revenue opportunities and the high investments needed for broadband triple play could result in significant losses for Western Europe’s incumbent telecoms operators. Forrester says that faced with combined competitive pressure and massive vendor hype, several operators have already started to offer IPTV along with their voice and data services. However, the Forrester study shows that incumbents need to take a deep breath before proceeding further down the IPTV path, as the odds are stacked against telco success with TV services.
Forrester says its new, bottom-up profit and loss model looks at the profit potential from 15 main revenue categories across 17 countries and shows that the vendor-recommended solution would be financial suicide. The model — which uncovers very different cost and revenue projections for each country — predicts an average cumulative per-subscriber loss of E3,742 in year 10. Incumbents in the UK, France, Italy, and Spain, face the worst situation, while Deutsche Telekom (DT) faces the smallest loss. Given this very negative business case, Forrester advises telcos to see TV services as purely defensive and forget about any potential revenue and profit uplift.
Lars Godell, Principal Analyst, Telecoms, Forrester Research said: "Creeping telecom and media industry convergence and increased competition between cable companies, telecoms operators and ISPs explain why broadband triple play is seen as the battlefield for future ownership of the consumer and the digital home. However, the poor revenue potential undermines this hype – and the big question remains: Will operators be able to make money from their push into IPTV? At the moment, the answer is no."
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Global media: $18 trillion by 2010 says PWC
The global entertainment and media industry has entered a solid growth phase and will increase at a 6.6 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to US$1.8 trillion in 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006--2010.
Phil Stokes, of PWC entertainment and media practice said while the growth of physical formats has slowed, new revenue streams are growing rapidly and the availability of licensed digital distribution now provides consumers alternatives to piracy.
Global spending via online and wireless channels reached US$19 billion in 2005 and will increase to US$67 billion by 2010, the Outlook says. Digital technologies consist of five categories: online rental subscriptions and digital streaming in filmed entertainment, licensed digital downloads and mobile music in recorded music, online and wireless video games, electronic books and online casino gaming.
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Cablevision wireless
US Cablevision Systems said it plans to make its digital home phone network compatible with any U.S. wireless network, allowing subscribers to transfer calls between the two. Patricia Gottesman, Cablevision's executive vice-president of product management and marketing, told Reuters the company had "aggressive" plans to deliver such a service but gave no time frame.
The company said its digital phone network, which delivers calls over the Internet, is compatible with wireless networks, allowing one phone to be used as both a cellphone and a home phone. The company was the only major cable operator not to join Sprint-Nextel in forming a joint venture, first announced in November 2005, that aimed to explore combining mobile phone services with television, home phone and Internet services.
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DirecTV ultimate packageDirecTV revealed its latest programming package, DirecTV Titanium the "most unlimited entertainment experience the industry has ever seen." An annual subscription fee of $7,500 gives subscribers the "ultimate fantasy package for those who enjoy using the newest, best, and most expensive gadgets and services," the company said. Included in the package: Unlimited access to all of DirecTV's programming - every channel, 24-hour concierge customer service, and unlimited access to all pay per view movies, events and sports packages.
DirecTV said that because of the dedicated attention and service afforded to those who subscribe, Titanium will be limited to just several hundred subscriptions "to ensure these individuals receive red carpet treatment all day, everyday."
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Vongo, Toshiba partner for portable
US Starz Entertainment Group announced that Vongo has partnered with Toshiba to offer consumers portability for their digital entertainment. Vongo, SEG's subscription-based Internet video download application, will serve as a leading content provider for Toshiba's new line of ‘gigabeat’ Portable Media Center (PMC) products, which will be available in capacities of 30GB and 60GB. The partnership will provide consumers with greater choice and flexibility for their overall entertainment experience.
Vongo, which launched at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show and emerged from beta earlier this month, is the first subscription-based service of its kind that allows consumers to download major Hollywood films and other video content over the Internet for playback on Windows-based PCs, laptops, portable devices as well as on a TV. Members may download movies and video selections onto three eligible devices of their choice for each Vongo account, allowing for multiple-viewing options and family enjoyment.
"Vongo is video on the go. The partnership with Toshiba and its new line of gigabeat PMC devices provides further evidence of how Vongo is revolutionizing portable content," said Bob Greene, executive vice president of advanced services for SEG. "Through its partnerships with Hewlett-Packard (HP), AT&T, Microsoft and now Toshiba, Vongo is helping to build an open digital entertainment ecosystem."
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NDS announced that it has launched the first interactive television betting platform for the Italian market in partnership with SKY Italia. The platform allows SKY Italia’s customers to securely place bets on a range of sports through two of Italy’s leading bookmakers, Snai and Italbet, from the convenience of their television sets. By clicking a button on their remote control, customers will be given the choice of betting through both operators’ betting systems, providing that they already have a valid account with the selected operator. Viewers will then be able to choose from a range of sports bets, which are updated in real time as new betting opportunities arise.
NDS developed a specific technology infrastructure and tools for the project. The system’s platform is directly linked to each bookmaker’s back-end system, from where it converts the relevant data into a broadcasting signal that is sent to users’ set-top boxes (STB) through SKY Italia’s satellite network. The data resides in the STB, where it is updated in real time and displayed through a unique navigation system that enables users to view all the available bets in a categorized menu. When a user places a bet, the information is encrypted and sent securely through a telephone line back to the bookmaker, with users receiving a confirmation receipt on their television screen.
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Time Broadband Selects Verimatrix
Verimatrix announced at CommunicAsia 2006 that its Verimatrix Content Authority System (VCAS) and patent-pending VideoMark user-specific forensic watermarking will be deployed on the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) Delhi network. Time Broadband Service of India is providing the content delivery network as the first broadband content partner for state-owned incumbent MTNL’s IPTV service, which is the first commercial video-tier rich-media service in India.
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TANDBERG Television announced the appointment of industry veteran Michael Adams as vice president of system architecture. Adams will leverage more than 25 years of experience overseeing the development of next-generation technologies for the diverse range of TANDBERG Television customers. "Michael has a unique set of experience that spans hardware and software in both the cable and telco industries," said Braxton Jarratt, senior vice president of marketing and business development, TANDBERG Television, Inc.
Adams joins TANDBERG Television from Terayon Communications Systems where he served as vice president of video architecture and technology. In this capacity, Adams was responsible for all aspects of architecture and technology relating to digital video.
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Wednesday 21st June
O2 buys ISP Be
BT launches Total Broadband
Imagenio to launch HD by year end
Shanghai IPTV goes city-wide
XM first portables
Apple studio talks stick on price
ABC applauds online ads
PCCW ponders approach
Mobile games: $18bn by 2011
Cell starts struggle in US
C4 signs with Universal for radio
Thai station fine
WMG wireless music for China
Philips, and Sky Brazil hybrid boxes
Arroyo Delivers Record Video Stream
UK MNO O2 has purchased Be, the ISP for £50 million (E72.4m). O2 says it has acquired "the most up to date broadband capability in the UK and a platform for developing future converged services that integrate mobile and the internet."
Be was the first UK ISP to use the latest ADSL2+ technology which offers speeds of up to 24Mbps. It has so far rolled its network out to more than 150 local exchanges and has plans to be in more than 400, providing approximately 50 per cent population coverage by the end of 2006. This will be further extended towards 70 per cent population coverage by the end of next year.Peter Erskine, Chairman and CEO of the Telefónica subsidiary said: "O2 benefits greatly from the experience of Telefónica and insight into other markets such as the Czech Republic and Germany where customers have clearly demonstrated a demand for integrated broadband and mobile packages. Be’s superior broadband operations and services help us fulfil our previously-stated aim of adding high quality broadband capability to our portfolio in the UK."
The news comes a day after O2 bought out its partner – Dixons Stores – in The Link retail chain giving it a total of 600 stores under its control from which to sell services.
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BT has stepped up the battle for integrated home media services with the launch of BT Total Broadband claiming the new service will bring together several broadband products, including video on demand, internet calls and video phones.
BT said its new service would offer faster download speeds of up to 8Mb, and free evening and weekend UK voice calls with BT's Broadband Talk service. With a monthly charge of up to £26.99 a month (E39) plus line rental, BT Total Broadband remains more expensive than Carphone Warehouse's new broadband service, which retails at £20.99 including line rental. Ian Livingston, BT Retail's chief executive, said "Our competitors don't offer high definition talk, which gives you a much better quality of sound when you chat with your friends over the internet. They don't offer video telephony, they don't offer free wi-fi."
Carphone Warehouse claims to have signed up 340,000 customers to its new broadband offer, beating market expectations.
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Imagenio to launch HD by year end
From David Del Valle in MadridTelefonica's IPTV service, Imagenio, plans to launch its first HD services by the end of the year. The company is currently carrying out HD tests in Madrid and Barcelona through ADSL 2+ networks, using MPEG 4 to encrypt the signals. The idea is to take advantage of the traditional Christmas demand for HD-ready screens to launch the new services.
The telco group is also carrying out several HD tests on different platforms (DTT and DTH), along with Hispasat, RTVE, Astra, Sogecable, UPM, Fresh IT, Televes, and HyC, all of them members of the Consortium Interactive High Definition (ADI, in Spanish), which was created to boost the development of HD in the country.
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SHANGHAI will launch city-wide IPTV services in September says Shanghai Media Group. At present services are only available in the city's Minhang District and Pudong New Area with about 100,000 users.
"We will officially launch it (IPTV) in September after Shanghai Telecom finishes upgrading the local network, from 1 megabit to 2M or 3M," said Wang Zuogong, vice president of BestTV, an IPTV subsidiary of SMG, the sole national IPTV operation license owner.
Meanwhile, BestTV signed an agreement with Baidu.com, the most popular Chinese-language Internet search engine, to put Baidu's ask-and-answer column "Baidu Knows" in BestTV's IPTV package, which charges users a monthly flat rate of 30 yuan (US$3.75). BestTV has also signed an accord with Hong Kong TVB to provide users with TVB programmes.
IPTV's adoption user number is expected to reach 5.7 million in China this year, triple last year's level. The number will jump to 16.5 million in 2008, according to iResearch Inc, a Shanghai-based IT research firm.
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XM first portablesXM Satellite Radio has launched the world’s first portable players for live satellite radio and MP3 music. The Pioneer Inno XM2go and the Samsung Helix XM2go can store MP3 and WMA music files, and you can store XM programming on the device.
Users can even bookmark songs heard on XM, connect the radio to the PC, and instantly purchase bookmarked songs from the XM + Napster online service. Both devices can store up to 50 hours of XM programming and at only 4.5 ounces the radios are light and easy to take along anywhere. They offer a personal stock quote ticker and sports score ticker, a category list for saving and playing favourite channels, and the popular TuneSelect feature, which alerts the listener a favourite artist or song whenever it is played on any XM channel.
The sets use new antenna for live reception of XM Satellite Radio. Both have a full-colour display screen and a user-friendly interface for saving and deleting content. Users can build personal playlists using a mix of XM content and tracks from their own digital music collection. The unit has a memory buffer to make it easy to store an entire track heard in XM, even if the user starts storing after the song begins. Each device retails for $400.
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Apple studio talks stick on price
Apple Computer is in talks with most of Hollywood's studios to offer movie downloads via its iTunes Music Store Web site, says Daily Variety. It said iTunes might begin offering film downloads by the end of 2006, but currently prices on iTunes are a sticking point in negotiations.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is said to want one flat price of $9.99 per movie, whereas studio s want a range of prices that mirrors DVDs at retail stores, which run from discount titles at a few dollars apiece up to $19.99 for new releases.
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ABC applauds online ads
Prime-time ABC television shows were viewed more than 11 million times on the Web in the first month of a test by the Walt Disney of whether consumers will watch ads online if the shows are free. An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 per cent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched. That compares with typical ad recall of about 40 per cent for commercials viewed on television. Disney described the preliminary results of the test as "very heartening".
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PCCW ponders approach
Hong Kong’s PCCW is considering a proposal from Australia’s Macquarie Group to sell its core telecoms and media businesses, worth an estimated $4.71bn.The company, controlled by Richard Li, said it had hired Lehman Brothers to study a non-binding expression of interest received from "an independent third party". The sale of PCCW’s core assets would signal a significant change of direction for Li, who became the region’s best-known internet tycoon when he took over the Hong Kong telecoms business of Cable and Wireless of the UK in 2000 in a $28bn transaction.
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The growth in mobile games involving subscription downloads is set to continue in the next five years, with a surge in global revenues from $3.1bn in 2006 to approaching $17.6bn by 2011 according to Juniper Research -- a rise producing a cumulative revenue stream of nearly $57bn over the next six years.
According to Juniper, the Asia Pacific region has dominated the market since its inception, with Japanese and South Korean markets in the vanguard. Asia Pacific is forecast to contribute 38 per cent of cumulative revenues from 2006 to 2011, with Europe contributing 31 per cent, North America 22 per cent and the rest of the world nine per cent.
Whilst the leading edge games technology will focus on 3D and multiplayer games, the greatest growth will come from the casual game sector. Female games players will also grow as a proportion of the market with a more even balance of genders using mobile games in the future.
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Cell starts struggle in US
The wave of cellphone start-ups hoping to attract users to television, music and other premium services, are floundering as they fight over a thin slice of the U.S. market, a report says. About 30 wireless operators and hundreds of related technology firms have been launched in the past four years, says the WSJ. It reports start-up cellular carriers raised at least $1 billion, according to Rutberg & Co., the investment bank, but only 1 per cent of cellphone users regularly use their phones to watch videos, even as the number of U.S. cellphone users has doubled over the past six years to 215 million.
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C4 signs with Universal for radio
UK’s CHANNEL 4 has signed up Universal Music as a partner in its bid for new digital radio licences, in an example of co-operation between a broadcaster and record company. Universal, the world’s biggest music company, is to become a "strategic partner", helping Channel 4 to identify opportunities to promote its artists on the radio stations that will form part of the broadcaster’s bid.
Channel 4 emphasised that Universal "will not provide a branded radio station" and that the music giant will not be a shareholder in the bid team that the television broadcaster is assembling. Universal, though, is keen to help to promote its artists better on both radio and television — and has formed a broadcast arm to try to develop concepts that can form the basis of programmes.
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Thai station fine
A media company formerly owned by the family of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister, has been ordered to pay fees and penalties of up to $1.98bn after a court ruled that a 2004 licence fee reduction was illegal.
The heavy fine could be a crushing financial blow for television broadcaster iTV, now owned by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, which acquired it as part of its takeover of Shin Corp, the Shinawatra family’s telecoms empire.
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WMG wireless music for China
Warner Music Group has signed a deal with China Unicom, the Chinese mobile phone operator, to sell music to Chinese wireless users, potentially opening the path towards profitably distributing music in a market dominated by physical and digital piracy. The deal is the first such agreement between a leading music company and a Chinese mobile operator. More are expected as China prepares to upgrade its mobile networks to allow more data and content to be distributed.
Digital distribution, especially on the mobile platform, has been an area of focus since we acquired Warner Music," said Alex Zubillaga, executive vice-president for digital strategy and business development at Warner Music Group. "China is one of the largest mobile markets, with over 400m wireless customers and, combined with the secure distribution of wireless networks in a market where piracy is a problem, makes this deal an important part of our strategy." China Unicom is the second biggest mobile operator in China, with 130m customers.
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Philips, and Sky Brazil hybrid boxes
Philips Electronics announced that its Nexperia STB810 set-top box (STB) semiconductor solution, in combination with software from NextVision, has been selected to power Sky Brazil's first offering of dual digital broadcast/Internet protocol(IP) TV services. By delivering both satellite television and IP video-on-demand in a highly integrated hybrid design, Sky Brazil will be able to offer consumers a simple, unified experience through a single set-top box. With more than 970,000 subscribers, Sky Brazil is the number one provider of satellite television in Brazil.
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Arroyo Delivers Record Video Stream
Arroyo Video Solutions announced scalability enhancements to its on-demand solution that will make it easier and more cost-effective for operators to deploy personalized TV services such as network PVR (nPVR) to a mass audience. By combining Arroyo's innovative Linux-based, video networking software with IBM System x366 products, the platform delivers more than 80,000 streams per rack, the highest performance streaming solution available, and doubles the density of competing systems.
Arroyo and IBM technology allows any number of servers and racks to be networked
together within a metro, regional or national topology, creating one large
virtual server which has unlimited scalability.
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Tuesday 20th June
Nokia, Siemens merge network businesses
Microsoft I-Pod?
Ad buyers need world of mouth
Senate compromise on neutrality
AT&T Dish and download mix
ITV new media rights deal
Freeview catching Sky
Mobile TV gets Australian support
Nokia and TeliaSonera DVB-H trial
ITV interactive ad results
PanAmSat HD/IPTV Satellite in Orbit
DTT ITU treaty
Rainbow and SkyHD launch five VOOM brands in Korea
IPTV alliance
Amino partners with Siemens in Thailand
Nokia, Siemens merge network businesses
Nokia and Siemens are to merge their mobile and fixed-line phone network equipment businesses, both companies will have a 50 per cent stake in the JV which is to be based in Finland and is being valued at E20bn. The firms predict annual sales of E16bn and cost savings of E1.5bn euros a year by 2010.
The new business, made up of Siemen's networks business group and Nokia's carrier-related operations, will be called Nokia Siemens Networks. The firms said the company would have "a world-class fixed-mobile convergence capability, a complementary global base of customers, a deep presence in both developed and emerging markets and one of the industry's largest and most experienced service organisations". It is to be run by Simon Beresford-Wylie, currently the boss of Nokia Networks.
The move continues the consolidation trend set by the tie-up between Alcatel and Lucent Technologies. Ericsson and Motorola are seen as further candidates for merger.
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US press says Microsoft is developing a music and video device to compete with Apple's iPod and creating its own music service to rival iTunes. Robbie Bach, who headed development of the Xbox video game business, is overseeing the project. A Microsoft-branded music service would reflect a digression from an existing strategy to provide software for other such services, just months after the company announced a service called URGE with Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks.
Microsoft's software technology has provided the copyright protection framework for a number of subscription music services globally, some with well financed backers including Yahoo. But Apple Computer remains dominant in the multimillion-dollar field of music and device sales.
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Ad buyers need world of mouth
New research used by Starcom Mediavest, an agency that advises companies such as Proctor & Gamble on where and how to advertise, has measured the effects of conversations about brands and shows talk is even more important than previously thought. It is telling its clients to change radically their approach to campaigns and focus on getting consumers to talk about products, either in conversations or online through social networks such as MySpace. In addition, Starcom says it can now track the word-of-mouth effect.
"It is clear that traditional advertising is not as effective as it used to be as people spend more time on the internet and as technology allows them to fast-forward through television commercials," said Jim Kite, research director at Starcom. "In this environment, word-of-mouth becomes more important, and the internet and the huge increase in use of social networks allows information to spread more quickly."
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Senate compromise on neutrality
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens has offered a compromise in the fierce fight over legislation on Internet network neutrality, but stopped short of demands sought by content companies like Google. Google, Microsoft and others have lobbied hard for Congress to bar network providers such as AT&T and Comcast from charging them to guarantee access and service quality, often called network neutrality. AT&T and Comcast, two of the largest high-speed broadband Internet providers, have opposed any obligations imposed on their services or restricting their business operations.
Stevens has added a new section to his proposed bill aimed at preserving consumers' ability to surf anywhere on the public Internet and use any Web-based application, according to the latest draft, says Reuters. However, the draft does not include a ban on pricing content companies have demanded. Striking a compromise would likely make it easier for the bill to pass this year. AT&T and Verizon Communications want it to pass quickly because it would also make it easier for them to get licenses to offer cable television service.
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AT&T Dish and download mix
AT&T plans to launch its long-awaited television service that will combine satellite TV from EchoStar Communications Corp. with videos and movies from the Internet.
The service, named Homezone, will allow subscribers to download hundreds of movies from the Web site Movielink for a fee and view them on a TV set; they will also be able to watch EchoStar's standard Dish Network offerings.
AT&T, which has 48.8 million phone lines in 13 states, initially will launch Homezone in a few areas. By the end of the year, the company will offer the service wherever it offers high-speed Internet service, about 80 per cent of its territories. AT&T has declined to comment on pricing, but it is expected to be competitive with comparable offers on cable.
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ITV and independent producers' trade body Pact have signed a new media rights deal giving the broadcaster a 30-day window during it which it can offer "catch-up" repeats of programmes on TV, mobile and broadband. In return the broadcaster has agreed to "simplified and more flexible holdback policy that will allow producers to exploit rights previously held exclusively by ITV; and new funding models including potential development funding from ITV", it said.
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Driven by the uptake of Freeview, digital terrestrial television recorded an 8.3 per cent year-on-year increase in market share and now serves 27.3 per cent of all UK households, according to a report by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Digital satellite television holds 31.5 per cent of market share, recording a 2 per cent year-on-year increase.
If digital terrestrial TV continues to increase its market share by 2 per cent per quarter, as the IPA recorded in 2005, it will pass satellite as the UK's most popular television platform by the fourth quarter this year.
"Digital television continues to grow at a significant pace, clearly most recently driven by the Freeview service, however, with around two years until the start of analogue switch-off, it is worrying that still a third of UK homes have chosen not to 'go digital'. This could represent a serious challenge to the government's plans for analogue switch-off," said Jim Marshall, the chairman of media agency Starcom and the IPA's media futures group.
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Mobile TV gets Australian support
From Rose Major in Melbourne
Australia’s major media and telecoms players have backed the provision of mobile television services, but all have differing views as to how the government should handle its introduction.
In submissions following the release of a draft media bill, there was widespread support for some of the current DTT spectrum being used for mobile TV services, particularly using DVB-H technology. But while incumbent telco Telstra calls for an unrestricted environment, its rivals were more cautious. Optus said that neither Telstra nor the commercial free-to-air TV networks should be allocated mobile TV spectrum. Hutchison, which already operates the "3" mobile service which includes some video offerings, went further. "Incumbents such as Telstra, Foxtel and the free-to-air broadcasters and their respective associates should not be allowed to directly or indirectly control the Mobile TV spectrum or services, including through any primary or secondary sale of the spectrum," the company’s submission said. It also had one eye on its current interests, saying 2007 would be too early to auction off DTT spectrum for mobile TV.
Digital TV platform operator Foxtel also backed the introduction of mobile TV - in the absence of what it calls a "full and open competition model" for DTT. And Free TV Australia, which represents the commercial networks Seven, Nine and Ten, said that the spare spectrum "must not permit content of a kind traditionally provided by free-to-air television broadcasters." But public broadcaster the ABC said that any spare DTT capacity should first be used to improve quality of existing DTT services before launching new services, although it added it would be interested in providing content for mobile TV should the government go down that path.
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Nokia and TeliaSonera DVB-H trial
Nokia has announced a new contract with TeliaSonera Sweden for a complete DVB-H trial system, including Nokia Mobile Broadcast System 3.0 and Nokia N92 mobile TV devices, underpinned by Nokia's hosting and systems integration know-how.
"Nokia is very pleased to be working so closely with TeliaSonera Sweden in this new area of DVB-H based mobile TV. We believe strongly in the capability of this technology as well as in the mobile TV service, and we are looking forward to verify the full potential of mobile TV together with TeliaSonera Sweden," says Jan Lindgren, Vice President, Networks, Nokia.
Nokia delivers a complete DVB-H system including Nokia Mobile Broadcast System 3.0 and Nokia N92 devices.
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ITV interactive ad resultsITV and emuse absolutely’s first Freeview interactive advertising campaign run on behalf of T-Mobile has seen excellent results, with an unprecedented 9-10 per cent of viewers choosing to press the red button during the advert to find out more. The interactive campaign was also seen by over a quarter of the available Freeview audience.
The T-Mobile ad was the first to benefit from ITV and emuse absolutely’s new interactive ad initiative, which launched on April 19th. For the first time advertisers can now target almost 7m Freeview homes alongside the existing 8.4m digital satellite homes that are already interactive – effectively doubling the available target audience for red button advertising and providing a potential target audience of over 15m households.
Peter Birch, Head of Interactive Sales at ITV, said: "This is a fantastic result for T-Mobile – it proves that a Freeview viewer is receptive to interactive ad campaigns. The ability to run creative over all digital broadcast platforms simultaneously cuts down on hassle and time whilst providing a significant boost to the available audience. We are increasing our ability to deliver ad solutions that embrace converging technologies which add real value to traditional spot airtime. Most importantly, interactive ads on Freeview are not just limited to ITV airtime, this is open to all broadcasters."
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PanAmSat HD/IPTV Satellite in Orbit
Galaxy 16, a high-power fixed satellite built for PanAmSat, was delivered into orbit during last weekend.
The satellite's communications payload carries 24 high-power Ku-Band and 24 C-Band transponders. From its orbital location at 99 degrees, Galaxy 16 will provide data and video services, including HDTV and IPTV across the entire United States, including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, in addition to Canada and Mexico, the company said.
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DTT ITU treaty
The treaty agreement was signed at the conclusion of ITU's Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) in Geneva, heralding the development of 'all-digital' terrestrial broadcast services for sound and television. The digitalization of broadcasting in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran by 2015 represents a major landmark towards establishing a more equitable, just and people-centred Information Society, said the ITU. "The digital switchover will leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in underserved and remote communities and close the digital divide."
The agreement reached at RRC-06 paves the way for utilizing the full potential of information and communication technologies to achieve the internationally recognized development goals. The date of transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting in the year 2015 is intended to coincide with the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals.
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Rainbow and SkyHD launch five VOOM brands in Korea
Rainbow HD and Skylife’s SkyHD have agreed to launch HD programming drawn from a variety of the VOOM HD network brands on Korea’s first and only high-definition (HD) programming service. The daily, primetime two-hour block will feature five VOOM HD network brands - Ultra HD, Rush HD, Equator HD, GamePlay HD, and Monsters HD - throughout the week. Today’s announcement was made by Greg Moyer, VOOM HD’s General Manager, and Keum Pyo Hong, President of SkyHD.
Rainbow HD will provide SkyHD with 368 hours of programming over the next two years culled from its extensive VOOM HD Networks suite of HD channels and produced exclusively in true high-definition and 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound. The primetime blocks will begin airing on SkyHD in Q3 2006 and have the potential to be seen in both HD and standard-definition by nearly two million households throughout Korea. Rainbow HD’s largest content sale to Korea, this deal represents the company’s continued global expansion.
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IPTV allianceOrca Interactive announced the launch of its Interactive Alliance to promote cooperation among IPTV industry leaders and provide comprehensive future-proof solutions. In the emerging IPTV market, it is critical for players across the IPTV value chain to provide open solutions. To stay ahead of the innovation curve, operators require open solutions with proven interoperability. Given the difficulty of predicting the next "killer app," operators must offer a "long tail" of numerous, attractive services that create value for subscribers -- yet at a low cost to operators.
The Interactive Alliance partners provide value to IPTV operators by reducing time to market and total cost of ownership with a pre-integrated and reliable full IPTV solution. "The Interactive Alliance is filling a critical need in the IPTV value chain by bringing together all the major players to provide interoperable, open solutions," said Reuven Elmalem, EMEA IPTV Solution Business development, Nortel.
"Specifically, Orca's SI-enabled approach is what draws us to membership in the Interactive Alliance. It translates into streamlined IPTV system integration so we can easily install, customize and maintain RiGHTv, as well as upgrade it over time to meet evolving operator needs." "Using RiGHTv's built-in plug-ins and APIs with BitBand's Network Abstraction, Orca and BitBand achieved rapid and successful interoperability between the BitBand VDN (Video Delivery Network) and RiGHTv," said Yuval Sovinsky, EVP Marketing & Sales, BitBand Technologies. "Leveraging the flexibility of Orca's SUI SDK, we quickly developed and delivered an advanced subscriber UI for our IPTV service provider customers," said Danny Peled, CEO, GooMe.
"The challenge of delivering an optimal user experience is a crucial test for any IPTV service," said Simon Woodward, CEO, ANT plc. "By bringing Orca's SUI SDK together with our ANT Galio Client platform and next-generation Galio browser, service providers gain control over the entire look and feel of the user interface and content presentation, enabling branded and consistent service differentiation."
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Amino partners with Siemens in Thailand
Amino, leading IPTV set-top box supplier confirms that it was selected by Siemens for the first IPTV deployment in Thailand. The deployment for ADC (Advanced Datanetwork Communication Co. Ltd) has been rolled out to a substantial number of homes in Thailand for several months adding on-demand and broadcast television
channels to the company's existing broadband service offering. Over the last
months, ADC has witnessed the proven reliability and high quality of the
AmiNET set-top boxes.
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Monday 19th June
EC defends internet TV regs
Mediapro rights deal with Barcelona FC
Comcast forecasts less channels
Telefonica pay TV for Chile
DSL: US Market Share Climbs
J:COM Movie + HD
Greek channel expands
Corpus buys Recreate
EC defends internet TV regs
The European Commission has defended its proposal to revise online broadcasting legislation. The existing Television Without Frontiers regulations set minimum standards for advertising and the protection of minors and the EC wants to extend them to cover online content.Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, pledged not to intervene in business. "There will be no regulation of the internet," Reding said. "I'm not going to intervene in business--I am technology neutral." The commissioner said there should be basic rules to protect minors online and to prohibit incitement of hatred and overly repetitive advertising. Reding rejected the UK Confederation of British Industries claims that the TVWF revisions were an attempt to "shoehorn digital content providers into rules designed for traditional broadcasters, undermining high-value, high-tech economic growth when it should be stimulating it."
"Self regulation works best when there is a legal framework to support it. With co-regulation, the government lays down the rules, then the implementation of the rules (is handled) by individual (companies). Government only steps in if self-regulation is not effective," Reding said.
But Professor Michael Rotert, president of the European Internet Service Providers Association, claimed: "This is regulation of the Internet through the back door. We think Commissioner Reding has not understood the concept of the Internet. It might be she thinks she's regulating content, but you can't distinguish things so easily. Regulated self-regulation will be misused immediately, when it comes into practice".
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Mediapro rights deal with Barcelona FC
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spanish production company, Mediapro, a leading shareholder in the recently launched commercial channel La Sexta, has acquired all TV rights to Barcelona Football club league matches from 2006 to 2013 for E1 billion.
The Mediapro deal doubles the E75 million per year that current rights holder, pay TV giant Sogecable, is paying Barcelona. Sogecable has Barcelona's league rights until 2008, but Barcelona argues it can break the deal if it receives a better offer.
Sogecable which is planning to take the case to Court "to defend our legitimate rights".
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Comcast forecasts less channels
Jeff Shell, president of programming for Comcast, predicts that mid-level cable networks will ultimately be consolidated due to bandwidth issues, just as two second tier broadcast networks, UPN and The WB, were earlier this year. He believes there will be consolidation among mid-level cable networks, "because I think the middle is where the problem is: "Without highly rated marquee shows, networks like those are "are in the most trouble."
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Telefonica Chile says it will invest $50 million this year to launch paid digital television services and compete against the dominant provider. Telefonica Chile, a unit of Spain's Telefonica, goes up against VTR in offering the digital television services. VTR is a unit of Liberty Media and controls 86 per cent of the local paid digital television market.
"We are aiming for 20 or 30 per cent (market share) in the next five years, depending on how new market segments react," said Jose Moles, chief executive of Telefonica Chile. He said the paid digital television completes the company's package of services in the country.
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DSL: US Market Share Climbs
Leichtman Research reports that more than half of all new high-speed Internet customers chose DSL over cable modem service in 2005, and that Verizon netted the most broadband customer additions in the past six months. And Forrester Research found that DSL sales and market share continue to climb, outpacing cable growth. In 2005 major DSL providers increased their customer base by 39 per cent, nearly double the major cable providers' 21 per cent increase in cable modem users.
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J:COM Movie + HD
Jupiter Telecommunications in Japan and Jupiter Entertainment a subsidiary of Jupiter TV Co., Ltd, have announced the launch of "MoviePlus HD," a new high-definition upgrade of "MoviePlus" - the most widely distributed basic movie channel in Japan. Beginning in August "MoviePlus HD" will replace "MoviePlus" (Standard Definition format) and will launch on J:COM TV Digital as a 24-hour service.
"MoviePlus HD" will be available on J:COM TV Digital. "MoviePlus HD," J:COM's fourth high-definition channel, is the first basic movie cable channel in Japan to become available in high definition.
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Greek channel expandsAntenna Group have announced the launch of Antenna Europe - a Greek language digital subscription channel reaching more than 40 European countries, and bringing the leading television channel of Greece to the homes of millions of Greeks located throughout Europe. The new service is brought to viewers via Eutelsat’s Hot Bird, Europe’s premium satellite, and access is made available through a 12-month pre-paid smart card, compatible with Europe’s two most dominant encryption systems – Irdeto and Viaccess. The cost of the smart card is E120 for the 12-month period, namely E10 per month.
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Recreate Solutions, a provider of outsourcing models within the convergence sector, has been acquired by Dallas based Corpus, Inc., a provider of domain specialised technology services in the banking, financial services and telecommunications industries. Corpus, with a proven capacity for global delivery, has numerous Fortune 100 clients across the Telecom, Finance, and Media sectors.
Recreate Solutions has worked across such emerging domains as Interactive Television, Mobile and Broadband and IPTV, and is well-recognised within the convergence industry.
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