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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday
Friday 1st June
YouTube on Apple TV
Mobile TV subs to exceed 150m by 2012
Steady quarter for TiVo
TV Cabo to invest E15m to change 800,000 smart-cards
Warner music online for free
News Corp, NBC new video site deals
60% BBC visits overseas
50 arrested for TV piracy in Spain
YouTube on Apple TV
Apple will put Google's YouTube on television through its Apple TV set-top box. It says from mid-June users will be able to automatically stream YouTube content onto their televisions. At present, Apple TV users can only access content stored in Apple's iTunes music and video library system. YouTube members will also be able to log onto their accounts on Apple TV.
The move may raise copyright issues for Apple, as YouTube faces a number of infringement lawsuits. YouTube is currently being sued for $1bn by Viacom, after users uploaded thousands of Viacom-owned videos to the service without its permission. However, following Apple's announcement of the tie-up with YouTube, Viacom struck a conciliatory tone: "We're always vigilant about protecting our copyrights," said a Viacom spokeswoman. But we would welcome the opportunity to license our content to Apple as we do with all distributors."
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Mobile TV subs to exceed 150m by 2012A report by Datamonitor has predicted the number of mobile broadcast TV subscribers will grow from 4.4 million today to 155.6 million by the end of 2012. However the report ‘Opportunities in the mobile broadcast TV market, 2006 - 2012’ notes that whilst Mobile broadcast TV is continually highlighted as the next big thing, there are also considerable hurdles that need to be overcome.
"Currently there are about 4.4 million mobile broadcast TV subscribers globally and at that, split just between a handful of countries. This subscriber base will grow to 65.6 million in 2010 and more than double to an estimated 155.6 million by 2012 - a compound annual growth rate of 66.2 per cent," says Chris Khouri of Datamonitor and author of the study. "However, consumer education, technological fragmentation and content adaptation will have to be addressed first before mass-adoption can take place."
Datamonitor expects the Asia-Pacific region to have 76.3 million subscribers by 2012. Europe will have the second largest subscriber base with an estimated 42.7 million subscribers by 2012 with a CAGR of 102 per cent from 2006. This high growth rate is directly attributable to the predicted pan-European push for mobile broadcast TV between 2009 and 2012. North America, dominated by the US, is expected to have a subscriber base of 35.6 million.
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Steady quarter for TiVoTiVo defined the company's first quarter ending April 30 as ‘steady’. Thanks to solid financial results for the period, partnerships with other multiplatform players, and its comprehensive advertising solution, company officials believe there are many compelling opportunities to differentiate TiVo's from generic DVRs.
TiVo reported net income of $835,000 (E620,000) as opposed to a net loss of $10.7 million for the first quarter of 2006. The company said its service revenues reached $54.2 million, compared to the year-over-year total of $47 million.
TiVo-owned subscription gross additions for the period were 57,000, compared to 91,000 gross adds from a year ago. TiVo overall subscriptions increased slightly to 1.7 million from 1.5 million last year. "Cumulative total subscriptions as of January 31, 2007 were 4.3 million," the company said. "Additionally, the monthly churn rate was 1.1 percent, compared to 0.9 per cent in the year-ago period and down from 1.2 per cent in the prior quarter."
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TV Cabo to invest E15m to change 800,000 smart-cards
From Branislav Pekic in RomePortuguese pay-TV operator TV Cabo is investing E15 million to change the 800,000 smart-cards used by its DTH and cable clients, in the latest move aimed at improving the security of its conditional access system.
Starting from June, TV Cabo will start distributing the new smart cards to subscribers in the Greater Lisbon area and Porto, before extending the initiative nationwide. TV Cabo uses the Nagravision conditional access system. The operator organised a similar smart-card change back in 2005.
TV Cabo also announced it is adding the Fox channel to its "Canal Funtastic Life" package as of June 12. The operator currently has an estimated 1.5 million subscribers.
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Warner music online for freeWarner Music is putting its archive of music videos online and making it available for free.Warner will work with digital services provider Premium TV to create online TV sites or "digital hubs" that will be organised by artist, genre or label and funded by advertising.
Warner said the platforms would show previously unseen footage and would eventually be available in different languages. Revenue will be driven by advertising but music fans will be able to download the videos for an additional fee and Warner will also examine syndicating the content to a third party. The deal includes plans to develop subscription-based services and a version to be used on mobile platforms.
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News Corp, NBC new video site dealsNews Corp and NBC Universal have signed five more content deals for their new online video venture including ones with the Sundance Channel and TV Guide. Under terms of the deals, each of the entertainment companies will supply original content to the new site on a non-exclusive basis. Others included in the deal are FUEL TV, an action sports cable network, Oxygen, a cable network aimed at women, and SPEED, a motor sports cable network.
The site is already slated to contain high-profile content from NBC and News Corp, including TV shows such as NBC's ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘The Simpsons,’ and recent hit films.
The site, announced in March, is expected to be launched this summer and will include an Internet media player, which will be embedded on partner sites.
60% BBC visits overseas
More than 60 per cent of visitors to BBC sites are from overseas, according to figures from comScore. Sites for broadcasters Channel 4, Five and ITV boasted the highest domestic audiences with under 35 per cent of visits coming from international users.
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50 arrested for TV piracy in Spain
50 people have been arrested in the first police operation in Europe against the pirating of television signals. The arrests were carried out in 15 Spanish provinces and included 10 web page administrators, 22 distributors of TV decoders and 16 managers of local cable TV networks. Two presidents of residential communities are also among the detained.
The group are thought to have distributed more than 1,000 decoders with altered software in order to receive satellite TV signals fraudulently, and to have made some E140,000 so far.
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Thursday 31st May
Virgin could face customer exodus
Spain's ONO to break even this year
Apple TV rotten?
Wifi and power on the bench
DISH MGM VOD deal
IPTV expected to make big gains in Asia
Freeview Playback campaign
Seven bringing TiVo to Australia
Twofour, Microsoft webTV
CBS purchases Last.fm
Bud TV revamp
Virgin could face customer exodusInvestment bank UBS commissioned opinion researchers GfK NOP to survey 1,000 UK households in the wake of the withdrawal of Sky basic channels from the Virgin Media package. It found that 45 per cent of Virgin's television customers would switch provider if they could, while 10 per cent planned to quit as a direct result of the removal of the channels.
The investment bank that Virgin is suffering an 'identity crisis' as Sky's launch of broadband and voice services had taken its unique selling point as a 'triple-play' provider. And it argued that Virgin is exposed to competitive pressures with customers surveyed perceiving that Sky offered better customer service and product.
"Our survey strongly suggests that Sky customers do not see Virgin as a credible alternative," says UBS. The bank reckons up to 400,000 Virgin customers could move to Sky.
Virgin Media dismissed the research as "out of date, sensationalist and unrealistic." A "The headline projections UBS has driven off this sample group should be treated with extreme caution. As we have said, the full impact of the loss of Sky's withdrawal of its basic channels will be seen in the second quarter. We have seen a significant drop-off in call-centre activity since March/April when this survey was carried out and, based on actual customer behaviour to date, we believe TV customer losses have been contained to a fraction of that suggested by UBS."
The survey also found that 14 per cent of households "appear to have an ideological aversion to Sky and are unlikely ever to subscribe".
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Spain's ONO to break even this year
From David Del Valle in MadridThe Spanish largest cable company ONO has cut its losses by 40 per cent to E 13 million (from E22 million the same period last year) in the first quarter of the year being on the way to meet its goal to make a profit in 2007, according to Richard Alden the CEO.
EBITDA grew by 12.8 per cent to E148 million, although revenues dropped 4.2 per cent to E 402 million from E 420 million the same period last year.
In the first quarter, ONO increased by 100,000 the number of homes passed in Spain, reaching 6.22 million, with 464,000 new passed homes over the last year, up 8.1 per cent. The company has 1.85m residential clients, up 9.6 per cent on last year's first quarter, capturing 45,000 new clients from January to March this year, double the same period last year. Broadband Internet registered the highest growth with 76,000 new clients, reaching 1.14 million. 567,000 clients have access to its triple play offer.
Apple TV rotten?
In one of the first reviews of the very few Apple TVs out there, Fortune magazine isn’t impressed with the $300 box. The June issue is quoted at length on CNN:"Apple TV's most highly touted feature is its weakest one: It requires an HDTV, but the video you download is so low-res that it looks as fuzzy as plain old broadcast TV. There's no way to order a movie directly from the iTunes store via your TV, even though Apple TV has its own connection to the Internet. Instead, you have to download it to your computer first. Apple TV lets you show photos only from a single computer, even though photos are the one source of HD content everyone has, and are easy and legal to share over a network. That is especially odd, because Apple TV does allow you to share digital music from multiple PCs.
There are even shortcomings that even Microsoft would not have overlooked: Apple TV doesn't have a DVD drive or a volume control on its minimalist remote or ... but enough. You get the feeling that Apple didn't create this thing because it was insanely great but in order to freeze competitors out of downloadable video.
Apple TV could have been a versatile transitional product that not only made it easier for people to use their computer-based content in the living room but also helped unclutter their home entertainment systems. Apple got the shape of the box right, and the screensaver is pretty nice, but that's about it."
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Wifi and power on the bench
From Sotires Eleftheriou in ParisAs part of its programme to renovate the run-down Goute d’Or neighbourhood in Paris, the city council has installed wifi on a public bench in the street. Access is entirely free of charge. The wifi signal is radiated from a module on the top of a lamppost overlooking the bench and is linked to the Internet by a powerline transmission module. Coverage is about fifty metres around the lamppost. The bench has been fitted with two electric power outlets, so that people surfing can recharge their laptop batteries. The power output of the outlets is limited to 100 W, which will effectively prevent other uses, such as electric heaters for tramps sleeping on the bench. The internet access is provided by Neuf-Cegetel.
Two young local resident women told Advanced Television that they would not feel safe to surf the web in the open with a costly laptop on a bench in this neighbourhood. Advanced Television also found that its test with a wifi telephone handset was entirely satisfactory – some free wifi hotspots require the user to accept terms and conditions, effectively preventing use by models of wifi phones with no web browser. The Paris council intends to install 400 similar public wifi benches before August.
EchoStar has made a deal with MGM to carry the studio's current and catalogue movie titles on DISH Network's DISH On Demand, as well as through its pay-per-view platform. EchoStar officials said the deal with MGM is the company's latest effort to expand DISH Network subscribers' programming options by adding the studio's library to its On Demand and PPV platforms.
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IPTV expected to make big gains in AsiaCompetition between IPTV and cable/satellite TV is heating up in Asia, with IPTV poised to gain significant market share over the next several years, reports In-Stat. With the help of IPTV, incumbent telcos have the opportunity to fundamentally change their broadband customers video service experience, from traditional video clip streaming to downloading and just plain watching TV.
"There has been no conclusive evidence showing whether IPTV or cable/satellite TV will ultimately win the customers' vote," says Alice Zhang, In-Stat analyst. "In the Asia/Pacific region, it is expected that both traditional cable/satellite pay TV and IPTV will co-exist at least for the next several years." There were 2.7 million IPTV subscribers in Asia in 2006, and this number is expected to exceed 33 million by 2012. Total revenue from consumers of IPTV content broadcasted in Asia/Pacific is tipped to reach $8 bn by 2012.
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Freeview Playback campaignFreeview, the UK DTT service, is to launch a new media and press campaign to support the launch of Freeview Playback, a new digital TV recorder brand, that will give users the option of recording digital TV without subscription.
Freeview is putting online advertising at the heart of its marketing campaign, with a variety of banners, skyscrapers and listings page sponsorship. The campaign will encourage consumers to visit a new micro site where they will be able to purchase Freeview Playback digital TV recorders online.
Freeview Playback features include one-touch recording from an 8-day TV guide, pause and rewind live TV functionality as well as the ability to record up to 125 hours of television.
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Seven bringing TiVo to AustraliaSeven Media Group, one of Australia's leading integrated media companies, and TiVo, creator of digital video recorders, will together be bringing TiVo to Australia in 2008. Under the mutually-exclusive agreement, Seven Media Group will lead the creation of the digital platform to enable TiVo's digital video recorder and service, including the popular TiVo user interface. The platform will be available for use by other broadcasters and broadband content owners to create an interactive, free to air digital terrestrial television offering.
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Twofour, Microsoft webTVTwofour Digital, European provider of webTV solutions, has revealed that its next generation of webTV solutions will utilise Microsoft Silverlight, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering rich interactive and media experiences for the Web. "Providing support for Silverlight is our highest priority for the growth of our webTV platform", says Twofour Digital Director Philip Haggar. "For many years we have been committed to Windows Media technologies… With Silverlight, we have the opportunity to provide our clients with a terrific looking TV-like experience across all browsers, and all based on our existing solution built using Microsoft .NET and Windows Media."
US broadcaster CBS has purchased music recommendation website Last.fm for $280m. Leslie Moonves, the CBS chief executive, said: "Last.fm is one of the most well-established, fastest-growing online community networks out there. Their demographics also play perfectly to CBS' goal to attract younger viewers and listeners." Last.fm claims to have around 20 million active users each month, four million of which are in the US.
The website allows users to search for and listen to music they like based on their listening habits and recommendations of other users. The site recently added music videos.
Meanwhile sister company Viacom agreed to sell its Famous Music publishing business to Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a unit of Sony for about $370 million.
Despite earlier suggestions that it might scrap its struggling online entertainment channel, Anheuser-Busch has decided instead to revamp the Web site to make it edgier.
Just three months ago, the St. Louis brewer made a big splash in advertising circles with the launch of Bud.TV. The network, which includes 2,000 minutes of original programming, was aimed at getting the attention of beer-drinking young men, who are spending more of their time on the Web.
But traffic to the site has plummeted amid complaints from viewers that the content, such as "What Girls Want," where three beautiful women give a geeky guy a makeover, was poor.
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Wednesday 30th May
FTC probes Google-DoubleClick deal
Ofcom postpones spectrum auction?
Neuf-Cegetel acquires Ozone
DT backs VoIP
Spain's leading telcos industry association
Sky Brasil to launch HDTV and second generation DVR
Neotion sets up pay-TV arm
China Telecom AVS-based IPTV trials
Viasat and Sony Scandinavian deal
BBC digital web team
Company claims it can stop piracy
Hofors Hus and PacketFront IPTV
Sony for HD radio
Euronews for Africa
FTC probes Google-DoubleClick deal
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1bn purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick.
The inquiry began at the end of last week, after it was decided that the FTC instead of the Justice Department would conduct the review. The deal prompted privacy advocates and competitors to raise concerns after it was announced last month. Those concerns and the deal’s size made a preliminary investigation all but certain, according to antitrust experts.
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Ofcom postpones spectrum auction?Ofcom has delayed a decision on whether to auction off radio wave spectrum. It is reported that it had put off the decision, which had been due in the next few months and was expected to raise around £2 billion (E2.89bn) until the autumn at the earliest. They quoted Ofcom as saying that the "nature and scope" of the comments that it had received about the proposed sell-off meant that it was "appropriate to carry out further analysis and consultation before taking decisions".
It has also delayed the sale of new mobile phone spectrum - the so-called 3G expansion band - until next year.
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Neuf-Cegetel acquires Ozone
From Sotires Eleftheriou in ParisFrench quadruple play operator Neuf-Cegetel has acquired the Wi-fi company Ozone in order to pursue its expansion in Wi-fi. The price was not disclosed. Neuf-Cegetel uses ADSL to provide broadband, IPTV and a VOIP telephone service, plus a mobile telephone. In May last year it launched the "Twin", a combined Wi-fi/GSM mobile phone. When the user is within reach of a Wi-fi hotspot, he can use the Twin to make and receive telephone calls using the SIP standard, at the same price as his home VOIP account.Ozone is a broadband provider that uses microwave antennas to communicate with receivers on the roofs of selected subscribers, who then rebroadcast the Internet signal locally via Wi-fi.
Subscribers pay E18 a month for full access to the Ozone wifi service where it is available. Those whose rooftops are used have their subscription for free. Ozone currently claims to cover 60 per cent of Paris and is planning to open in Rennes shortly.Neuf wants to expand its Wi-fi coverage and already works with a number of players in addition to Ozone, such as FON. It also provides wifi coverage for French railway stations, which its subscribers can access free of charge.
Deutsche Telekom is backing VoIP company Jajah, becoming the first major phone company to support such technology. Deutsche Telekom is investing in Jajah through its investment arm T-Online Venture Fund. DT says it has now started embedding Jajah into its web properties and that it expects to offer its calling services to consumers and businesses in the future.
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Spain's leading telcos industry association
From David Del Valle in MadridSpain's leading telecommunications companies ONO, France Telecom's Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone Group, have created a new industry association.
The body, known as Redtel, represents companies operating their own networks and will be led by Miguel Canalejo, former chairman of Alcatel. The companies have set up this associaiton to defend their interests against operators without their own infrastructure.
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Sky Brasil to launch HDTV and second generation DVR
From Branislav Pekic in RomeBrazilian DTH operator Sky Brasil is planning to launch the first HDTV transmissions by the end of 2007, while the first HD compatible set-top boxes are due to appear on the market in the third quarter of 2008.
Sky Brasil CEO, Luiz E. Baptista Rocha, revealed that the receiver model to be adopted will probably be the same one used by DirecTV in the USA. He said that a new Electronic Program Guide will be launched in the third quarter of 2008, with the possibility of searching by author, title or key word. It will also include channel logos, as well as ads configured by the operator and will be compatible with the DVR VOD (Video-on-Demand) service. In October 2008, a new Intelsat 11 satellite is set to substitute the existing Intelsat 6 bird, enabling Sky Brasil to expand capacity up to 270 video channels, distributed among the 18 transponders to be used.
From June of this year, the pay-TV operator will launch the second version of its DVR (Digital Video Recorder), the SKY+. Sales of the first generation boxes have been suspended but the operator has not yet released the price of the new receiver which will have a 64 MB RAM memory and 160 GB, double that of the existing version.
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Neotion sets up pay-TV armDigital pay-TV specialist Neotion has set up a subsidiary, Neotion TNT France (NTF), to look after its pay-TV activities. Neotion has been awarded digital pay-TV distributor status in its native France.
NTF will launch a bouquet of digital pay channels at the beginning of September to coincide with the Rugby World Cup. Subscriber equipment will be from the Neotion Pockets range of MPEG-4 decoders, featuring a credit card format that can be inserted in all digital televisions. The move follows the adoption of a French law on March 5 2007 stipulating that all TV sets must be digital. Neotion sees this as giving a strong boost to the market.Neotion anticipates 400,000 subscribers for its bouquet of some five to seven channels by the end of 2001.
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China Telecom AVS-based IPTV trialsChina Telecom is reportedly planning to run field trials of domestic codec Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS), which could lead to the company dropping support for H.264. Huawei Kong, vice director of the Institute of Computing Technology, a state-run research group, confirmed the trials will happen in June.
In addition, Leping Wei, chief engineer of China Telecom, indicated last month that the company was considering AVS after seeing positive results from tests in Dalian by China Netcom, its rival. China Netcom plans to use AVS-based IPTV in 20 cities by the end of 2007, and hopes for 6 million AVS-based IPTV users in five to seven years, or 40 per cent of its current broadband users.
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Viasat and Sony Scandinavian deal
Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) and Scandinavian broadcaster, Viasat Broadcasting, have agreed a new multi-year licensing deal for SPTI’s feature films and television programming to be aired on six Viasat channels in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The deal also includes first run television series and a number of back catalogue Sony Pictures programmes.
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BBC digital web teamBBC Worldwide is creating a digital team to develop and launch of a number of community-based, video-rich websites. The move marks a major expansion of BBC Worldwide's digital ambitions. The 30-strong team - headed by the BBC Worldwide managing director for magazines, Marcus Arthur - has plans to launch three websites by the autumn.
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Company claims it can stop piracyFrench company CoPeerRight Agency has been distributing flyers to producers at the Cannes Film Festival claiming that they can sabotage pirates and telling the producers that they can "watch in real time the illegal download of your films".
Besides claiming it can prevent distribution of movies via P2P , the company also offers to demonstrate how the system can "first identify the pirates IP address and then forward it to producers and the pirate's ISP. They then flood the P2P networks with decoy files which would in theory bury the original files as well as saturate the networks' waiting lists to increase the file's download time and send corrupt data to users while they are trying to download the pirate files."
CoPeerRight Managing Director Romina González Galetto called the solution ‘Bytes Corrupted’. The company claims it is "the only way to retard the download of the illegal copies available on P2P networks."
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Hofors Hus and PacketFront IPTVPacketFront, provider of open-access FTTH broadband networking, has furthered its presence in Sweden by building an advanced open access triple-play network for Hofors Hus, a municipality owned residential housing company. Residents will be offered Internet, TV and telephony over the same connection, where IPTV will be the only source for TV. All services will be distributed via PacketFront’s control and provisioning system BECS. The open access network also gives users the option to choose services for themselves without having to wait for a third party to make the changes.
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Sony for HD radioSony said it would soon sell HD Digital Radios, making the Japanese electronics maker one of the largest manufacturers to back the broadcast radio industry's fledgling technology. Sony said it would start shipping in July a tabletop radio and a model for cars, kicking off what it calls a long-term commitment to offering a range of HD Radio-enabled products over the next several years. Sony said its table top XDR-S3HD radio would be available in July for about $200, and its XT-100HD car tuner will be available that month for about $100.
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Jean-Luc Maertens has joined the EuroNews team in the newly created position of Distribution Manager for Africa. A journalist specialising in Africa and former manager of the Africa and Indian Ocean desk for Canal France International, Jean-Luc will be in charge of boosting EuroNews’ presence in Sub-Saharan Africa through distribution on all broadcasting media.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, EuroNews is the only international news channel distributed via all satellite platforms. The channel currently reaches more than 3 million households.
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Monday 28th May
Grade calls for loan of HD spectrum
Mediaset DTT PPV service to break even in 2007
Telco competition makes Europe IPTV leader
Vivendi content sales portal
Doordarshan mobile TV pilot in Delhi
Two Way TV gets Ingenious
ITV Newsfix
UK digital divide narrows
RawFlow P2P streaming For Giro d’Italia
Azureus strikes deal with MoSTV
Grade calls for loan of HD spectrumITV executive chairman Michael Grade has offered the Government a compromise solution in the campaign for spectrum to be reserved for high-definition broadcasts on DTT. Grade told the Royal Television Society and culture secretary Tessa Jowell, that the UK's public service broadcasters would be willing to help "drive the transition to a more efficient transmission standard on DTT" if the Government loaned them "a little over a multiplex of capacity".
"In due course, once HD compatible boxes are sufficiently widespread, we will give the loaned spectrum back and it can be auctioned. Even if you did this Ofcom would still be able to auction nearly two thirds of the released spectrum now which would give plenty of space for successful bidders to develop mobile TV, wi-fi and so on."
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Mediaset DTT PPV service to break even in 2007
From Branislav Pekic in RomeMediaset Premium, the digital terrestrial TV offering of Italy’s leading private broadcaster, Mediaset, is set to break even by the end of the year.
According to Mediaset Premium director, Marco Leonardi, the performance of the pay-per-view service has been better than expected, with 2.93 million rechargeable smart cards sold since launch. The cards in question have been recharged 7.29 million times. He also points out that, during the first three months of 2007, revenues nearly doubled from E22.8 million to E45.3 million. Over the last two years, Mediaset has invested E1.6 billion in the initiative.
For 2008, Mediaset Premium is planning to boost the movie and TV series offer, while sports fans will continue to enjoy Italian Serie A football as well as Champions League matches. Another proposal being studied is the launch of a pay-TV package on DTT, made up of 8-10 TV channels, which would compete with DTH platform Sky Italia.
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Telco competition makes Europe IPTV leaderWorldwide IPTV subscribers will reach nearly 60 million by year-end 2011, spurred by both offensive and defensive telco posturing worldwide, a new Parks Associates study claims.
"IPTV: From Quadruple Play to Multiplay" says that European consumers will find their television choices expanding greatly, thanks to a growing number of IPTV providers per country, plus a surge in digital terrestrial offerings and a resurgence by cable providers in certain markets. While Asia has established solid growth to date, the study finds that certain regulations may bar IPTV providers from offering truly differentiated content. Finally, North American growth, spurred by major Tier 1 providers, will reach solid numbers by the end of the forecast period.
"On a global scale, the IPTV experience is going to provide widely-varying levels of success and challenges," said Kurt Scherf, Parks Associates’ vice president and principal analyst. "European incumbents are being encouraged now to enter non-traditional markets, and this has spurred not only growth of multi-channel television delivery, but a whole new level of reliance on residential gateways and the beginnings of truly converged communications services. Asian markets have, in many cases, the necessary infrastructure to support incredible television experiences, but providers may struggle to truly differentiate their offerings from cable competitors."
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Vivendi is preparing to launch an Internet portal to sell music, video or games for computers, television and mobile phones, Les Echos reported. A new unit called Vivendi Mobile Entertainment has been created to launch the service, which would come five years after the failure of Vivendi's Vizzavi portal, designed as a gateway for PC and interactive TV content.
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Doordarshan mobile TV pilot in Delhi
State-owned broadcaster Doordarshan, has launched a mobile TV pilot service on cell phones, currently limited to subscribers in some parts of New Delhi. As of now, there are 8 channels being beamed; namely, DD National, DD News, DD Sports, DD Bharati, DD Urdu, DD Punjabi, DD Bangla, and DD Podhigai. Available from 5.30am to 12 at midnight, the service does not involve any charge by the mobile service provider.
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Following the news that Two Way TV sold its Ark Technology to Virgin Media and signed a long-term content deal, the company has confirmed that it has a major new investor. Ingenious Media Active Capital Ltd (IMAC) has completed an investment in Two Way TV of up to £5.34m (E7.73m) for a significant controlling equity stake. The focus of the investment will be on building Two Way TV’s production capabilities in the rapidly evolving mass participation entertainment market.
ITV News has unveiled a tailor-made mobile news service, to give subscribers highlights of the daily broadcasts. Newsfix will deliver the main ITV News stories directly to 3G mobile phones for a subscription charge of £2 (E2.9) a week. Subscribers will then receive bespoke bitesize bulletins of up to two minutes at the beginning and end of the working day, around 9am and 5pm.
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UK Media regulator Ofcom said the "digital divide" between the home nations has narrowed dramatically in the past two years. The Communications Market Report showed that digital penetration in England at 45 per cent (2005: 36 per cent), with Northern Ireland (2005: 24 per cent), Wales (2005: 25 per cent), and Scotland (2005: 31 per cent) all up to 42 per cent.
The report also found the proportion of UK homes with access to broadband and phone services through LLU rose 27 per cent over the year to the end of 2006 to 67 per cent, with 29 per cent of households taking multiple services from a single telephony provider in 2006.
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RawFlow P2P streaming For Giro d’ItaliaRawFlow, provider of live peer-to-peer streaming technologies, will run a technology trial for its P2P streaming technology with RAI, the national broadcaster in Italy. RAI will apply RawFlow’s Intelligent Content Distribution (ICD) technology to live streaming of its broadcasts from Giro d’Italia. The benefits of applying ICD means that RAI will be able to provide fans with live coverage of the entire cycle race, as the technology enables broadcasters to maximise the scalability of their live streaming.
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Azureus strikes deal with MoSTV
Azureus, a global player in aggregating and distributing long-form video via the Internet, has revealed a content agreement with Ministry of Sound TV (MoSTV), the first digital content provider for dance music entertainment. Content from MoSTV, including behind the scenes access to music videos, interviews and footage from the Ibiza party season will be available on Azureus' video sharing site, Vuze, a broadband distribution platform. Vuze will feature a MoSTV channel with hours of exclusive content created specifically for this platform. Back to top
