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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday
Monday 24th December
Convergence Think Tank established
Bertelsmann: no to remainder of RTL
Sky expands leading movie download service
Carlyle buys stake in Numericable
China's IPTV industry looks beyond 2007
Orange scores with Setanta deal
Sogecable acquires rights to Euro 2008
China DTV subs 23.6m, IPTV subs 1.14m
US awareness of switchover grows, education still needed
AT&T mobile TV service ASAP
Telefonia Bonairiano Caribbean IPTV service
DSL Forum advances BroadbandSuite Release 3.0
UTStarcom's RollingStream for Markwell
Convergence Think Tank established
From Colin Mann in LondonUK Culture Secretary James Purnell and Business Secretary John Hutton have confirmed that an expert think tank looking at the opportunities and challenges posed by the merging of broadcasting and communications services will begin work early in the new year.
The Convergence Think Tank (CTT) will examine the implications of technological development for the media and communications industries, and the consequences for both markets and consumers. It will have a key role in helping to shape future policy development in relation to these sectors, which include TV, radio, mobile and fixed telecoms and online services.
Purnell, who announced plans for the convergence think tank in his speech to the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention on 13 September 2007, said it would "bring together expertise from the worlds of broadcasting, telecommunications and internet services to consider the opportunities and challenges we might face."
Ofcom, as the independent regulator for the communications sector, will provide input and advice to all aspects of the Think Tank’s work. In addition the steering group will draw on the experience and knowledge of a number of leading experts with a wealth of experience of both the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors who will act as a sounding board in its deliberations.
The aim is for the CTT to reach its conclusions early in 2009. Its findings will inform Government on the possible need for changes to the existing public policy and legislative framework which governs the sector.
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Bertelsmann: no to remainder of RTL
German media group Bertelsmann said it decided not to buy the remaining 10 per cent of European broadcaster RTL Group it does not already own because of legal uncertainties. But Bertelsmann retains the right to increase its stake in RTL and to consider all options to reach its aim to delist RTL shares from the stock exchange.
The RTL Group noted the announcement and confirmed thagt the Board of RTL Group would continue to manage the company for the benefit of all the shareholders, and was looking forward to further strengthening further its leading positions in television broadcasting, radio and production.
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Sky expands leading movie download serviceSky is to significantly increase the range of movies available for customers to download after agreeing terms with Paramount and Warner Bros. The agreements mean that Sky Anytime on PC will be the first online download service to offer the latest movies from all six major movie studios.
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Carlyle buys stake in NumericableUS investment fund Carlyle is set to acquire a 35 per cent stake in French cable operator Numericable, formerly known as Noos, and which has almost total dominance in the French market.
Numericable's current shareholders are Altice with a 30 per cent stake and Cinven with 70 per cent. In a joint statement, the three funds said Carlyle and Cinven will each hold a 35 per cent stake in Numericable and Altice 30 per cent.
Numericable provides voice, Internet and TV services to around 10 million French homes.
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China's IPTV industry looks beyond 2007
China’s IPTV market this year is falling short of expectations, both in terms of subscriber growth and equipment shipments, according to iSuppli Corp. Subscribers on the mainland are expected to total only 846,000 by the end of 2007, compared to Chinese IPTV operators' expectations of 1.3 million. The overall pace and scale of IPTV deployments have been disappointing this year.
Four operators now have IPTV licenses in China: Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China Central Television International (CCTV), Nanfang Broadcast Media (NBM), and China Radio International (CRI). SMG was the original IPTV pioneer in China and is the only operator actively pursuing IPTV deployments.
As the first IPTV licensee, SMG partnered with China Telecom (CTC) and China Netcom (CNC) to introduce IPTV services in Shanghai and Harbin respectively in 2006. The final outcome of these deployments has been widely regarded as a key barometer of the industry’s prospects.
SMG had planned to expand IPTV to multiple cities in 2007. The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) approved SMG’s launch of IPTV services in 10 cities: Fuzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian Province, Taizhou in Zhejiang Province, Xian in Shannxi Province, Hanzhong in Hubei Province, Shenyang, Dalian and Panjing in Liaoning Province and Mudanjiang and Heihe in Heilongjiang Province. However, local operators experienced difficulties promoting IPTV services. Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces enrolled about 100,000 and 30,000 subscribers respectively, but the other locations did not come close to meeting their assigned targets.
Meanwhile, the other three IPTV licensees chose to pursue a cautious wait-and-see strategy. CCTV has announced plans for IPTV field tests in Baotou in Inner Mongolia, in Changchun in Jilin Province, and in Nanjing in Jiangsu Province.
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Orange scores with Setanta dealOrange has signed a content agreement with leading international sports broadcaster Setanta, to be the first mobile operator in the UK to broadcast Setanta Sports 1, Setanta Sports 2 and Setanta Golf on its mobile portal, Orange World.
Orange will be the only UK mobile operator able to stream live coverage of every televised match of the Barclays Premier League, by adding all of Setanta’s televised games. As well as providing access to additional Barclays Premier League games, Orange mobile customers will now also be able to live stream all Clydesdale Bank Premier League and Blue Square Premier televised games, as well as have access to other sporting events available on the select Setanta channels which include the PGA Golf Tour and Magners Rugby League.
The Setanta package will be available to Orange mobile TV customers with a 3G handset for a subscription fee of £5 (E6.90) per month.
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Sogecable acquires rights to Euro 2008
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Sogecable has acquired the exclusive rights to broadcast the Euro 2008 football tournament in Spain. The pay-TV group will broadcast all 31 matches on its digital DTH platform Digital Plus, with all games featuring the Spanish national team being available on its free-to-air channel Cuatro, with a nation wide coverage.
The move comes at a time when the fight with Mediapro, shareholder in La Sexta, over TV rights to the Spanish Football League, is intensifying. The latest episode of this battle comes from a Spanish court decision, ordering Mediapro to comply strictly with the deal reached with Sogecable back in 2006, which prevented the company from exploiting TV rights to football teams outside the deal.
Audiovisual Sport, owned by Sogecable with a 80 per cent stake, had accused Mediapro of breaking that contract, giving rise to the present legal battle. The ruling is the latest in the dispute between the two over the TV rights for Spanish football’s Primera Liga.
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China DTV subs 23.6m, IPTV subs 1.14mChina Netmedia, a consulting arm of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) has revealed that as of November 31, 2007 the number of cable DTV subscribers in China reached 23.65 million. The figure represents a year-on-year increase of 81.3 per cent and growth of over 200 per cent in the last 4 years. During the same period, IPTV accumulated 1.14 million subscribers, but IPTV growth has dropped from a high of 480 per cent in 2005 to 110 per cent.
By November 2007, 68 cities (including 7 provincial capitals, 39 municipal-level cities, and 22 county-level cities) had completed cable DTV conversion, with the penetration rate of cable DTV reaching 24.33 per cent. The biggest obstacle to DTV conversion is the high level of fragmentation and lack of interoperability between cable DTV operators for each city.
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US awareness of switchover grows, education still neededAccording to a survey by Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), there is growing awareness of the nation’s February 2009 transition to digital television by US TV broadcasters. However, the group of Americans with the lowest level of awareness about the transition includes those that are most deeply affected – households that receive television programming exclusively over the air.
Major findings of the CTAM survey show that 48 per cent of US households are aware of the digital TV transition, compared to just 29 per cent from a survey taken in July 2005. Of those who are aware of the DTV transition, 38 per cent said they’d learned about it from TV; 26 per cent had read of it in the newspaper; and 20 per cent had heard about it from friends or family. Fifty per cent of households that watch TV exclusively over the air said they don’t know where to turn for information about the transition.
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AT&T mobile TV service ASAPUS telco AT&T said it plans to launch its long-planned live mobile TV service "as early as possible" in 2008, citing efforts to improve the user experience as the reason behind the delay. AT&T confirmed the MediaFLO-based service will launch with eight live, linear channels: CBS Mobile, Fox Mobile, NBC2Go, NBC News2Go, ESPN Mobile TV, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
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Telefonia Bonairiano Caribbean IPTV serviceTelefonia Bonairiano (Telbo), a telco in the Caribbean island of Bonaire, has launched an IPTV service under the name of 'mitv', becoming the first telco in the Caribbean to launch IPTV.
The service was developed by Telbo along with Savant Communications, a Caribbean-based technology and project management consulting firm, and Manycast Consultancy, a provider of content, strategy and marketing consultancy services in the Caribbean and South/Central America. The service offers around 110 broadcast channels, as well as 50 audio channels, pay per view (PPV) and video on demand (VOD).
The mitv service is intended to be the showcase model for Telbo partner telcos, which operate in an additional 24 countries, which are expected to roll out in early 2008.
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DSL Forum advances BroadbandSuite Release 3.0Focused on enhancing the remote management capabilities in regards to IPTV devices, the DSL Forum has confirmed the approval of its latest Technical Report, TR-135 Data Model for a TR-069 Enabled STB and the amendment of the industry recognised TR-069.
Closely following the release of BroadbandSuite Release 2.0, these new specifications are cornerstone to the pending Release 3.0, which will raise the bar to address triple-play augmented via VDSL2, GPON and bonded DSL over a QoS-enabled Ethernet architecture. Release 3.0 will also provide support for multicast to enable IPTV streaming as well as integrated remote management of Set Top Box (STB) and attached storage devices. The full release is tentatively scheduled to complete late 2008.
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UTStarcom's RollingStream for MarkwellUTStarcom, a global player in IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and services has signed a contract with Markwell to deploy its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution in Taiwan. Markwell, a provider of cable, content and Internet services will utilise the end-to-end RollingStream system to deploy IPTV-enabled triple play services throughout Taiwan.
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