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Our Latest Issues
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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday
Friday 19th December
Sky moves towards 3D broadcasts
Spanish Courts ‘disallow’ Regional DTT
C4 in talks with BBC Worldwide
RAI launches HDTV trials on DTT
Digital media grabs 10% of global media business
Bowe appointed Ofcom Chairman
Numericable, Orange, SFR to roll out fibre in France
Operators look to mobile TV to increase revenue
India finalises mobile TV policies
Digital TV sales boom
Motorola, SXBN integrated DTV platform
BrT unveils mobile TV service
ADB HD DVR for Télégenève
Sky moves towards 3D broadcastsSky says it has successfully tested the delivery of 3D programming to a domestic television via a high-definition set-top box. Sky has been filming a number of events using 3D cameras over recent months. Such broadcasts would require the use of 3D televisions, not yet available in UK stores, and viewers would need to wear 3D polarising glasses. Earlier this year BBC engineers broadcast a Six Nations rugby union international in 3D to an audience at a theatre in London.
Sky says it has gone further by showing that 3D could be delivered into homes, straight to its Sky+HD set-top box. Sky stresses this is not making a product launch, but a technology demonstration. "We have shown it is a technical reality. Now we have to find a way to bring it to viewers," said Sky's director of strategic product development, Gerry O'Sullivan,
The company showed clips from programmes it had filmed in 3D, including a boxing match, a rugby union international and an episode of Gladiators. O'Sullivan said major TV manufacturers were beginning to look at building 3D sets and at January's Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, a number of prototypes are expected to be on display. He explained that for broadcasters, the move to 3D would not be anything like as expensive as the investment the industry had made in high-definition television. "It's not hugely costly," he explained, "because it piggybacks on the investment in HD."
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Spanish Courts ‘disallow’ Regional DTT
From David Del Valle in MadridThe allocation of Regional DTT licences is coming under fire across the country following the decision of two Spanish Courts to overrule two DTT public tenders in Madrid and Canaries on the grounds that the licences were arbitrarily given in a process full of "irregularities".
Madrid’s Regional DTT map stands adjourned as the ruling overturns the specifications of the tender that granted 30 licences, most of them, to groups or companies connected with the City’s Administration.
In Canaries, a similar ruling also leaves DTT up in the air, with the Regional Government appealing against the Court’s decision which in its legal ruling it spoke of an "arbitrary" and "subjective" in the allocation of DTT licences. Madrid and Canaries are the provinces, along with Catalonia and Valencia, with the highest DTT penetration rates, 27.6 per cent and 21.2 per cent, respectively.
Other Regional DTT public tenders may suffer the same fate as there are increasing accusations of "favouritism" and "partisanship" against the Regional Administrations.
The situation is getting worse as Spain is approaching the analogue switch-off deadline, scheduled for April 2010. The alleged irregularities in the awarding of DTT licences are having a significant impact on existing TV networks like Prisa-sponsored Localia. According to the CEO of Prisa, Juan Luis Cebrian, the local TV network is closing down for several reasons: the confusing TV regulatory framework, the saturation of DTT licences, the delay in the awarding of licences and the political arbitrariness in the DTT public tenders.
To complicate matters there are the accusations of preferential treatment given to Abertis Telecom, shareholder in Hispasat and Eutelsat, to the detriment of Astra in the satellite distribution of DTT to 1.5 per cent of the Spanish population with no terrestrial coverage. This has also triggered a great number of appeals against Regional DTT public tenders that threaten to slow down the development of DTT.
Overall, DTT is currently present in 45.2 per cent of Spanish homes representing more than 7 million homes and 18 million people (more than 9 million homes and 23 million people including DTT distribution
through pay-TV platforms), according to Pro DTT Association Impulsa TDT.Today, 9.3 million people daily watch DTT, up 3.2 million viewers over the last three months, with an average daily TV viewing of almost two hours. For the first time, the average DTT's audience rating surpass pay-TV platform's with 20.2 per cent and 19.2 per cent respectively in November 2008.
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C4 in talks with BBC Worldwide
Channel 4 is reportedly in talks with BBC Worldwide over a possible rescue plan that would involve injecting up to £500 million (E634m) into a new media company. Under the plan, parts of BBC Worldwide would be split off, rebranded and combined with Channel 4, which would pay to take a share in the new business. The remainder of the BBC's commercial arm would continue to operate as it does now.
Combining Channel 4 with the BBC's 50 per cent share in cable channels UKTV, the 2Entertain business it shares with the rump of Woolworths, and other parts of BBC Worldwide, could solve the financial crisis facing the broadcaster, according to people on both sides. But they warn that discussions could still falter over the control of the proposed new entity.
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RAI launches HDTV trials on DTT
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItalian public broadcaster RAI has initiated the first Super High Definition transmissions in the new DVB-T2 standard for DTT from its Eremo Broadcasting Centre in Turin.
The DVB-T2 standard increases the transmission capacity by around 40 per cent (up to 34-40 Mb/s), enabling the transmission of 3-4 HDTV programs encrypted in MPEG-4 (in comparison to the 2-3 allowed by DVB-T) or even 1 Super High Definition 4K channel. Also, the HDTV services can be transmitted simoultaneously with the existing standard quality DTT and mobile TV (DVB-H) services.
The field trials in Turin will serve to test the features of the DVB-T2 system, both in terms of propagation as well as in regards to the robustness and resistence to interference in various operative conditions. Italy’s ScreenService and Spain’s SIDSA developed the DVB-T2 transmitter and receiver, respectively. The Super High Definition technology is expected to become available on the market in around ten years time.
Last September, RAI, together with Japan’s NHK and the UK’s BBC, won the "IBC Special Award" for the Super High Vision (SHV) project.
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Digital media grabs 10% of global media businessGlobal revenues from digital media will exceed revenue generated by filmed entertainment for the first time in 2008, according to research from Strategy Analytics.
The report, 'Global Media & Entertainment Market Forecast, 2004 – 2012', predicts that total worldwide revenues from media and entertainment – including television & filmed entertainment, recorded music, games software and advertising – will exceed $845 billion this year, with more than 10 per cent, or $90 billion, coming from online and mobile channels. In comparison, the global filmed entertainment market will generate $83.1 billion in revenues this year.The research concludes that total revenues from all online channels will grow on average at 18 per cent annually until 2012, while revenues from traditional media channels will grow at only 3 per cent a year over the same time period. The industry as a whole will experience growth of 5.8 per cent in 2008, but this will decline to 4.5 per cent in 2009 as a result of global economic conditions.
Martin Olausson, Director of Digital Media Research at Strategy Analytics, said, "The fact that digital media revenues now exceed those from movie theaters and home video supports the large online investments made by most major media companies."
David Mercer, VP Digital Consumer Practice, noted, "Like most industries, the media sector faces a challenging 2009. However, while revenues from traditional routes to market stagnate, digital business models still provide the growth opportunities that are vital to the industry’s future prosperity."
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Bowe appointed Ofcom ChairmanColette Bowe has been confirmed as the next chairman of media regulator Ofcom. Bowe, currently an Ofcom board member, will replace David Currie, who is stepping down at Easter next year after being in the job for six years, since the regulator was set up. Bowe was appointed as chair of Ofcom's advisory consumer panel in 2003 and moved onto the main board earlier this year.
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Numericable, Orange, SFR to roll out fibre in France
Numericable, Orange and SFR signed an agreement setting out the conditions for sharing fibre optic cables in buildings installed by either of them. The companies agreed to implement a ‘single mode’ solution in zones where they currently deploy, or soon plan to deploy, their networks. Each residence will be equipped with a special fibre allocated to the operator chosen by the subscriber at the shared access point.They also agreed to deploy ‘multi mode’ fibres in the 15th arrondissement of Paris and in a provincial town; a new engineering technique consisting of installing four fibres per residence so that each operator can connect to their network at the shared access point. This agreement is open to all other operators who want to become involved.
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Operators look to mobile TV to increase revenueMobile TV is a viable option to increase revenue for mobile operators suffering from declining voice revenue, and is expected to have nearly 250 Million subscribers worldwide by 2010, according to 'Global Mobile TV Forecast’ from RNCOS. The research expects the number of Mobile TV subscribers worldwide to rise at a CAGR of over 60 per cent through 2010.
According to the report, the marketplace for Mobile TV will vary from country to country and will be shared between TV services offered through cellular network (e.g. 3G) and broadcast methods (e.g. DVB-H).
Mobile TV over cellular network is expected to score immense growth, with nearly 155 Million subscribers worldwide by 2010. Subscribers will be concentrated in most of the developed and some developing countries. The number of TV broadcasting service users is projected to reach around 95 Million by 2010 on the back of growing availability of broadcast-enabled phones and increasing auction of Mobile TV standards.
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India finalises mobile TV policiesThe Indian government is considering a policy to allow the opening up of terrestrial television broadcasting so as to enable operators to offer mobile TV services. The proposed policy will cover all issues such as licensing, regulatory mechanism, cross-media restrictions, foreign investment and sharing of infrastructure, according to Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had in January this year recommended a composite foreign investment limit including FDI of 74 per cent for mobile TV services while reiterating its earlier recommendations for a complete review of FDI policy relating to carriage of electronic media as a whole so that it is consistent across all sectors. The Authority also recommended that foreign investments up to 49 per cent may be permitted automatically, beyond which FIPB approval will be required.
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Digital TV sales boomSales of digital TVs have hit record levels as cash-strapped households swap nights out for in home entertainment. Figures released by Digital UK show that in the year to October 2008, UK consumers bought nine million televisions. This figure is up almost 10 per cent on the same period in 2007. Ninety per cent of televisions purchased in October 2008 were digital, the highest proportion ever recorded.
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Motorola, SXBN integrated DTV platformMotorola has confirmed that its set top producing subsidiary in China, Hangzhou Motorola Technologies (HMT), has signed a strategic cooperative agreement for its integrated Digital TV (DTV) platform with one of China’s largest broadcasting operators.
Under the terms of this agreement, HMT and the Shaanxi BC & TV Intermediary (SXBN) will establish a joint laboratory to design integrated DTV hardware platforms and software solutions that will provide digital video and information services as well as unified user interfaces for all DTV subscribers in Shaanxi. Aimed at improving SXBN’s operational efficiency and performance, this lab will position SXBN as China’s only broadcast operator to own a wholly integrated DTV platform. In addition, the lab will conduct further research on the future demands for DTV and value-added services platform.
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BrT unveils mobile TV serviceBrazilian telecoms operator Brasil Telecom (BrT) has launched a new mobile TV service. The service will deliver programming adapted for mobile phones and is available through an application compatible with nine handsets within the operator's 3G portfolio.
People wishing to access the service will need to acquire one of three packages BrT is offering - a 30 minutes viewing package, one for two hours, or a 24-hour subscription with prices ranging from BRL1.90 ($0.79) to BRL7.90. The channels available include CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids, Band, Band News, MTV Brasil, Whoohoo and Sexy TV.
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ADB HD DVR for TélégenèveAdvanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) has delivered the ADB-5810CX, high definition cable set-top box with digital video recorder to Télégenève for the launch of its new HDTV service in Geneva and Valais regions. The units will be marketed as the "DriveBox HD" under the Télégenève brand known as naxoo.
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Thursday 18th December
Digital TV close to 90%
Cable freezes digital migration
UK pay-TV "better placed than rest of Europe"
Demand grows for remote access to stored content
blinkx offers rich metadata solution
DLNA OKs MoCA
Bleak outlook for 2009 Web ad-spend
Four options for C4 funding
Jupiter rises in November
Joost hosts music content
Digital TV close to 90%Findings released by UK comms regulator Ofcom indicate that 88.2 per cent of households have digital TV on their main sets, up from 84.8 per cent on the year.
Other key findings in Ofcom’s Q3 digital television update reveal that the total number of households with digital terrestrial television (DTT) reached 17.2 million, up from 16.7 million during the quarter.
Among digital pay-TV services, BSkyB grew its customer base by 87,000 to almost 9.1million subscribers during the quarter, with the number of BSkyB customers subscribing to its High Definition (HD) services standing at 591,000 (6.5 per cent of subscribers) up from 498,000 during the quarter.
Cable operator Virgin Media increased its number of subscribers by 37,700 to approaching 3.6 million households; almost half (49 per cent) of its customers were using its video on demand (VoD) service There were 45 million VoD views over the period, up by 17 per cent on the quarter.
There are 617,000 households with free satellite services, down from 840,000 on the previous quarter. Of these, around 100,000 were taking the BBC/ITV free satellite service of which 73,000 units (68% of sales so far) were HD enabled.
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Cable freezes digital migrationThe US cable industry has agreed to halt the transition of nearly all channels from analogue to digital tiers during the first two months of 2009 to minimise potential consumer confusion about the federally mandated switch-off of over-the-air analogue TV signals on February 17, 2009. National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) president Kyle McSlarrow revealed the plan in a letter to Washington lawmakers.
"We applaud cable operators coming forward to help consumers make the transition to digital television with less confusion and at a lower cost," said the Consumers Union. "This initiative is a welcome first step to help consumers navigate a costly maze of confusion surrounding the DTV transition. While the cable effort doesn’t resolve long-term consumer problems with high prices and discriminatory practices, it should offer welcome short-term relief to many consumers."
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UK pay-TV "better placed than rest of Europe"According to analyst firm Screen Digest’s Head of TV, Guy Bisson, Sky TV’s pay television business in the UK is well placed to weather a recession. Bisson believes the company will maintain its customer growth, control churn and maintain ARPU. Other pay-TV operators in Europe will not be so fortunate: Spain is already showing the effects of the recession in its pay TV and cable business and France, Italy and Germany will soon follow suit.
According to Bisson, free-to-air digital terrestrial TV will be least affected by the recession as its growth prospects are closely tied to analogue switch-off schedules not the economy. The highly competitive Eastern European pay TV markets will see consolidation in their crowded markets as the recession bites and the aggressive price strategies employed by many become untenable.
Meanwhile, Ronan de Renesse, Head of Mobile, suggests that as consumers start to reduce their mobile phone bills, premium content such as TV and VoD will be the first to go. With their planned launches of entertainment on hold, operators and handset manufacturers will offer more ‘free’ bundled subscriptions, using music content as a value-add to attract and retain customers and aggressively pushing mobile broadband as a viable alternative to fixed line Internet.
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Demand grows for remote access to stored content
One-third (33 per cent) of US broadband households are looking for ways to access their stored media content from outside the home, according to international research firm Parks Associates. The firm reports 35 per cent of these households consider remote viewing a highly appealing ability.
This demand for remote access will guide future networking plans among service providers, Parks Associates reports. The firm forecasts that over 50 million households worldwide will be using place-shifting solutions outside the home by 2012.
"Home networking is expanding beyond routers, access points, and residential gateways to include advanced set-top boxes," said Kurt Scherf, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Parks Associates. "The home has many new devices enabling multiroom, multiplatform access to content, and service providers such as Verizon and AT&T have developed robust multiroom DVR strategies to build and reinforce their subscriber base."
The research firm notes that the sphere of content access will continue to expand and currently there is no coherent strategy to facilitate remote viewing of content stored in the home. As a result, third-party vendors have moved into this space, hoping to establish themselves within this developing market.
"Service providers are experimenting with different ways to provide remote access to content," Scherf said. "As the mobile phone becomes an integrated communications and multimedia platform, we expect remote access to be a significant part of the bundling strategies for all major providers. We will watch closely as service providers develop and test different strategies to leverage the set-top box platform to facilitate two-way content flow between the home and portable devices."
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blinkx offers rich metadata solutionVideo search engine blinkx has unveiled an Enhanced Metadata Enrichment solution for publishers, as part of the blinkx Advanced Media Platform. Based on patent-protected technology, the blinkx Advanced Media Platform enables media publishers and aggregators to manage and monetise video content to its greatest potential.
"An Enhanced Metadata Enrichment solution does more than just help publishers and content owners better ‘tag’ their videos," said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. "The information derived from the video using our Enhanced Metadata Enrichment can help them with a host of challenges, including improved video SEO, enhanced relevance for site search, and providing distribution partners with consistent information on the videos. Ultimately, the greater the search- and discover-ability of videos, the greater the opportunity for monetisation."
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The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has approved the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) technology standard for incorporation into the next version of its Networked Device Interoperability Guidelines, scheduled for release in early 2009.
The guidelines aim to ensure that network operators and consumers can be assured that new services and products introduced into the home can be seamlessly connected to create high- quality, entertainment experiences. MoCA joins Wi-Fi and Ethernet as the only LAN technology standards approved for inclusion in the DLNA Interoperability Guidelines.
"At the end of the day, home entertainment networking is all about sharing and distributing," said Charles Cerino, MoCA president. "DLNA, like MoCA, is an enabling organisation dedicated to making the home network experience simple and easy for the consumer."
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Bleak outlook for 2009 Web ad-spendA report by research firm eMarketer has forecast that UK Internet ad spend growth will diminish by more than 50 per cent in 2009 and predicted that the digital media sector will not fully recover from the economic downturn until the London Olympics in 2012.
eMarketer predicts that the Internet will continue to outperform other media with positive growth in 2009, but will still take a "big hit" as advertisers tighten up on all forms of marketing expenditure. The report states that 2009 will be a "very tough year" for UK digital media. In May, the firm was forecasting 17.2 per cent year-on-year growth in 2009 for the sector – now it has cut this by more than half to 7.2 per cent, or £3.58 billion (E3.89 billion).
The research company added that the UK online ad market should improve again within two years, "but slowly". eMarketer forecasts 10 per cent year-on-year growth in 2010 to £3.94 billion, and a 12.3 per cent rise in 2011 to £4.43 billion.
However, in 2012, the year of the London Olympics, digital growth will surge by 14.6 per cent year on year, to just more than £5 billion, according to eMarketer. The rate of growth will slow the following year, to 10.8 per cent – but the UK digital media market will still be worth £5.62 billion.
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The UK government is considering four options to solve Channel 4's funding crisis, including privatisation and a potential tie-up with BBC Worldwide.
Lord Carter, minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, is likely to outline his proposals when the interim report of his Digital Britain panel is published at the end of January. Ofcom is scheduled to publish the recommendations of its public service broadcasting review around the same time.
It is understood that Carter will identify four options for the future of Channel 4, which has claimed it will suffer a funding gap of £150 million a year by 2012 because of the advertising downturn and structural change in the industry because of the rise of digital media. These options are understood to be privatisation, a merger with Channel Five, a tie-up with BBC Worldwide, or further public subsidy to keep it afloat.
The BBC has been privately lobbying heavily against the idea of any formal tie-up between BBC Worldwide and Channel 4, telling ministers that its rival would not bring anything to the table and that any merger would not get past European regulations.
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Jupiter rises in NovemberJupiter Telecommunications, the largest multiple system operator (MSO) in Japan based on the number of customers served, has revealed that the total subscribing households as of November 30, 2008 served by J:COM’s 18 consolidated franchises reached 2.92 million, up 282,600, or 10.7 per cent since November 30, 2007.
Combined revenue generating units (RGUs) for cable television, high-speed Internet access and telephony services reached 5.26 million, up 593,300 or 12.7 per cent since November 30, 2007. The bundle ratio (average number of services received per subscribing household) increased to 1.80 as of November 30, 2008 from 1.77 as of November 30, 2007.
The cable television digital migration rate as of November 30th, 2008 increased to 77 per cent from 66 per cent as of November 30th, 2007.
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Joost hosts music contentOn-demand TV site Joost has signed a distribution deal with nine independent music labels and two major aggregators to boost the editorial content section of the service.
The deal adds 18,000 music videos, live performances and interviews to the site. In addition, the site has partnered with music community site Last.fm, specialist site 88HIPHOP and video interview site Uncensored Interview.com for editorial content.
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Wednesday 17th December
Virgin targets BitTorrent users
Google: we’re for net neutrality
Pirates target Telefonica’s Brazilian DTH platform
Thesps against piracy
VUDU Internet application platform
HDTV ownership up, HD consumption down
Polish cellcos joint bid for DVB-licence
NetPlay TV Freeview Channel
Tata Sky reaches 3m
Zodiac Interactive EBIF Players
Virgin targets BitTorrent usersVirgin Media has confirmed that it will introduce network monitoring technology in 2009 to specifically target and restrict BitTorrent traffic.
The move will represent a major policy shift for the ISP/cable provider. Virgin Media currently temporarily throttles the bandwidth of its heaviest downloaders across all applications at peak times, rather than targeting and shaping specific types of traffic.
Virgin argues that its current ‘traffic management’ policy allows it to ensure service quality at peak times for 95 per cent of customers while still allowing peer-to-peer filesharers to download large amounts of data.
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Google: we’re for net neutralityGoogle has said it is committed to principles of equal network access, after a report said it approached Internet carriers with a proposal to create a "fast lane" for its content. Google's telecom and media counsel in Washington, Richard Whitt, said in a company blog that the search powerhouse offered to place its servers within the facilities of Internet service providers, making its data closer to consumers and therefore more easily accessed. But Whitt said the offers did not violate so-called net neutrality -- the principle that phone and cable companies that operate data pipelines should treat all traffic equally.
Google was responding to a Wall Street Journal report stating that its practices would put at risk its stance on network neutrality. The company said providers should be able to bolster access speeds through co-location and caching, both techniques that ease data traffic, as long as they do so without discrimination. "However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation," he said.
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Pirates target Telefonica’s Brazilian DTH platform
From Branislav Pekic in RomeLaunched last year, Brazilian DTH platform Telefônica TV Digital, which has some 280,000 subscribers in the State of São Paulo, has become the target of pirates.
According to the Brazilian Association of Pay Television Operators (ABTA), the Nagra 2 encryption system, used by Telefonica, has been hacked by pirates. The encrypted channels are now being received from the Amazonas satellite (61 °W) free of charge, using the Azbox, a digital box manufactured in South Korea which costs BRL 500 (around USD 250). It seems that the hackers uploaded the access codes for the pay-TV channels on the internet, which can then be transferred to the digital box via a pen drive.
Although the encryption system was hacked up to six months ago, Telefonica believes that the proportion of pirate access on its subscriber base is still small. The director for Latin America, Pedro Luis Planas, says that the access codes are now being changed once a week, with a software solution for the problem expected in one months time.
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Thesps against piracyMembers of Britain’s film-making elite are calling on the government urge ISPs to help stop movies being illegally traded online, warning some 800,000 jobs are at risk during the downturn. The group said in a letter to The Times:
"We are very concerned that the successes of the creative industries in the UK are being undermined by the illegal online file-sharing of film and TV content... In relation to illegal downloads of TV programmes, the UK is the world leader, with up to 25 per cent of all online TV piracy taking place in the UK. Popular shows are downloaded illegally hundreds of thousands of times per episode. We are asking the government to show its support by ensuring that internet service providers play their part in tackling this huge problem."
It continues "Internet service providers have the ability to change the behaviour of those customers who illegally distribute content online. They have the power to make significant change and to prevent their infrastructure from being used on a wholesale scale for illegal activity. If they are not prepared to act responsibly, they should be compelled to do so."
The writers apparently have backing of the British Film Institute, Bafta and PACT who didn’t sign up to this summer’s agreement for ISPs to warn abusive downloaders.
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VUDU Internet application platform
VUDU has launched its VUDU RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform, a standards-based platform that brings Web-hosted rich applications and services to consumer appliances such as the popular VUDU Internet movie player. RIA combines the openness and ease of development of Web applications, lightweight hardware requirements compatible with today's consumer Internet appliances, and a lean-back user experience optimised for television.
VUDU has created an initial set of applications and services in a new area of the VUDU home page, called VUDU Labs. Available to all VUDU users, the applications include casual games, implementations of Flickr, Picasa and the entire YouTube library, as well as a new ‘On Demand TV’ area with more than 120 channels.
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HDTV ownership up, HD consumption downTwo recent independent studies by research firms Leichtman Research Group and Frank N. Magid Associates have concluded that more than one-third of Americans who own a High-Definition Television (HDTV) are not currently watching HD programming. The same studies note that HDTV ownership has increased nearly 50 per cent in US households over the past year.
Polish cellcos joint bid for DVB-licence
Poland’s four mobile operators have united to bid for a DVB-licence. According to Wirtualne Media, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC), P4 (Play), Polkomtel and PTK Centertel (Orange) will each hold a 25 per cent stake in the new joint venture. The move follows a ruling last week by Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) that said it would not be anti-competitive.
The Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) is currently holding a tender for a spectrum licence to broadcast DVB-H services; applications are due on 15th January 2009.
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NetPlay TV Freeview ChannelNetPlay TV, the interactive gaming company, has confirmed the acquisition of a DTT licence to operate a 24 hour Freeview Channel. NetPlay TV plc is the first interactive gaming company to secure a dedicated Freeview channel. With effect from 8th January 2009 the Company will broadcast its services, including Supercasino.com and Live Bingo on Freeview Channel 48.
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Tata Sky reaches 3mNDS, provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, has revealed that Tata Sky, provider of Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite pay-TV services in India, has achieved a major milestone in reaching 3 million subscribers within a period of just 27 months. The latest 1 million subscribers were gained in just seven months. The Tata Sky platform is protected and powered by an end-to-end suite of NDS solutions.
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Zodiac Interactive EBIF PlayersZodiac Interactive has released ETV/EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) player for PowerTV and tru2way. With EBIF emerging as a standard for interactive TV and advanced advertising, this player will help advance the deployment of standards-based interactive television experiences. Zodiac Interactive and Ensequence have been working together to ensure that Ensequence's Create authoring software fully supports the EBIF player for PowerTV, and that the Player is fully compliant with the CableLabs ETV/EBIF IO4 standard.
Canoe Ventures, the joint venture among six cable operators to develop advanced advertising services and technologies, has adopted EBIF as the initial platform for the rollout of addressable and interactive TV advertising. EBIF players are required to reach more than 40 million existing digital cable TV subscribers.
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Tuesday 16th December
Virgin Media launches 50Mb service
SES Americom IP-Prime fails
BT Phorm trial concludes
Online video shifts from PC to TV screen
Global standard for networked home
China plans fibre network
Series stacking on Virgin
Swisscom FTTH
Virgin Media launches 50Mb service
From Colin Mann in LondonQuad-play service provider Virgin Media has launched the UK’s first 50Mb broadband service, which it proposes to roll out to all 12.6 million homes covered by its fibre optic network during the Summer of 2009. By the end of 2008, Virgin Media aims to have completed deployment to 40 per cent of the network.
Neil Berkett, Virgin Media’s CEO, said the roll out represented the dawning of a new era of high-speed services in the UK and was just the beginning of what the broadband provider would offer its customers in the years to come." We are seeing the next class change in the way digital services are brought to the home." He described the launch as "not evolution; it’s a revolution."
He denied that Virgin Media was lagging behind European broadband counterparts, some of which had recently announced 100Mb deployments, and that it was going no further than it needed to stay ahead of main market competitor BT. "We’re trialing 100 megs and above in the labs already. We’re happy that 50 is the right step change," he said. Berkett expected four million customers to be using services at 10Mb or above by 2011/12.
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SES Americom IP-Prime failsSES Americom will cease providing its IP-Prime service, which provides a complete IPTV programming transport solution to North American telcos, by July 31st 2009, due to "slow adoption" of IPTV in the region as well as the "difficult market outlook" for the service.
IP-Prime offers a range of programming in standard- and high-definition for North American telcos wishing to offer IPTV services without investing in their own costly headends, and counts AT&T among its customers in the region.
"In line with its plan, IP-Prime has contracted IPTV signal delivery agreements with 70 small telecom operators, of which 37 have so far reached commercial stage," said Rob Bednarek, President and CEO of SES Americom. "However, with a subscriber base of less than ten thousand at the end of November and after more than 2 years of service, the consumer uptake is insufficient to justify continuing operations."
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BT Phorm trial concludesBT has concluded its delayed trial of the controversial behavioural ad targeter Phorm and hopes to roll out the service to its ISP customers. Phorm told the market: "The trial achieved its primary objective of testing all the elements necessary for a larger deployment, including the serving of small volumes of targeted advertising. There will now be a period of joint analysis of the results. Following the successful completion of analysis, both of the trial results and of any changes required for expansion, BT has informed the company that it expects to move towards deployment." BT still hasn’t made any public announcement.
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Online video shifts from PC to TV screenWhile today's consumer is most likely to watch online video on the PC screen, over time more and more consumers will watch over-the-top video delivered to the living room, according a new study from ABI Research. This continued trend towards TV-viewed online video will help drive overall adoption, as the number of online video viewers grows from 563 million at the end of 2008 to 941 million by 2013.
"All stakeholders in the online video ecosystem are eyeing the living room," says research director Michael Wolf. "With the continued adoption of network-connected video game consoles, the porting of popular online video services such as Hulu and Netflix onto third party consumer electronics devices, and network operators' growing interest in over-the-top video, we see this market for TV-displayed online video continuing to grow."
"There is a continued maturation in the various advertising models for online video," continues Wolf. "At the same time, hybrid models such as those offered by Netflix's instant viewing service or pay models such as Apple TV will also grow in importance. Also, while the economic environment will have some negative near-term impact on online video advertising CPMs, ABI Research sees overall viewing of online video growing over the next few years as it is a fairly resilient and somewhat counter-cyclical form of low-priced entertainment."
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Global standard for networked homeThe first global standard offering an in-home, high-speed network capable of delivering room-to-room HDTV has been agreed by ITU.
The standard, published under the G.hn banner, promises high quality multimedia over power, coaxial, phone and other home network wiring. It will give up to 20 times the throughput of existing wireless technologies and three times that of existing wired technologies.The specifications will be used by chip manufacturers to build transceivers that can be incorporated into set-top boxes, residential gateways, home computers, home audio systems, DVD players, TVs or any other device that might be connected to a network now or in the future. Experts say that silicon companies will immediately start incorporating the specifications into transceivers, implying that G.hn-compliant products could be on the market as early as 2010.
Joyce Putscher, Principal Analyst at market research firm In-Stat, said, "Service operators have been looking for an international standard that encompasses multiple existing-wire mediums for video distribution. G.hn meets that requirement and it seems clear that with significant industry backing from service providers, semiconductor and equipment vendors, and the fast rate at which the process is moving to achieve a standard, we will see first equipment by 2010."
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China plans fibre networkChina has confirmed that it will build its first high-capacity optic fibre network nationwide, which is able to carry Internet, TV and phone services through one network. The Ministry of Science and Technology signed an agreement with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on building the national network. The backbone network of the new net will have a bandwidth of 1,000 G bits, comparing with the current one of 1 G bits. It will allow every user in the network to have a 100-Mb per second access to the Internet rather than the existing 1-Mb access, said a ministry press release.
A regional network has been built in the Yangtze River Delta and put on a trial run for one year covering about 30,000 users. But the nationwide programme is still at a very early stage. The agreement did not mention the timetable of construction nor the cost."
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Series stacking on VirginThe BBC iPlayer’s series stacking feature – allowing Viewers to stream any episode, after it has first been broadcast, for the duration of an entire series. - is now available on Virgin's digital cable TV service.
The ‘series catch up’ option has been added to the iPlayer's cable home screen, bringing functionality that has been present on the web version of the content-on-demand system since September to 3.7 million cable viewers.
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Swisscom fibre-to-the-homeSwisscom has started connecting Swiss homes to its fibre-to-the-home network and expects to have hooked up 100,000 homes by the end of 2009. The company has already laid out a fibre-to-the-node network to neighbourhoods and fibre-to-the-office to large companies, and has now started work on connecting homes with fibre-to-the-home in Zurich, Basel and Geneva. Swisscom plans to further extend the network in 2009 to include residential FTTH connections in the cities of St. Gallen, Berne, Fribourg and Lausanne.
The first fibre-based broadband services will be commercially launched for residential customers and SMEs in the first half of next year.
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Monday 15th December
Televisa bails out La Sexta
Broadcast technology confidence falls
Digital radio switchover by 2020?
Entertainment-at-home services on the up
China to grant 3G licences
BBC pilots iPlayer sharing with Telegraph
Tudou streams 100m vids per day
AAM secures E43m of financing
Premier Rugby for Sky and Setanta
RIM to acquire Chalk
SCM and Hirsch to Merge
Televisa bails out La Sexta
From David Del Valle in MadridMexican TV group Televisa is injecting an extra E52 million into the Spanish commercial network La Sexta, in which it has a 40 per cent share, taking its total investment of more than E265 million by the end of 2009.
The injection forms part of a capital enlargement of E130 million with E78 million being provided by its other shareholders, GAMP (Imagina, Chascarrillo, BBK, Bainet, Torreal), with 51.0 per cent and Gala Capital, with 9.0 per cent.
The channel has failed to meet its initial financial expectations that included an investment of E500 million until the end of 2009 when it was supposed to reach breakeven, and an average audience share of 7 per cent (in October it achieved a 6.2 per cent).
Its battle with rival network Sogecable over FTA football TV rights and the sharp advertising drop, estimated at 17 per cent this year, have hit the channel hard.
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Broadcast technology confidence fallsConfidence amongst senior executives in the supply side of the broadcast and media technology sector has declined markedly according to an IABM Industry Trends Survey. The survey, undertaken in conjunction with Ernst & Young polled the views of some 80 senior executives in IABM member companies around the world.
According to IABM Chief Executive Officer Roger Stanwell, the extended period of growth in the sector may be coming to an end and responses to our survey suggest that suppliers are now expecting much more challenging times over the immediate period ahead.
Confidence has gone from positive to negative for the first time since the survey started in 2005 and 43 per cent of respondents expect the situation to be deteriorating in a year from now compared to 13 per cent who think it will be improving. The view reflects the late cyclical‰ nature of the sector where large projects have momentum and so an adverse economic situation takes time to impact but similarly may make the sector late in recovery. It is also indicative of the massive growth in the broadcast market over the last 18 months, buoyed by the quadrennial events the Olympics, US election and other live events, and the shift towards digital infrastructures and HD.
Order volumes and values have weakened over the last quarter and although selling prices were stable in Q3 2008, cost prices have continued to show upward movement resulting in squeezed margins. This is predicted to continue. The political/economic situation and project/order deferral by customers are cited by 57 per cent of respondents as limiting factors on order growth.
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Digital radio switchover by 2020?The body set up by the government to secure the future of digital radio in the UK is expected to predict that switchover for the medium could be completed by 2020. The final report by the Digital Radio Working Group comes at the end of a series of meetings between representatives of commercial radio, the BBC, Ofcom, community radio and manufacturing and consumer groups, according to sources.
The various parties were brought together by the government to map out a timetable for digital radio, which has been beset by uncertainty over the future of one of its key methods of delivery, digital audio broadcasting (DAB). But despite the setbacks - which saw Channel 4 pull the plug on its DAB ambitions and a host of digital stations shut down, the DRWG is expected to say that the migration of most radio content to digital could be completed by 2020.
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Entertainment-at-home services on the upParks Associates has reported that almost 66 per cent of US consumers have altered their spending habits in the fourth quarter of 2008 as a result of the country's deteriorating economic conditions. These changes have the greatest impact on entertainment spending outside the home, according to Digital Media Evolution, a consumer survey from Parks Associates, but also open new areas for growth in customer support services.
The project found that as consumers cut spending on outside sources, this trend creates greater dependence on at-home entertainment services, creating new opportunities for broadband, communications, and entertainment providers in offering customer support, self-diagnostic, and troubleshooting solutions.
"For household services such as Internet and pay TV, recessionary concerns have less impact," said Kurt Scherf, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Parks Associates. "Consumers are more likely to cut back on outside entertainment expenses before trimming household services such as home telephone, pay TV, and Internet."
Digital Media Evolution reports US consumers are most likely to cut their spending on dining out, travel, and out-of-home entertainment. Additionally, nearly 50 per cent indicate that they will be spending less on consumer electronics because of economic conditions.
Parks Associates advises providers to take back-to-the-basics approaches to revenue growth and cost savings. The firm reports that service provider costs for supporting home networks alone could total hundreds of millions of dollars annually. By implementing self-diagnostic and troubleshooting solutions and building remote support capabilities, service providers can turn customer support from a liability into an opportunity, reducing OPEX costs initially and growing revenue-generating customer support businesses in the long term.
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China to grant 3G licencesChina's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology confirmed that the country will issue third generation (3G) mobile licences by the end of 2008 or early next year.
Minister Li Yizhong said at a media briefing that China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have prepared well for 3G licensing. "After the proper procedures, we will grant the 3G licences by the end of this year or early next year as promised." Li estimates that network investment of the three major Chinese telecom operators will amount to over $29 billion, which will stimulate China's economy and help to fend off the financial crisis.
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BBC pilots iPlayer sharing with TelegraphThe BBC is planning to share some of its content with the Telegraph Media Group in a deal that could see the iPlayer video catch-up service embedded on the Telegraph.co.uk website. Described by the BBC as a "non-exclusive pilot scheme", the content-sharing venture could eventually be rolled out to other newspaper groups as part of the corporation's plans to create new partnerships with other media organisations. Reports say that TMG approached the BBC about a deal to share content that could lead to an embedded iPlayer service on the Telegraph’s TV reviews page.
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Tudou streams 100m vids per dayGary Wang, CEO of Chinese online video site Tudou, has revealed that YouTube clone Tudou currently serves more than 100 million videos a day and that the site has over 80 million unique viewers per month.
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AAM secures E43m of financingArts Alliance Media (AAM), Europe’s leading provider of digital cinema technology, has signed agreements E43 million of funding from pan-European services company Econocom and various private investors, together with a long term strategic partnership agreement with Arqiva for the satellite distribution of films into European cinemas.
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Premier Rugby for Sky and SetantaPremier Rugby has announced that live domestic television broadcast rights contracts had been agreed for the Guinness Premiership with Setanta and Sky Sports. The new 3 year deals will commence in the 2010/11 season and will see the number of live televised Guinness Premiership games more than double the current 33 to 69 a season.
Setanta will broadcast 43 live Guinness Premiership games a season including a Guinness Premiership Semi Final and the Guinness Premiership Final. Sky Sports will broadcast 26 live Guinness Premiership games including a Guinness Premiership Semi Final.
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Research In Motion (RIM) is to acquire Chalk, a publicly-held company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, in an all-cash transaction. Chalk is the developer of Mobile chalkboard, an award-winning application suite that enables the rapid creation and secure deployment of media-rich ‘Pushcasts’ to BlackBerry smartphones.
SCM and Hirsch to MergeSCM Microsystems and Hirsch Electronics have entered into a definitive agreement to merge. The combination of SCM and Hirsch is expected to result in a new security products leader at a time of escalating market demand for converged security solutions leveraging smart cards and smart chip-enabled devices.
