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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday Friday 25th January
Orange pay TV on satellite
DVRs not damaging total ad viewing
Free downloads from CBS Radio
BBC, MySpace TV deal
ITV first fully ad-fund series
FilmFlex up
Ascent adds new channels to Euro roster
MGM HD for Verizon
Kamera and SNTV sports distribution deal
Melody Zen opts for Eutelsat
Top Up TV 250GB DTR
Orange pay TV on satelliteOrange is set to launch a pay satellite TV service for France in the coming weeks, Les Echos has reported. The group wants to be able to offer the service to all of its seven million broadband subs, many of whom are unable to receive TV via ADSL yet.
Orange IPTV currently offers pay-TV services supplied by Canal Plus, and an Orange owned and operated service would be a significant blow to them. This week Orange was among those bidding for premier soccer rights in France and told AFP "Orange needs content to bring out the value of its networks."
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DVRs not damaging total ad viewingDespite the growth in sales of digital video recorders, television viewers are watching more TV ads than ever before, according to Barb's full-year figures.
Total commercial impacts in the UK increased 3.9 per cent year-on-year to 2.25 billion a day last year, an all-time high. The average TV viewer now watches an average of 40 TV ads a day. And viewers are watching an extra 11 minutes more of commercials than they were a decade ago.
In November, Sky reported a record 14 per cent quarterly growth in subscribers to Sky+, up 323,000 on the previous quarter to 2.7 million. The service is now in almost a third of Sky homes, allowing viewers to skip through ads. Nonetheless the ad industry will also be buoyed by the news that two key demographics - 16- to 24-year olds and ABC1 viewers, have experienced a growth in impacts. Impacts for 16-24s increased by 1.5 per cent to 31 TV ads a day, while impacts for ABC1s increased by 3.6 per cent to 32 ads a day.Thinkbox, the commercial TV marketing body, attributed the growth to digital TV penetration, which has now reached 85 per cent of UK homes, and the growing attraction of digital channels among viewers.
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Free downloads from CBS RadioCBS said that it would expand its Internet music service, Last.fm, to allow users to listen to any song on their computers whenever they wanted, up to three times.
The move is expected to give a lift to the idea that music through the Internet can be similar to radio — free and supported by advertising — yet give users a choice of what they want to listen to.
Until now, Last.fm has offered what is known as Internet radio. Users could listen to a series of songs selected by the service on the basis of their musical tastes, but they could not choose individual songs. Under the new arrangement, users can search for and select any of 3.5 million songs to listen to on their computers through streaming. Any given song can only be played three times. And the free music cannot be downloaded to a portable player. Song downloads will be offered through a link to music stores, including Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com.
Ultimately, Last.fm will offer users the chance to buy a monthly subscription that will allow them to listen to songs as many times as they want.
The commercial arm of the BBC has made a partnership with to make some of its content available on MySpace, the News Corp networking site. MySpace said that the relationship was its first global agreement with a major broadcaster. The companies will share advertising revenue
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The BBC has already found some success syndicating content on YouTube, where its videos have garnered more than three million views since last February. MySpaceTV is the second most popular video Web site, behind YouTube."This partnership continues our strategy of putting BBC content right at the heart of where audiences spend their time and watch video online," Simon Danker, the director of digital media at BBC Worldwide, said in a statement.
The partnership is significant for the 13 local-language versions of MySpaceTV around the world, because MySpace’s previous collaborations with television networks have been restricted to certain markets. The BBC content will be available anywhere in the world on MySpace’s 23 regional sites.
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ITV first fully ad-fund seriesA series of Dog Rescue developed by ITV Customer Relations from a brief by Pedigree dog food’s media planning agency, will be paid for by the pet food company.The observational documentary, to be aired in a Sunday evening slot, is set in The Dog Trust in Harefield and Manchester Dog’s Home.
Additional content, including video, will also be available at itv.com. ITV said it was in active discussions with more than 30 brand owners, including telecoms, technology, automotive and utilities, to develop ad-funded programming.
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FilmFlex upFilmFlex’s fourth-quarter net income grew 6.2 per cent on lower subscriber-acquisition costs and higher revenue. The online DVD rental company reported net income of $15.8 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with $14.9 million, or 21 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 9.1 per cent to $302.4 million.
Netflix ended the fourth quarter with about 7.5 million subscribers, up 18 per cent from about 6.3 million at the end of 2006. The 2007 total was at the high end of the company's earlier guidance. Subscriber-acquisition costs, a closely watched metric for Netflix investors, fell to $34.60 per gross subscriber addition from $44.31 a year earlier and $37.91 in the third quarter. Average revenue per subscriber was $14.22, down from $15.87 a year earlier and $14.57 in the third quarter.
Netflix recently gave subscribers the benefit of unlimited streaming of about 6,000 movies and television episodes on their computers, for no additional fee. Chief Executive Reed Hastings said, "The emergence of a bundled service that enables our subscribers to receive DVDs through the mail fast and movies and TV episodes over the Internet instantly positions us to achieve solid growth in 2008 and over the long term."
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Ascent adds new channels to Euro rosterAscent Media’s Network Services has added six more channels to its European Transmission Centre (ETC) playout facility in London, including the first Disney branded HD channel Disney Cinemagic French language feed. The ETC now broadcasts a total of fourteen channels to a global audience in nine languages including German, Russian, Polish and French.
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MGM HD for VerizonMGM has secured carriage for its MGM HD Channel on Verizon’s FiOS TV service, bringing feature films from the MGM library to Verizon FiOS TV subscriber households in full HD. MGM HD will be rolled out in late 2008 across all of the Verizon FiOS TV systems.
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Kamera and SNTV sports distribution deal
Kamera, the Stockholm based web and mobile TV specialists, have signed an agreement with SNTV, the television sports news agency, to produce and distribute its content to new media customers worldwide.From March 2008, Kamera will take over the existing production of 10 sports news clips per day and manage the distribution of those videos to online and mobile customers worldwide. Kamera will also, in association with SNTV, produce special event packages for Euro 2008 and the Beijing Olympics. In addition, Kamera will market and distribute SNTV’s content to existing and new customers worldwide.
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Melody Zen opts for EutelsatMelody Zen, a new concept in well-being television, has chosen the Eurobird 9 satellite to deliver its signal across Europe in Full HD as well as standard definition in 16/9 format. The video signal is accompanied by three audio channels: MelodyZen 100 per cent pure natural sounds, MelodyZen Music and MelodyZen Well-being.
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Top Up TV 250GB DTRTop Up TV has unveiled its largest capacity Digital Television Recorder (DTR) yet. The 250GB Top Up TV+ Digital Television Recorder (DTR) gives consumers up to 180 hours of TV recording space. It joins the 160GB Top Up TV+ DTR that offers customers around 120 hours of recording space. The Top Up TV+ DTR provides consumers with Freeview channel access, and features ‘trick-play’ capability to pause, rewind and replay live TV. In addition, its digital twin TV tuners enable two channels to be recorded at the same time.
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Thursday 24th January
Nine bids in for French football
NBC invests in India
MTV Flux flops
Tiscali bids?
Sarkozy news plan panned
Networks to reach 71m homes by 2012
Sky One sinking
MPAA wrong on student pirates
Study shows demand for interactive TV
Amino joins the Open IPTV Forum
IDC licenses Cyphercast
Scopus for TVMAX
Nine bids in for French footballMobile operator Orange and video sharing site DailyMotion are among the nine companies that submitted bids in a tender for the rights to broadcast France's top-flight soccer matches over the next four seasons.
According to Les Echos, Orange bid for all of the 12 packages on offer. Pay-TV company Canal Plus submitted bids for 10 of the 12 lots on offer, while mobile operator SFR, also part of the Vivendi group, bid for the mobile and video-on-demand packages. DailyMotion has reportedly bid for the magazine and video-on- demand packages.
Other bidders are reported to include French private channels TF1 and M6, state-owned television France Televisions and DTT channel Direct8, which belongs to French financier Vincent Bollore.
The auction, held by France's professional football league, closes on January 31.
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NBC invests in IndiaNBC Universal paid $150 million (E103m) to purchase of a 26 per cent stake in New Delhi Television’s entertainment division, in a move aimed at exploiting the growing affluence of India’s middle-classes. Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal, said the deal was part of his declared strategy of doubling international revenues within three years.
The agreement in India allows NBC to buy up to 50 per cent of NDTV Networks in 2010, an option it expects to take up. "India will be a $5 billion television market by 2011, with a couple of hundred channels and a lot of cable -companies," said Pete Smith, president of NBC Universal International, based in London. "This deal gives us a bouquet of channels, particularly the Hindi language channel Imagine." NBC Universal has a target of reaching revenues in India of $400 million to $500 millio in the next four to five years.Last year, the company bought Sparrowhawk Media in the UK for $350m.
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MTV is shutting its UGC channel and replacing it with a one-hour timeshift of its main music service. MTV Flux, which launched in September 2006 in an attempt to tap into the burgeoning online community phenomenon, will be replaced by MTV One plus 1 next month.
The company intends to keep the MTV Flux online community alive and integrate the user-generated content concept into its MTV-branded music channels. Music channels MTV2, Base, Hits and Dance will begin to offer a weekly 30-minute show, with the working title Flux Me I'm Famous, that will cover the most popular celebrity news stories discussed by the online community.
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Tiscali bids?Tommaso Pompei, CEO of Tiscali, has said he expects its broadband opeartions the UK and Italy, to be bought up by rivals in the next two years. Pompei said he did not see many opportunities for Tiscali to buy rivals, and therefore it was more likely that the company’s UK and Italian broadband operations would be sold.
However, he said the company was not for sale, adding that he was focused on executing its 2008 strategy to report a net profit for the first time in its 10-year existence. Europe has experienced a wave of consolidation deals between companies providing high-speed internet access in the past two years. Pompei predicted a second wave of consolidation in the coming two years. "We do expect to be part of this process," he told the Financial Times.
He said Tiscali had previously received expressions of interest in its UK operations, although no negotiations were taking place.
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French president Nicolas Sarkozy may have to shelve his plans to launch an international news channel after Francophone broadcasters were unenthusiatic.
Sarkozy wants to merge existing English-language news channel France 24, Radio France Internationale and television channel TV5 Monde into a new service, France Monde. But his proposal has angered the backers of TV5 Monde, a joint venture between TV and radio broadcasters in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec. The channel, set up in 1984, is watched by more than 25 million viewers in more than 202 countries.
Fadila Laanan, the media secretary for French-speaking Belgium, has said that she will not fund a channel which primarily offers programming from France. Gilles Marchand, head of Swiss channel Télévision Suisse Romande, has threatened to pull out of TV5 Monde on the same grounds. Jean Charest, the prime minister of Quebec, has also said that TV5 Monde should continue in its current form.
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Networks to reach 71m homes by 2012Service providers are rapidly increasing their deployments of residential gateways for connected home applications, according to "Networks in the Home: The Global Service Provider Play." The report from Parks Associates forecasts the total number of households worldwide with service provider-deployed residential gateway solutions will grow to more than 70 million by year-end 2012.
"Service providers worldwide are scrambling to add value to broadband, communications, and other services," said Kurt Scherf, Parks Associates‚ Vice President and Principal Analyst. "Connected home strategies are focusing on advanced customer premises equipment and related services that provide significant enhancements to both subscribers and service providers. As 2008 International CES demonstrated, home networking products aimed at the service provider community are growing in sophistication as carriers seek to enhance the features and applications available to their subscribers."
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Sky One sinking
From Sanjeev Bhavnani in London
Ratings for the UK’s Sky One have sunk so low that Channel Five's digital outlet Five US came close to overtaking it last week. Five US, which specialises in American drama and comedy imports, posted an all-individuals share of 0.64 per cent against Sky One's 0.69 per cent in multichannel homes.When the share of Five US's +1 outlet - which broadcasts the same schedule, one hour later - is added to that of its main channel, it posted a combined share of 0.73 per cent, beating Sky One.
Along side sliding ratings, Sky’s main problem is it is not available on Freeview or Virgin Cable, following last years rate dispute. Sky One was the UK's most popular non-sports multichannel service for many years, before being overtaken by ITV2 in 2005. ITV2 is available on the Freeview digital terrestrial television service. Around 9.3 million UK homes were getting digital TV via Freeview by the end of September 2007, according to the latest Ofcom figures, compared with 8.1 million for Sky's pay-TV digital satellite offering and 3.4 million via Virgin Media's cable service.
Sky One still has top spot Sky Digital homes with a share five times higher than Five US at 1.5 per cent last week, compared with its rival's 0.33 per cent.
In a 2005 study the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 per cent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus. The MPAA used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation that would force them to do so.
Now the MPAA says "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 per cent of revenue loss.The original report, by research firm LEK, says the US motion-picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy world-wide, with most of the losses overseas. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the results.
Study shows demand for interactive TV
Ensequence, the interactive television company, has released the results of a survey that shows consumers are ready to change the way they interact with their televisions in 2008. According to the survey, 72 per cent of UK viewers indicated they are currently using their remote controls for simple tasks such as finding favourite programmes using the on-screen TV guide, scheduling or selecting DVR recordings and for viewing content on-demand. Now consumers are ready to take their television viewing experience a leap further and they want more from their cable and satellite providers in 2008.
Viewers want advanced interactive television functionality across every genre of programming and advertising: 72 per cent of those who watch reality TV shows want to interact with those shows. Sixty-five per cent of those who watch sporting events on TV want to interact with those events. Sixty-six per cent of viewers want to interact with commercial advertising. Fifty per cent of those who watch drama TV shows indicated that they would be interested in interacting with those shows.
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Amino joins the Open IPTV ForumAmino, the IPTV platform supplier, has been accepted as a member of the Open IPTV Forum, becoming the first British company to join. Forum Steering Group Chairman, Yun Chao Hu, announced Amino’s membership along with new members from nine different countries. All new members will share in the Open IPTV Forum’s objective to develop a new and complete set of specifications for IPTV.
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International Datacasting Corporation has entered into an agreement to license Irdeto's Cyphercast IP encryption technology. Under the terms of the agreement, the ongoing sales and development of the Cyphercast IP product as well as support for Cyphercast customers will transfer to IDC.
Additionally, this agreement enables IDC to combine the Cyphercast IP encryption technology with the Irdeto PIsys and FlexSMS products under a pre- existing reseller agreement where-by IDC would be the only supplier of Cyphercast IP Conditional Access Solutions.
Cyphercast is a secure smart card- or SIM-based conditional access system that is used to provide Internet Protocol (IP) level encryption and decryption of both file-based content and streaming media. As part of their SuperFlex broadband satellite networking solution offering, IDC has provided full end-to-end secure networks to their global customer base by integrating the Cyphercast IP encryption and subscriber management systems into their broadcast/uplink facilities and by providing a full line of advanced multimedia satellite receivers with built-in Cyphercast IP decryption. The combination simplifies network deployment and expansion by providing a proven and ready-to-install encryption and conditional access system for secure DVB-S and DVB-S2 broadband satellite broadcast distribution.
Scopus Video Networks has revealed that Texas-based TVMAX has purchased a complete headend solution (Piccolo) to support its migration to an all-digital network.
With approximately 100,000 homes passed TVMAX is a leader in providing cable services to MDU (multiple dwelling unit) housing communities in the greater Houston. The new Scopus installation will enable the company to deliver digital programming to subscribers securely and cost-effectively.
TVMAX will use Scopus' UE-9240 real-time QUAD MPEG-2 encoders to encode local channels while IVG-7102 Intelligent Headend Video Gateways will aggregate feeds for each multicast and perform grooming, rate shaping, and ASI-to-GigE conversion.
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Wednesday 23rd January
ONO fears pay DTT services
DAB boom at Xmas
TV Cabo has 80% of Portuguese pay market
State hastens China DTV
BBC3 ‘multi-platform’
Digital watermarking worth $500m by 2012
Amobee and Vodafone Italia ad-funded videos
Daum, Microsoft, Celrun IPTV in South Korea
EU against French Internet tax
DSG dumps analogue TVs
Coship eyes stake in Harbin
IMImobile mobile ad platform
ONO fears pay DTT services
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain’s biggest MNO, ONO has complained at the possible distribution of pay-per-view services through DTT threatening to take the case to court if the Government approves pay DTT as broadcasters are demanding.
The president Eugenio Galdon said that ONO will demand that government holds new public tenders to re-award the DTT licences, arguing that the current model approved by government does not allow distribution pay-per-view services.
Galdon explained that ONO did not apply for any licence at the time of public tenders because no pay-per-view services were allowed at that time. Over the last months, several pay DTT pilots have been taking place in Spain, with Mediapro, shareholder of the commercial TV channel La Sexta, one of the most enthusiastic broadcasters about pay-per-view services on DTT. Other TV stations like Tele 5 and Antena 3 are also backing the possibility of distributing pay-TV services through DTT.
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DAB boom at XmasAmid a gloomy season for retailers, DAB digital radio had strong Christmas sales, with one million products bought in quarter four 2007 in the UK. More than 550,000 DAB radios were sold in December alone, up 22 per cent on December 2006.
The DRDB (Digital Radio Development Bureau) says figures from GfK put cumulative sales of DAB sets at 6.45 million at the end of 2007, up from 4.4 million in 2006. This is in line with the DRDB’s forecast figure of two million set sales in 2007.
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TV Cabo has 80% of Portuguese pay market
Branislav Pekic from RomeAt the end of the third quarter of 2007, TV Cabo had nearly 80% of the Portuguese pay-TV market, but this share could soon increase to 85% due to acquisitions currently underway.
According to data from telecom regulator, Anacom, at the end of the 3Q 2007, the number of pay-TV subscribers stood at 1.926 million, out of which more than 1.5 million belonged to TV Cabo. However, if TV Cabo receives the go-ahead from Anacom to complete the acquisition of cable operators Pluricanal, Bragatel and TV Tel, TV Cabo will add more than 100,000 clients, bringing its market share to 85 per cent.
At the end of September, the number of subscribers receiving pay-TV services via cable totalled 1.5 million (around one million were TV Cabo clients), while DTH (satellite) subscribers totaled 458,000 (the huge majority belonged to TV Cabo).
Cabovisão, owned by Canada’s Cogeco, is the second largest player on the Portuguese cable TV market, with more than 200,000 clients. The remaining subscribers are distributed on regional cable networks.
The General Office of the State Council in China has issued "Policies to Encourage DTV Industry Development" to six ministries, giving strong support to the development of digital TV, and highlighting areas where telecom and broadcasting players can converge.
The six ministries include the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information Industry (MII), State Administration of Taxation, and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). The Policies will be implemented from February 1, 2008.
The policies re-state the official goals for DTV development: to broadcast the Olympic Games in digital high-definition in 2008; complete cable DTV conversion in most areas at and above the county level by 2010, and shut down analogue signals by 2015; realise the strategic shift of the domestic TV set industry from analogue to digital and boost annual sales revenue from digital TV sets.
BBC3 ‘multi-platform’BBC3 has unveiled plans to turn the channel into the UK's "most ambitious multiplatform network" with all its programmes to be simulcast on the Internet. The BBC has pledged "to put interactive ideas at the heart of the channel's schedule," with regular peak time slots given to user-generated content and viewers encouraged to upload clips of themselves introducing their favourite BBC3 programmes, with the best to be shown on screen.
Digital watermarking worth $500m by 2012
MultiMedia Intelligence has reported that applications leveraging content identification technologies such as digital watermarking and fingerprinting are growing rapidly and could surpass $500 million worldwide by 2012. Key applications include Internet and broadcast content monitoring, metadata association, copyright control, content protection and forensics, and interactive advertising.
"Non-linear media distribution requires new enabling technologies, beyond traditional encryption-based digital rights management," according to Mark Kirstein, president of MultiMedia Intelligence. "The growth of peer-to-peer distribution, social networks, and content piracy is accelerating the need for watermarking and fingerprinting."
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Amobee and Vodafone Italia ad-funded videosAmobee Media Systems has been selected by Vodafone Italia to offer ad-funded mobile video content to the operator’s 29.1 million Italian customers. The service, called FreeVideo, allows Vodafone Italia UMTS users to access a wide range of local and branded video content for free in return for receiving relevant commercial messages from major brands.
Amobee is providing the centralised ad-server to integrate relevant commercial messages. This service closely follows Amobee’s recent announcements with Vodafone in Spain, Greece and the Czech Republic, in which the company is enabling ad-funded peer-to-peer SMS and games as well as advertising on Vodafone Live.
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Daum, Microsoft, Celrun IPTV in South KoreaDaum Communications, Microsoft and Celrun are setting up a joint venture to offer IPTV services in South Korea. Daum, South Korea's second-largest Web portal and search engine company, will develop the IPTV content, while Microsoft will offer the latest version of Mediaroom. Celrun, a Korean digital device maker, will provide set-top boxes and other digital devices.
EU against French Internet tax
European media commissioner Viviane Reding has criticsized French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal to tax internet and mobile access. Sarkozy had proposed an "infinitesimal" tax to fund the removal of ads from public-service TV, creating a BBC-style broadcaster that would enrich French culture. But Reding said: "I believe the taxation of the new technology might not be the right way to arrive at the goal of seamless use of new communication by all citizens."
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DSG dumps analogue TVsUK’s DSG international has become the first retailer to terminate all purchases of analogue televisions and move to a 100 per cent digital television range. The Group’s high-street chains Currys, PC World and Dixons will begin to transition television ranges to digital-only with immediate effect. DVD recorders featuring analogue tuners will also be removed from the range.
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Coship eyes stake in HarbinDigital set-top box supplier Coship Electronics plans to purchase a 39 per cent stake in Harbin Cable TV Networks. Harbin Cable TV derives revenues mainly from cable DTV subscription fees, and premium television programming, as well as value-added services such as time-shifting of live TV, video-on-demand, and interactive games.
As Harbin races to complete TV digitalisation within the next two years, Coship will provide over a million terminal devices (including STBs) and invest heavily in a digital television interactive service platform and operations system.
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IMImobile mobile ad platformIMImobile, provider of value-added services to mobile telecoms operators and content owners, has commenced pre-launch trials of its ‘Ad-Ring’ mobile advertisement platform. Ad-Ring is a fully integrated mobile advertising platform providing an environment in which multi-format ad campaigns can be created and delivered to consumers via a range of mediums covering SMS, MMS, voice, WAP portal, caller ring back tone and video streaming. Furthermore Ad-Ring is delivered as a module within IMImobile’s ‘DaVinci’ service delivery platform and is provided as a fully managed service. DaVinci has enabled four billion user interactions worldwide in 2007 alone.
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Tuesday 22nd January
CMT backs Telefonica exclusivity in FTTH
HBO online
Sky responds to Mediaset’s challenge
MENA TV pirates outnumber subscribers tenfold
Murdoch, Packer bid for Consolidated
FCC tests broadband-over-TV
TRAI ready with mobile TV guidelines
COFI demands level field with DTH
Two Way and Pitch gaming venture
CMT backs Telefonica exclusivity in FTTH
From David Del Valle in MadridSpanish telecom regulator CMT has ruled that Telefonica is not obliged to share its new fibre optic network with other operators thereby reversing the current regime that obliges it to allow competitors access to its copper network.
The CMT accepted that regulation which governs copper wire should not be applied to the fibre optic systems as a lack of exclusivity could lead to a slowdown in investment. Telefonica had called on the CMT to relax the regulation applicable to copper networks when dealing with the new fibre optic network, which the group is constructing throughout the country to allow speeds of up to 100 megabytes. Nevertheless, the CMT stated that Telefonica will be obliged to permit competitors access to cable routes if they wish to lay their own fibre optic networks.
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This week HBO launches HBO On Broadband, a service that allows subscribers to stream HBO online and temporarily download titles on-demand. The service will be offered initially as a free add-on for Time Warner Cable subscribers in the mid West. Time Warner has 576,000 subscribers -- 365,000 of them digital -- in the Milwaukee area where HBO On Broadband is launching.
Initially available only to HBO subscribers, HBO On Demand offers a 700-kilobit-per-second live stream of HBO’s main feed. There’s also a rotating mix of theatrical titles and original programming -- some 400 total hours per month -- that users can download and keep on their hard drives for up to four weeks.
"This is part of our overall strategy of enhancing value for HBO subscribers by providing greater access to content," said HBO co-president Eric Kessler, who likened the launch to the company’s rollout of HBO On Demand in 2001.
The new service allows users to assemble and manage a library of downloads, as well as set parental controls, through a Microsoft Windows-based application. HBO is developing a separate Mac application and is looking at offering the service on Windows-based portable devices down the road.
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Sky responds to Mediaset’s challenge
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItalian pay-TV operator Sky Italia has responded to Mediaset’s new DTT pay-TV package Premium Gallery, by announcing more than 1,000 new movies a season, out of which 400 are premieres. In total, the channels carried by the DTH platform Sky Italia will air around 4,500 movies a year.
While Mediaset’s output deals with Warner and Universal will enable it to air TV series such as House, Law and Order, E.R. and Friends, the Fox channels carried by Sky Italia have the exclusive Italian rights to hit TV series such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and its spin-off Private Practice, as well as new series such as Mad Men, Cashmere Mafia.
Sky’s cheapest package, which includes entertainment, kids and news channels, costs E15 a month for a total of 52 channels.
Meanwhile, negotiations are underway between Mediaset and Sky for the carriage of the Premium Gallery pay-TV offer on satellite. Mediaset vice president, Piersilvio Berlusconi, has confirmed that he will soon discuss the issue with the head of NewsCorp for Europe and Asia, James Murdoch. Mediaset is also talking with leading Italian broadband operators.
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MENA TV pirates outnumber subscribers tenfold
Pay TV piracy is growing so fast across the Middle East and North Africa that the number of viewers watching Showtime’s service illegally is 10 times greater than the number of genuine subscribers, according to Emirates Business. Based on the average subscription for the basic package, this amounts to a loss of Dh39.6 billion a year for the satellite company across MENA region.
"It is a serious blow for our business," said Danny Bottoms, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of Pay TV service Showtime. "While we are on the one hand making a success in raising subscription levels, the pirates on the other hand are working hard to kill the market," he said.
Showtime commands more than 30 per cent of the pay TV market in the MENA region and its subscriber base is more than two million. He estimated 22 million people are watching the service illegally across the region.
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Murdoch, Packer bid for Consolidated
Lachlan Murdoch is joining forces with James Packer, in a bid of A$3.3billion (E2bn) bid for the late Kerry Packer's Consolidated Media Holdings. The company owns stakes in Channel Nine and its online offering ninemsn, pay TV outfit Foxtel, magazine group ACP, and the Seek jobs website.
If successful, Murdoch and Packer, the Consolidated Media Holdings deputy chairman, will each take a per cent stake in the new joint venture. Murdoch, who resigned as deputy chief operating officer of father Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 2005, would become executive chairman of the company. He is expected to remain a non-executive director of News Corp.
Consolidated Media Holdings has a 25 per cent stake in PBL Media, which owns Australia's second biggest TV network Channel Nine, magazine business ACP and a 50 per cent interest in ninemsn and other websites.
The company also owns 25 per cent of the biggest pay TV network Foxtel, 50 per cent of the Fox Sports pay TV channel, and 27 per cent of job website Seek. Private equity group CVC acquired 75 per cent of PBL Media last year.
The collaboration is the second time around for Murdoch and Packer. Their disastrous One.Tel Australian phone venture collapsed in 2001 after losing A$1bn.
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FCC tests broadband-over-TVThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed plans to resume testing prototypes of devices designed to transmit broadband service over unused portions of the broadcast TV spectrum.
The FCC last summer tried to test prototypes from Microsoft and Philips, but problems with the prototypes themselves and lack of success outside the laboratory resulted in the tests being abandoned. Later this month, the FCC will try again, testing prototypes from both Microsoft and Philips, as well as Motorola and Adaptrum.
Should the tests prove successful, device makers say they would plan to introduce commercial products after the switch to digital TV broadcasting in early 2009.
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TRAI ready with mobile TV guidelinesMobile TV in India is one step closer to reality since Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) confirmed it is to submit its final recommendations and guidelines on Mobile TV to the department of information and broadcasting this week. "TRAI’s recommendations will include issues like usage and allocation of spectrum bands, method of beaming content, details of licences like fees and validity command area of these licences and eligibility criteria." TRAI chairman Nripendra Mishra said.
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COFI demands level field with DTHThe Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) has said that there was no level playing field in the TV channel distribution industry, and it alleged there was a conspiracy to kill the cable operators business.
"There is no level playing field for DTH (direct-to-home) players and cable TV operators in India," Roop Sharma, president, COFI, "For instance, while there was no taxation imposed on DTH consumers till recently, cable TV consumers have always had to pay entertainment tax. Again, it is not clear why the rates for pay channels are 50 per cent less on the DTH platform and that much higher for cable TV consumers."
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Two Way and Pitch gaming venture
Two Way Gaming has revealed the formation of a strategic partnership with Pitch Entertainment, the gambling service provider specialising in digital TV and web content, and the creation of a new gaming brand in the UK, Pitch Gaming. Two Way Gaming has built a casino website for Pitch Gaming supported by a TV game show Pitch Roulette, broadcast on the Sky Platform. Pitch Roulette uses the interactive TV show to help draw in new customers who can then plug into the dedicated casino websites.
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Monday 21st June
YouTube dominates online video
Comcast chief under pressure
US households prefer free TV
DGA deal for online
Online rentals to rise
YouTube dominates online videoComScore has released its Video Metrix report for November 2007, indicating that more than 75 per cent of US Internet users watched a video online (including both streaming video and downloads), averaging 3.25 hours of video per person during the month.
Google sites, which includes YouTube, increased its video market share by more than two per cent to 31.3 per cent from October to November. Americans viewed nearly 9.5 billion online videos in November, with Google once again ranking as the top US video property with 3 billion videos viewed (31.3 per cent share of all videos viewed), 2.9 billion of which occurred at YouTube (30.6 per cent). Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 419 million videos viewed (4.4 per cent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 328 million (3.5 per cent) and Viacom Digital with 304 million (2.6 per cent).
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Comcast chief under pressureOne of the largest shareholders of Comcast Corp. wants chief executive Brian Roberts ousted. Describing Comcast's management and board supervision as a "Comcastrophe" -- playing off its advertising tagline of "Comcastic" -- Chieftain Capital Management wants better shareholder returns from the cable company.
"It's time for a change," Chieftain said in a letter to the company's board of directors. "We want and deserve the best CEO Comcast's board of directors can find -- and, based on his record, Brian Roberts is not it."
Shares of Comcast to $17.41, moving toward a four-year low. Chieftain owns 60.5 million Comcast shares, equivalent to two percent. Comcast said it has met with Chieftain, an investment adviser, but disagreed with its views and will answer the letter in due course.
John Shapiro of Chieftain, said his firm sent the letter after failing in other attempts to get management to change. "Their emphasis has been growth, not return to shareholders," he said. "There's nothing wrong with growth, but if you overpay for it, it dilutes the value to shareholders." Shapiro said Comcast has spent over $80 billion on acquisitions in the past decade, often paying more than 20 times operating cash flow. And he contended that Comcast spends money on things outside its core cable business, such as regional sports networks, Internet sites and the wireless spectrum.
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US households prefer free TVAlmost half of over-the-air US households reject moving to cable or DTH pay TV, instead preferring to receive free, over-the-air digital television by either purchasing a converter box or digital TV set, according to a recent Association of Public Television Stations study.
Roughly 43 per cent of over-the-air households indicated they would buy a converter box or purchase a digital TV between now and when the transition takes effect February 17, 2009, compared to 12 per cent who would sign up for a cable or satellite service, the survey found.
"This data indicates that free, over-the-air television may be set for a big comeback," said APTS President and CEO John Lawson. "Many people see broadcasting as a dinosaur technology, but we broadcasters have the opportunity to reposition it as ‘wireless TV’ and reach new audiences."
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DGA deal for onlineDirectors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers came to an agreement after six days of talks, the entertainment industry waits to see if the DGA deal gets the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP back to the table.
AMPTP president Nick Counter said in a statement. "The formal negotiations that led to this agreement were preceded by weeks of tough and candid informal discussions. In the end, though, both parties were determined to focus on the core issues that are most important to all of us, and the result is an agreement that breaks important new ground for our entire industry."
The terms of the three-year deal include increases in wages and residual bases for each year of the deal, DGA jurisdiction over programmes produced for Web distribution, a new residual formula for electronic sell-through that doubles the current rate and a new residual rate for ad-supported streaming on the Web.
Online rentals to riseABI Research believes that rental, download to own, and subscription models will all see significant traction but the greatest number of downloads will be through rental, in particular for online movie rentals. Overall online pay video streams for over-the-top video downloads will grow from 215 million in 2008 to over 2.4 billion in 2012, with rentals accounting for approximately half of these.
"The opening up of rental for video on iTunes is not surprising, given that is how most consumers looking for legal paid movie downloads will choose to acquire them," says research director Michael Wolf. "Distribution offerings for movies that are in attractive release windows and that offer easy viewing on a TV or portable screen will see the greatest success."
