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Our Latest Issues
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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday
Friday 21st March
IPTV households to grow 50%+ annually to 2012
Japanese ISPs ally for anti-piracy
IPTV and SDV market to reach $9.8bn in 2011
Intelsat revenue up, still losses
More ad breaks for UK TV?
Comcast On Demand booming
BBC wins F1 title
FCC ruling opens door for satellite
Verizon's FiOS TV expands content
SRS Labs STB business unit
IPTV households to grow 50%+ annually to 2012The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008 Edition reveals that as a whole, an estimated 13.2 million households received IPTV service in 2007 with nearly 8.4 million IP-enabled set-top boxes shipping worldwide. IPTV households are forecast to grow 52.2 per cent annually though 2012.
Shane Walker, research analyst and author of the study, states, "The increasingly competitive pay-TV landscape with proliferation of new content, triple/quadruple play offerings, and new Internet-based TV services is one of the main factors behind IPTV household growth. Another important factor is the rapid uptake of IPTV services in China and South Korea as governments relax regulations restricting deployment and as telcos become more involved with expanding IPTV services."
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Japanese ISPs ally for anti-piracyJapan’s major Internet service providers (ISPs) have joined forces in an anti-piracy alliance to terminate the contracts of users who are repeatedly engaging in piracy. The announcement was made by the Telecom Service Association and the Telecommunications Carriers Association of Japan who will, from April 2008, take joint action against repeat offenders.
According to reports in Japan, the ISPs will come up with their procedures in cooperation with copyright organisations, including the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers as well as the Association of Copyright of Computer Software. Under the provisional terms of the agreement the most likely course of action will be to send pirates a notice that they have infringed copyright, then bring in a period of suspension if they break the law again. The final sanction would be a termination of contract.
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IPTV and SDV market to reach $9.8bn in 2011The combined IPTV and switched digital video (SDV) market is forecast to reach $9.8 billion worldwide, according to Infonetics Research’s IPTV and Switched Digital Video Equipment, Services, and Subscribers report.
"With each quarter, the battle for video subscribers gets more heated," said Jeff Heynen, analyst for IPTV at Infonetics Research. "Buoyed by the success of rollouts by Orange, Free, Neuf, Fastweb, PCCW, Telefonica, and China Telecom, IPTV service providers continue to build out headends and spend on IP set-top boxes to aggressively court video subscribers. Meanwhile, North American cable MSOs, such as Comcast and Cablevision, are leading the charge in switched digital video, to free up bandwidth and offer more HD content to their subscribers."
The report also highlights that total worldwide IPTV and SDV equipment revenue hit $1.1 billion in Q4 of 2007 and the number of IPTV subscribers is set to top 97 million worldwide by 2011.
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Intelsat revenue up, still lossesIntelsat has reported record annual revenues of $2.183.1 billion for 2007. But the satellite operator still recorded a net loss of $192 million. In Q4 it posted record revenues of $575.5 million with a loss of $2.6 million.
CEO Dave McGlade said: "In 2007, Intelsat demonstrated the ability to deliver revenue growth, improved operating profit margins and positive free cash flow from operations even as we made significant investments in our fleet. Our fourth quarter results provided a strong finish to a good year, with revenue growth in excess of seven percent over the prior year quarter after excluding our legacy channel service offering."
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Media regulator Ofcom has proposed increasing the number of advertising breaks allowed on UK television. Ofcom has suggested scrapping a rule that requires 20 minutes of programming between advertising breaks on commercial channels. The regulator is also considering giving channels the right to decide how often they want to show ads, the newspaper said.
Ofcom said: "(We) recognise the possible concerns of viewers about the amount and intrusiveness of television advertising and particularly welcomes their views. On the other hand, Ofcom must also take account of the contribution made by advertising revenue to paying for the choice of television services that viewers enjoy." Commerical broadcasters have pushed hard for the changes as their revenues fall in response to the rise of Internet TV.
Comcast On Demand boomingUS telco Comcast has revealed that its Signature On Demand service claims more than seven billion VOD views and one billion hours watched since launching in 2003. Each month a total of 130 million hours of content is watched through the service.
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BBC wins F1 title
From Colin Mann in LondonIn a surprise move, the BBC has secured the television rights to show Formula One in the UK from the 2009 season. The five-year deal marks the return of the sport to BBC screens 12 years after rival commercial broadcaster ITV began broadcasting Grands Prix.
A new five-year exclusive deal understood to be worth around £200m across TV, radio, broadband and mobile has been signed between the BBC and Formula One Administration Ltd. It will run from 2009 to 2013, inclusive, replacing ITV's existing deal, which was due to run until 2010. An ITV spokesman said the decision to exit Formula One at the end of this season was "a straightforward commercial decision for ITV".
The contract covers all platforms and will see F1 broadcast on the BBC Sport website, as well as on TV and radio. F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said he was "delighted", adding that the BBC has some innovative ideas to consolidate and expand F1’s UK fan base." Among the new developments will be live video coverage of F1 on the BBC Sport website. Ironically, ITV had only recently announced that it had clinched a deal with Formula One Management (FOM) to acquire the UK online rights for Formula 1.
Dominic Coles, BBC Sport director of sport rights, confirmed that Ecclestone had approached the corporation about the return of F1 to the BBC, and promised Formula One fans uninterrupted coverage from BBC Sport, across all its TV, radio and new media platforms, for the first time since 1996. Since ITV took over coverage of Grands Prix in 1997, it has been criticised for the timing of its commercial breaks during live action and inconsistent scheduling of practice sessions at events in non-European time zones.
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FCC ruling opens door for satelliteDBS operators have a significant opportunity to gain market share in the pay-TV space thanks to a recently upheld FCC ruling on multiple dwelling units according to the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association. Now that The National Cable and Telecommunications Association's motion to stay the FCC's November 2007, order has been denied, satellite providers are in a good position to add new MDU subscribers. In the ruling, the FCC prohibited exclusivity provisions in MDU agreements by either incumbent cable operators or telco video providers, going so far as to invalidate existing exclusivity clauses.
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Verizon's FiOS TV expands contentFiOS TV customers now enjoy even more home entertainment choices as Verizon has expanded its video-on-demand offer with programmes from CBS, Discovery Channel, Smithsonian Channel, Ovation TV and more. Verizon has also announced new VOD content that features college basketball tournament programming.
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SRS Labs STB business unitSRS Labs, provider of surround sound, audio and voice technologies, have formed a new business unit that will specifically focus on providing and developing solutions for STB (Set-Top-Box) applications on a worldwide basis. This is in a close partnership with leading MSOs (Multiple System Operators) and OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) worldwide and in continued cooperation with the leading IC vendors (NXP, STMicroelectronics, Broadcom, and Conexant) to integrate SRS technologies onto STBs.
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Thursday 20th March
Cable main broadband competitor
Canal+ probed over TV channel contracts
Mobile search revenues $4.8bn by 2013
Italian regulators investigate football rights
Rai Quattro to launch in June
CBS online ad net
Web TV on TiVo
Poland prepares for mobile TV
Shanghai IPTV growth
CASBAA urges digital transformation
Local TV for Freeview?
Sun Direct deploys Harmonic solutions
Cable main broadband competitor
Figures from industry body Cable Europe, claim broadband Internet connections via cable grew 22 per cent in 2007, cementing the sector as the main competitor to telcos.
Cable Europe says the industry is investing strongly in the future of its fibre-coax network with a CAPEX ratio of 24 per cent. The latest cable technology (DOCSIS 3.0) already enables download speeds up to 200 Mbps.
Cable is different from alternative service providers as it doesn’t need to use the network of the telecom incumbent to service its customers. It says broadband internet connections rose to 15.6m in 2007 from 12.8m the previous year.Caroline van Weede, Managing Director of Cable Europe: "Telecom regulators focus on designing rules to give alternative service providers access to the incumbent network. Given the clear customer appeal of cable, we are asking regulators to take into account the dynamics and investments in cable and infrastructure based competition."
Canal+ probed over TV channel contracts
France's competition council has launched an investigation into exclusive broadcasting contracts between pay-TV operator Canal+ and certain specialist channels. The inquiry stems from a complaint lodged last year from French group AB claiming Canal+ has blocked its channels from being broadcast on certain broadband Internet services. Canal+ a unit of Vivendi, has exclusive contracts with around 50 thematic channels, which means they are bundled with a subscription to Canal's pay-TV service.
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Mobile search revenues $4.8bn by 2013Annual revenues generated by mobile search services are expected to reach $4.8bn by 2013, according to a report from Juniper Research. Whilst revenue generated by data charges associated with mobile search is significantly higher than that generated by mobile advertising at the present time, the gap will close over the next five years as the relatively young mobile advertising market establishes itself. It also finds that local search services will be the most popular with advertisers, attracting 40 per cent of mobile search adspend over the 2008-2013 period.
The report found that the China/Far East region will generate most revenues from mobile search services over the next five years, followed by Western Europe and North America. However, the report cautioned that an "advertising overload" might act as a disincentive to consumers and might ultimately limit adoption, while there are continuing public concerns over search engine usage of personal data.
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Italian regulators investigate football rightsItalian antitrust officials are set to probe into the competition-related aspects of a new law that dictates how Italian football television coverage is shared.
The investigation is the latest in a series of moves against the controversial law, which was passed in January, just before the collapse of the Italian government led by Romano Prodi. The aim of the law was to provide a fairer distribution of income among football clubs in order to lessen the advantage that big-city teams have over rivals from smaller urban areas. But critics of the law said it smacks of government intervention.Chief among the critics is Sky-Italia, which filed a complaint with the European Union charging that the new law's introduction of collective bargaining rights on football broadcasts beginning with the 2010-11 season gave an unfair advantage to Silvio Berlusconi-controlled broadcaster Mediaset.
Sky-Italia outbid Mediaset to own the lion's share of football broadcast rights. The company believes that the new law will give Mediaset another chance to regain some of the rights it lost. Italy's football broadcast market is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.
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Rai Quattro to launch in June
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItalian public broadcaster RAI is to launch a dedicated channel for teenagers on digital terrestrial and satellite by the end of June. RaiSat director, Carlo Freccero, said that Rai Quattro will be the "iPod of RAI viewers". He added that the programme schedule has already been defined, but that the financials still had to be concluded. The new channel will be dedicated to "metropolitan culture" – i.e. TV series from the USA and Italy, cartoons, musical as well as interactive programmes. RAI has earmarked E4 million for the first six months.
Meanwhile, all of RaiSat’s thematic satellite channels have registered a significant growth in audience figures. From April 2007 to February 2008, Rai Sat Cinema has seen an increase of 48 per cent, Extra by 20 per cent, Premium by 8 per cent, Rai Sat Sport by 65 per cent and Rai News 24 by 15 per cent. RAI is targeting E6 million in revenues in 2008 for its three pay-TV channels (Cinema, Extra and Premium).
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CBS online ad netTelevision stations owned by CBS are launching an online advertising initiative with local bloggers and social media sites. The ad network will involve CBS-owned TV stations generating online modules called "widgets," which individuals can easily add to their Web sites. The widgets will contain local news as well as advertising, which the CBS stations will sell. The online partners will receive a share of the revenue, but specific financial details weren't disclosed.
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After installing TiVo’s Desktop Plus PC software, users will be able to subscribe to RSS feeds of their favorite Web shows. Users will also be able to transfer home videos from their computers to their DVRs.
"Through the addition of new applications such as Web video, we continue to build toward our goal of making TiVo the one-stop shop for content, through one box and one integrated user interface," said Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager of content services for TiVo, in a statement. "With our combination of premium content available through Amazon Unbox, millions of songs via Rhapsody and, soon, YouTube videos, we feel like we're connecting consumers to entertainment in a way no one else can."
The Web-video application only works with Windows PCs for now, although the company said it is working with Roxio to enable Mac compatibility.
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Poland prepares for mobile TVThe Office of Electronic Communications (OEC) is expecting the first commercial offers of mobile TV to appear in Poland this year, Anna Strezynska, the President of OEC confirmed. "I think that mobile TV will emerge this year because it already exists. Local tests give very promising results. About 12 channels of good quality can be provided by mobile networks."
Strezynska emphasised that the programmes will not have to be converted and formatted for mobile networks. "We have all news programmes and popular movie channels – it is only a matter of conducting a tender," she added.
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Shanghai IPTV growthShanghai Telecom's IPTV promotion launched in mid-January has been declared a success with as many as two or three thousand new subscribers signing up each day between February 7th and now. Shanghai Telecom's Internet official Yang Bingfeng added that he is confident that total user numbers will reach 800,000 before the end of the year.
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CASBAA urges digital transformationThe Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has released its "Digital Vision: India in 2012" report in New Delhi, providing an overview of the opportunities for rapid development of India’s digital broadband and television industries. The CASBAA Digital Vision report also provides an assessment of India’s pay-TV environment, along with recommendations for senior policy-makers on promoting the growth of India’s digital communications services.
By the end of 2007, cable systems were India’s largest wired network, connecting almost 60 per cent of Indian homes with wireline access. The reach of the cable industry will continue to grow, with more than 100 million Indian homes expected to be connected by cable networks by 2012.
"With 71 million homes wired, digital television and broadband networks are set to play a vital role in India’s economic development just as they did in Japan, Europe, the US and elsewhere. With private investment waiting in the wings to increase high-speed digital capacity for cable TV, the benefits for consumers and economy stand to be enormous," said Simon Twiston Davies, CEO of CASBAA.
"The report notes that the phenomenal advantage of India’s rapid cable TV growth is at risk of being eroded by overly intrusive regulations. The industry in India is looking for ‘lighter-touch’ regulation appropriate for the creation of a world-class digital infrastructure as well as broadband take-up," added Davies.
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Local TV for Freeview?Over 120 MPs have shown their support for plans to introduce a UK wide local channel on Freeview, by joining the United for Local Television coalition. The designated local television network on the Freeview platform, Channel 6, could carry local news, programming, advertising and networked public service content. United for Local Television put forward that local TV would be more focused on local content than current regional output on the BBC and ITV.
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Sun Direct deploys Harmonic solutionsHarmonic has confirmed that that Sun Direct TV has deployed Harmonic's digital video solutions for India's first MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast service. Harmonic has enabled Sun Direct TV to offer its new DTH service to 40 million homes in southern India by providing an end-to-end solution encompassing the latest generation DiviCom Electra encoders, DiviTrackIP statistical multiplexing, the ProStream 8000 digital mosaic solution and NMX Digital Service Manager. Sun Direct TV's new service was launched in early 2008 with 120 standard definition channels, and the operator plans to add high definition in the near future.
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EU ‘requires DVB-H promotion’
ITV plays catch-up
Irish music v ISP showdown
Satellite leads European digitalisation
Sky gets Champions League
US indecency goes to Supreme Court
Netplay buys Bingo
RR goes HD
EU ‘requires DVB-H promotion’
The European Commission has formalised its adoption of DVB-H and says EU countries will ‘be required’ to promote it. The Commission said setting the Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld as the preferred European Union standard would give the industry a boost. "For mobile TV to take off in Europe, there must first be certainty about the technology," European Commissioner Viviane Reding said.
The Commission executive said its decision sent "an important signal" to other countries preparing to decide whether to opt for DVB-H or other standards. Some EU member states, such as Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, had been opposed to setting DVB-H as the single standard in the bloc. But the EC said on it was the one most widely used in Europe and is between trials and commercial launch in 16 countries.
The GSM Association said it was staying neutral on mobile TV technology as it should be the market that decides on the standard.
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ITV plays catch-up
ITV is to revamp its broadband catch-up TV offering and is considering rebranding the online video service less than a year after it first launched. The overhaul of the 30-day catch-up service, a key part of ITV.com's overall broadband TV service, will be followed by the first major marketing campaign to drive usage since launch at the end of July. The ITV system has been left standing by the BBC’s iPlayer.
Navigation improvements to the catch-up TV service will include introducing the ability to search for programmes in different ways, such as by genre, as well as highlighting more prominently popular shows viewers might have missed on TV.
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Irish music v ISP showdown
Major record labels - marshalled by the Irish Recorded Music Association - are suing Ireland’s largest internet provider, Eircom, arguing it lets customers use its network to illegally share songs. They want Eircom to install filtering software, but the ISP is set to argue it has no obligation to do so. The case is set to mimic a ruling won by Belgian copyright group Sabam in July, when ISP Scarlet, was ordered to install Audible Magic software to monitor its P2P traffic and block sharing of unauthorised files.
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Satellite leads European digitalisation
From Colin Mann in LondonRecent research from satellite operator SES Astra has revealed that 83 per cent of the satellite TV households in Europe and North Africa are digitised. This is more than four times more than in cable where in average 20 per cent of all households are digital. With a share of 58 per cent of all Including satellite, cable, terrestrial TV and TV over DSL. digital households satellite represents the most popular digital reception mode. The findings formed part of the Luxembourg company’s annual Satellite Monitor.
Of the 239 million analogue and digital TV households counted across the examined 35 countries in Europe and North Africa, nearly 100 million are digital, out of which 56.8 million are digital satellite households. 41.1 million of these homes receive digital services directly from Astra or Sirius satellites. Over 99 per cent of European satellite TV channels are digital. Overall the combined satellite systems of SES Astra and SES Sirius serve 117.2 million analogue and digital homes in Europe and North Africa. 50.3 million of these homes receive their signals directly from Astra or Sirius satellites (Direct to home, DTH). The other 66.9 million homes receive signals through a satellite feed to cable head-ends.Alexander Oudendijk, Chief Commercial Officer of SES Astra, said that satellite remained one of the fastest growing TV infrastructures and had increased its reach over the last five years, across the 35 countries measured, by 50 per cent.
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Sky gets Champions League
Sky scooped the majority of the TV rights to Champions League football until 2012, after tabling a blockbuster bid estimated at more than £240m (E333m). UEFA made the announcement after the broadcaster comprehensively outbid three rivals in order to secure exclusive rights to all but one match per round of games from the start of the 2009-10 season.
The live rights to the most attractive match on a Wednesday night remain up for grabs, with ITV and the BBC expected to fight it out. The terrestrial broadcasters, together with Five, will face further competition from Sky when the second round of bids are opened later this week.
The pay TV operator was determined to retain the rights, partly to make up for the loss of the FA Cup and England internationals, previously shared with the BBC but now snatched by ITV and Setanta, from this August.
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US indecency goes to Supreme Court
For the first time in 30 years, the US Supreme Court will tackle the issue of whether there are certain words that can't be said on television and radio. The court agreed to hear a case that challenges one aspect of the campaign by the Bush administration and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to crack down on broadcast indecency and obscenity. Under Martin, the FCC pushed through a new policy exposing broadcasters to fines whenever a forbidden word went over the air, even if uttered inadvertently on a live broadcast.
Broadcasters, under competitive pressure from cable networks that aren't bound by FCC decency standards, have fought the agency's efforts to clamp down on swear words and suggestive scenes.
With litigation pending, hundreds of complaints have piled up at the agency over the past few years and only a few fines have been issued. Until the Supreme Court rules on the issue, FCC indecency enforcement is mostly on hold. The Supreme Court agreed to take a case involving the Billboard Music Awards, which in 2002 heard singer Cher utter an obscenity, and a year later a different vulgarity from reality-show personality Nicole Richie. The shows were broadcast by Fox Television, a unit of News Corp.
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Netplay buys BingoNetplay TV beefed up its position in the online bingo market by buying Bingos.com, a pan-European online operator with 1m registered players. The UK Aim-listed interactive gaming company paid £6.25m (E8.6m) in cash for a business that includes a suite of other games, including slots, table poker, keno and blackjack, which NetPlay will offer to its customers. The acquisition comes eight months after NetPlay launched 'BigBoxBingo”, a live interactive bingo show on satellite TV.
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RRsat Global Communications Network announced the inauguration of a new High Definition playout centre. The new facility is capable of providing end--to-end HD services, including high resolution graphics and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. This new installation will expand the playout services we currently provide to more than 90 channels, as well as the global distribution services we supply to more than 400 TV and Radio channels.
RRsat says its infrastructure enables the receipt of transmission content from all continents, over a broad variety of transmission mediums, as well as the ability to convert these materials into a variety of formats. Leveraging its Global Network, including its broad satellite partner base and advanced fibre optic infrastructure, RRsat will offer worldwide HD content delivery.
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AMC-14 lanch failure
Abertis strengthens its TV network monopoly
US cuts R&D
Mediaset’s DTT 2.4 million subs
Geldof for teacher TV
Televisa and Telemundo content sharing deal
IFTA rages at MPAA on net neutrality
Kudelski Acquires EDSI
UBC extends Irdetp
SecureMedia integrates Cinea
AMC-14 lanch failure
SES Americom, confirmed that its AMC-14 satellite failed to reach its intended orbit following its launch on board a Russian Proton Breeze-M launch vehicle on March 15. An anomaly during the second burn of the fourth stage of the rocket resulted in the satellite being placed short of the planned geostationary transfer orbit.
”While we are not in a position to comment on the possible causes of this launch anomaly, the satellite is healthy and is operating nominally in a stable orbit under the control of Lockheed Martin. SES and Lockheed Martin engineers are currently exploring various options for bringing AMC-14 into its proper geostationary orbit,” said Martin Halliwell, President of SES Engineering.
In all of the various scenarios to redirect the spacecraft, onboard fuel will have to be used to propel the satellite to its correct orbital position, thereby reducing its service life. SES’ investment in AMC-14 is insured for partial and total loss.
The spacecraft is entirely contracted by EchoStar Corporation and is intended to operate at the orbital position of 61.5 degrees West.
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Abertis strengthens its TV network monopoly
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain's telco operator Abertis Telecom is strengthening its dominant position as the largest TV broadcasting carrier in the market following the acquisition of Madrid-based telco network Teledifusion Madrid.The operation has ruined DTT licencee's plans to set up an independent broadcasting network to carry their signals out of the Abertis' orbit. Cadena Cope, Unedisa Editorial, Uniprex, Intereconomia TV, Kiss TV, Libertad Digital and 8Madrid had joined forces to jointly create their own network for the distribution of their TV signals, in direct competition with Abertis' infrastructure.
Abertis Telecom, also a shareholder in Eutelsat, is the market leader in the distribution of (digital, analogue) TV signals. Spanish broadcasters have accused the operator of charging them high carriage fees claiming the market needs to open up to other operators.
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US cuts R&D
Some of the biggest US technology companies have capped research and development spending even as the industry enjoys a strong period of growth. With a US economic downturn looming, the pressure to hold down spending is expected to intensify further this year.
The data, analysed by the Financial Times, point to the pressure that companies in some parts of the tech industry have been under to raise profit margins even in good times. Leaving aside Google, which increased spending strongly, the 10 biggest tech spenders capped the growth in their R&D budgets last year at 4.1 per cent, at a time when their revenues jumped by more than 9 per cent.
For Microsoft and Cisco, R&D fell as a proportion of revenues by at least a percentage point each last year, a reflection of the operating leverage they gain as they generate higher revenues from the same base of fixed costs.
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Mediaset’s DTT 2.4 million subs
From Branislav Pekic from Rome
Mediaset’s digital terrestrial PPV service, Mediaset Premium, had 2.42m active subscribers on March 5, a net addition of 353.00 new clients compared to the 2.067m subscribers at the end of December 2007.
The strong growth of active smart cards was mainly due to the launch of the Premium Gallery offer, presented on January 17. Revenues more than doubled to E225.9 million (in 2006 they were E107.8 million), while income from the sale of encrypted TV rights to other platforms brought in E94.3 million.
Rival platform, Telecom Italia Media’s La7 Cartapiù, has not published any figures relative to the number of smart-cards sold or activated, but said that 2007 revenues totalled E62.7 million, a 99% growth on 2006 figures of E31.5 million. The positive results were due both to the development of the offer and the cutting of costs at FTA channels La7 Sport and QOOB.
Meanwhile, Mediaset vice president Piersilvio Berlusconi has confirmed that contacts are underway with Sky Italia and Italian broadband operators regarding carriage of Mediaset's new PPV offer (Premium Gallery). He also said that they are expecting to reach breakeven in 2010 for the Mediaset Premium service.
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Geldof for Teacher TV
A consortium including Bob Geldof's independent production company, Ten Alps, and ITN is to retain the Teachers TV digital television contract after being named as the government's preferred supplier. Education Digital 2 is now in final talks with the Department for Children, Schools and Families over the £50m (E70m) five-year contract to provide news, information and resources to people who work in schools once the current contract runs out in August.
The last Teachers TV contract was held by Geldof's Education Digital consortium, which also included ITV. The broadcaster is not part of the Education Digital 2 consortium.
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Televisa and Telemundo content sharing deal
Mexican television giant Grupo Televisa and Telemundo, General Electric's Spanish-language broadcaster, have reached a content-sharing deal in Mexico, opening the door to an eventual broader alliance in the key U.S. Hispanic market. Under terms of the deal, Telemundo will broadcast its entertainment programming on a Televisa TV station in Mexico. Televisa will also carry a new Telemundo channel on its Mexican cable and satellite networks. Financial terms of the deal weren't immediately known.
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IFTA rages at MPAA on net neutrality
In a sample of how the net neutrality issue divides industries, the Independent Film and Television Alliance has strongly attacked the movie association’s condemnation of neutrality advocates. The IFTA says open networks are vital to the independent production sector.
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Kudelski Acquires EDSI
The Kudelski Group announced the acquisition of EDSI, a leading provider of secure smartcard solutions for Pay TV and banking applications. EDSI is located in France. It was established in 1990 and currently employs about 30 people.
EDSI has an R&D centre specialized in the development of high security software solutions for Digital TV, mobile phone and banking applications. In addition to the R&D competences EDSI has a security evaluation and testing laboratory for smartcard solutions.
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UBC extends Irdeto
Irdeto , has announced that TrueVisions UBC, Thailand's leading digital pay-TV operator, has extended the functionality of its existing Irdeto Digital TV solution to secure its new PVR (personal video recorder) product. TrueVisionsUBC is the largest subscription-based television provider in Thailand, offering over 80 channels covering infotainment, news, entertainment and sports programmes such as English Premiership matches.
The Irdeto PVR solution, delivered in collaboration with Humax and OpenTV, will enable TrueVisions' subscribers to experience enhanced features like content recording andplayback and live pause. Subscribers will be able to record up to 140 hours of TV programmes, control live TV the way they want, and access interactive TV services such as the Football Live Score service and a variety of games.The PVR will be available to both TrueVisions UBC satellite and cable subscribers in Thailand.
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SecureMedia integrates Cinea
SecureMedia, the technology leader in content protection software for secure video and multimedia delivery over IP networks, announced the addition and integration of Cinea's Running MarksT watermarking solution into SecureMedia's popular Encryptonite ONET System, through its exclusive IdentiFindT open digital forensics platform. Running Marks is a product of Cinea, Inc., subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories. Supporting both system-based and session-based watermarking, content owners and system operators are able to track content origin and
distribution information right down to the specific transaction or device
using Cinea's patented technology.
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Monday 17th March
Ofcom confirms mobile TV spectrum auction
Cable must get interactive act together
Comcast sues FCC in 30% rule
C4 regional digital commissioning
ABC IPTV beta trial
Neuf Cegetel VOD
News Corp Middle East channels
ITV F1 deal
Arsenal TV kicks off on Virgin Media
Anevia and Smart Com IPTV ecosystem
Ofcom confirms mobile TV spectrum auction
From Colin Mann in LondonOfcom has confirmed details of plans to auction radio spectrum suitable for a range of services, including mobile television and satellite radio.
The UK's communications regulator also announced that the provisional deadline for applications is 10 April 2008, with the online auction likely to start at the end of April.A number of possible uses of the 1452 - 1492 MHz band, the so-called 'L-Band', have been identified including: mobile multimedia services including mobile TV which could be deployed using a variety of technologies; satellite digital radio; and broadband wireless access or high-speed internet on the move.
The release of the spectrum in the 1452-1492 MHz band is part of a wider programme to release around 400 MHz of prime spectrum. Other awards in this programme include the digital dividend - the spectrum that will be freed-up through the switch to digital television - and the 2.6 GHz band.
The spectrum, which is available over much of Europe, will be released on a technology and service-neutral basis, allowing users the flexibility to decide what technology to use, what services to offer and to change theiruse of the spectrum over time.
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Cable must get interactive act togetherInteractive television won't succeed until cable companies reach agreement on measurement standards, according to Starcom MediaVest executives. The initiative undertaken by six major cable companies, called Canoe, is a step in the right direction, said Jen Soch, MediaVest USA's VP and director of advanced TV.
Tracey L. Scheppach, vice president/video innovation director at Starcom USA, said flaws include video-on-demand's poor navigation and an inability to insert ads dynamically. Unless these shortcomings are addressed, Soch and Scheppach warned that advertising dollars would move into broadband.
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Comcast sues FCC in 30% ruleThe Federal Communications Commission’s decision to reinstate a 30 per cent cap on cable's share of multichannel-video providers has drawn a writ from Comcast. Comcast is the nation's largest cable operator and the closest to the 30 per cent cap at about 27 per cent of multichannel-video providers.
The suit called the FCC decision arbitrary and capricious, as well as an abuse of its discretion. Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said at the time of the decision: "The record at the FCC provided absolutely no support for a horizontal ownership cap of 30 per cent -- a position that has been supported by the courts," Cohen said at the time. "In an era of increased and intensifying competition among telephone, satellite and cable companies, the case for a 30 per cent cap is even weaker than when the courts rejected it six years ago."
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C4 regional digital commissioning
Channel 4 and UK regional media development agencies will start a £50 million (E69m) digital commissioning fund as the broadcaster looks to retain its publicly-funded status whilst enduring tough economic times. The "4 Innovation for the Public" (4IP) fund will see a new senior executive report to new media director Jon Gisby to work on digital multimedia productions. Just £20 million comes from C4, the rest from partnerships with regional media funds. C4 also said it wanted to syndicate content to sites like Bebo and MySpace.
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ABC IPTV beta trialAustralian Broadcast Corp (ABC) Managing Director Mark Scott has announced the public beta trial of ABC Playback, a media player, that offers full screen, full length video at no cost beyond fees charged by users' Internet providers, via the Internet.
The ABC will invite 5,000 Australians, with fast Internet connections to participate in the staggered trial, which will commence from 26 March. The beta trial will comprise three channels with services including: selected recently aired shows from ABC1 and ABC2; a natural history channel; and, an ABC Shop channel showing programs available for purchase as digital downloads from the ABC Shop site. Additional channels will be offered at the public launch of ABC Playback following the beta trial period.
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Neuf Cegetel VODNeuf Cegetel is building on its successful experience and acquiring direct broadcasting rights to become a publisher of its own video-on-demand service, Neuf VOD. Neuf Cegetel signed with the main French cinema studios to offer some of the biggest box-office hits of the year, along with cartoons, documentaries, concerts, comedy shows and TV series. The partnership with Glowria, a Netgem subsidiary, has also been extended, covering titles from four major US studios (Paramount, Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, Warner Bros.).
Neuf VOD will offer around 3,500 programmes itself, and Neuf TV subscribers will continue to have access to a total of 5,000 programmes across all three stores, including TF1 Vision and M6 Vidéo, which mainly offer content based on TF1 and M6 TV channel programmes.
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News Corp Middle East channelsNews Corp is reportedly launching two English-language satellite TV channels in the Middle East. News Corp is planning a film channel, potentially called Fox Movies, and a drama channel, according to Variety.
The free-to-air satellite channels are to be launched later this year in partnership with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire who has a five per cent stake in News Corp.
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ITV F1 dealITV has signed a one-year deal to show F1 races simulcast on its broadband TV service. Practice and qualifying sessions will also be simulcast, with each Grand Prix available to view for 30 subsequent days via ITV.com's catch-up TV service.
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Arsenal TV kicks off on Virgin MediaVirgin Media will launch Arsenal TV on its TV platform on 18th March. The channel will be free for all Virgin Media's XL TV customers, and included as part of the Setanta Sports pack for TV customers on M or L packages. Arsenal TV will show all Arsenal football matches in full, as well as Arsenal's Ladies and Under 18s teams' games.
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Anevia and Smart Com IPTV ecosystemTelecom equipment vendor Anevia and Smart Com, middleware vendor, have launched an IPTV ecosystem compliance that aims to strengthen marketing and sales to European telecom operators and ISP of integrated solutions, featuring Smart Com's IPTV middleware and Anevia's live TV and VOD solutions.
