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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday
Friday 7th March
NBC: Online ads more effective than TV ads
Russia to limit foreign owners?
TiVo Q4 loss narrows
90m IPTV subscribers in 2013
Viewmy.TV goes live
Orange France M6 mobile TV
Burns joins DailyMotion
Pirelli OpenSet
Tele Columbus selects NDS
NBC: Online ads more effective than TV adsNBC has released research that suggests advertising in its programmes streamed online are better liked and more recalled than advertising on TV. According to a survey conducted on 5000 users of NBC’s online service ‘NBC Rewind’, viewers said ads streamed online with full-length episodes were less disruptive than on television and that they had a strong desire to interact with advertising. Ads with Interactive elements were more likely to elicit higher brand recall as well as high agreement that the ads were entertaining and relevant.
"NBC.com’s loyal users actively navigate and curate their own experience in NBC Rewind, so there is a high level of engagement," said Peter Naylor, senior VP, digital media sales, NBC Universal. "These research results show that when the right message is tailored to the right medium, this engaged audience really responds and our advertisers win."
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Russia to limit foreign owners?Russia may limit foreign ownership of ISPs, broadcasters and publishing houses, extending a list of industries deemed strategic, a senior lawmaker told Reuters. Russia's parliament is set to debate the controversial law this month amid a row between government officials and the security services over what industries should be deemed sensitive and how much to limit foreign investment in them.
"We need to defend our public space from foreign firms, which may seize dominant positions," said Martin Shakkum, head of the parliament's land and construction committee, which is responsible for preparing the new law. According to the draft law, a foreign company seeking a controlling stake in a Russian firm working in a sector deemed strategic will need to seek permission from a special government committee.
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TiVo Q4 loss narrowsDigital video recorder maker TiVo reported a narrower Q4 loss, beating expectations as it cut marketing costs and pushed its high-definition product. Its net loss decreased to $6.4 million from a year-earlier $19.5 million.
TiVo is trying to drive sales of its $299 TiVo HD box rather than the free, standard-definition offer from a year ago. It has also cut its marketing spending. TiVo is also working on new cable products. Tom Rogers, President said "We are working in conjunction with CableLabs toward creating a standalone box that would be capable of providing the two-way services provided by cable operators. In addition, we have progressed on our work with the National Cable Television Association to make certain that not only will TiVo HD DVR users be able to access programming channels delivered using switched digital technology, but also that the cable industry is involved in making the TiVo installation process easier for consumers."
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90m IPTV subscribers in 2013In 2007, subscribers to IPTV services worldwide numbered only about 13.5 million, but ABI Research forecasts their ranks to grow to more than 90 million by the end of 2013.
"The IPTV market as a whole is poised for strong growth," says senior analyst Cesar Bachelet, "but clearly it will be stronger in some areas than in others. ABI Research anticipates particularly substantial growth in North America and most emerging markets."
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Viewmy.TV goes liveFree Internet TV channel Viewmy.TV has officially gone live, following a trial launch last summer. The site aggregates free web TV channels from around the world and combines them with an online community.
The London-based portal offers free membership and grants access to more than 1300 channels from 100 different countries. It currently features a selection of live TV, from mainstream channels such as The Research Channel, BBC, NASA, and Aljazeera as well as independent broadcasts.By using blog embeds and RSS feeds, users can share their favourite channels on other external sites, outside of viewmy.tv. The live streams can be watched in full screen or mini screen directly in the browser or with other viewmy.tv applications including: Mac widget, Vista gadget, XP application, or via a Facebook application.
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Orange France M6 mobile TVM6 will offer the first unlimited TV plan for mobile phones in France with "M6 Mobile by Orange," available from this week. Subscribers will have unlimited, 24/7 live mobile access to six of the M6 group's channels including main terrestrial network M6, DTT channel W9 and cable stations M6 Music Hits, M6 Music Rock and Fun TV.
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Burns joins DailyMotionKate Burns, one of Google's first UK managing director, has been hired to run the British operation of YouTube competitor Dailymotion. Burns has the job of increasing the online video website's user numbers, the amount of user-generated and official content uploaded, and boosting revenues.
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Pirelli Broadband Solutions announced the creation of OpenSet, a complete hardware and software platform of Set Top Boxes for IPTV applications, with an associated SDK package that allows third parties to access Pirelli’s state-of-the-art embedded middleware for service customizations.
With the OpenSet platform, operators, service providers and system integrators – whether in the Telco or verticals IPTV market - can pick the Set Top Box model that best suits them from Pirelli’s portfolio, and customize it for their offerings, building on rich software and hardware features already field proven in sophisticated Tier-1 IPTV commercial deployments. The associated SDK package, provides integrators with well documented APIs and with Pirelli’s technical support to fully exploit the platform’s hardware and software capabilities and integrate them with the IPTV middleware of choice.
The Pirelli’s Set Top Box portfolio associated to OpenSet comprises low-, mid- and high-end tier models all supporting H.264 HDTV decoding and TR-069 manageability, with equipage variants that comprise, among others, internal hard disk for PVR, hybrid Digital Terrestrial Television support, TV Internet browsing, multi-room support, media sharing capabilities, integrated wireless connectivity.
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The Tele Columbus Group, Germany’s third-largest cable operator, will protect its independent networks with conditional access technology from solutions provider NDS. The digital TV portfolio which Tele Columbus will offer on its own platform in cooperation with Eutelsat as of May, will be primarily secured with NDS’ VideoGuard technology. The operator’s existing subscribers will not have to buy new set-top boxes as Tele Columbus will use a Simulcrypt solution as of the launch of the new platform. The Tele Columbus Group serves some 3.7 million cable-connected households.
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Thursday 6th March
HD falters in Europe
TW Yahoo white knight?
PlayJam goes indie
RTL profits fall
ITV profits down, shares up
Internet TV set to boom
US IPTV revenues $13.7bn in 2012
UK DAB uncertain future
Indian mobile TV market to hit $360m in 2008
Pirates would heed ISP warning
UK Switchover awareness improving
Pair face jail over ‘chipped’ boxes
du Deploys Tandberg iPlex
RRsat for SVT
HD falters in EuropeThe recent closure of two of Germany's HDTV channels has cast a shadow over European hopes for a rapid transition to high definition, according to Strategy Analytics. The report concludes that Europe's television providers should concentrate their resources initially on building pay television rather than advertising-based business models in order to reach the critical mass of HD content and receivers necessary to make HDTV a self-sustaining business.
"It was always highly ambitious to expect advertising revenues alone to support HD channels in the early years," comments David Mercer, Principal Analyst. "Significant audiences cannot be built until the market has been seeded with millions of HD receivers - and this was always going to take a number of years."
The report finds that only five per cent of Europeans who currently own an HD-Ready TV are, in fact, watching HDTV channels. In spite of these early difficulties, the report concludes that the number of European HDTV subscribers will grow steadily towards 3.5 million by the end of 2008. By 2012, Strategy Analytics predicts that 20 per cent of all European households will be watching HD channels.
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TW Yahoo white knight?Yahoo and Time Warner have reportedly stepped up talks to create an alternative to Microsoft’s offer for the web company. The WSJ reported talks centre on a deal that would fold Time Warner's AOL Internet unit into Yahoo. Last month Microsoft made a $41 billion offer to buy Yahoo, which was rejected as undervaluing the business.
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PlayJam goes indieInteractive media entrepreneur Jasper Smith has reacquired his visual media company Static 2358, which includes the iTV games channel PlayJam, from software provider OpenTV.
PlayJam channels launched on France’s Canal Sat and BSkyB in 2000, delivering both free and pay-per-play prized-based games. OpenTV purchased PlayJam/Static in 2001. Now available in over 55 million TV homes across the world via Sky (UK), Dish TV (USA and India), Sky Italia (Italy), Multichoice (South Africa), UPC (Netherlands) and Astro (Malaysia), PlayJam’s 800 plus games across all genres have gained over 8 billion downloads during the last 5 years, working alongside major media brands including Electronic Arts and Time Warner and IPC Media.
Newly established holding company General Entertainment & Technology Corporation (GET Corp) now owns 81 per cent of Playjam and Static 2358. Open TV retains a 19 per cent stake in both PlayJam and Static 2358, cementing a global alliance between both companies.
Smith says the reacquisition will mark a shift towards a stronger general entertainment theme centred on free and skill-based games through interactive and video content. By working with selected partners the company aims to seamlessly bringing together games, user generated content and social networking across interactive TV, mobile telephony and the web, ensuring that The PlayJam Games Network delivers the next phase in IPTV entertainment. "We‚re developing the holy grail of casual gaming. PlayJam will become the best iTV games service in the world where anyone can join. Empowering users to publish video content on the web and TV simultaneously creates a unique offering benefiting both broadcasters and brands." Smith commented.
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RTL profits fallRTL Group, Europe's biggest broadcaster, posted a 37 per cent decline in 2007 profit because of one-time charges including a cartel fine in Germany and comparisons to 2006 when earnings were boosted by asset sales and tax gains.
Net income dropped to E563 million from E890 million euros. Sales rose 1.2 per cent to E5.71 billion. EBITDA rose 5.5 per cent to E898 million, helped by television shows including American Idol and The X Factor.'
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ITV profit downs, shares upITV lost £58 million from the call-TV crisis last year, as tumbling revenues from premium-rate services contributed to a 5 per cent decline in income and a 35 per cent slide in pre-tax profits.
The UK broadcaster has reported revenues of £2.08 billion (E2.79bn) in 2007, down 5 per cent on £2.18 billion the year before, while profits before tax were £188 million, 35 per cent down on the £288 million recorded in 2006.
The company said revenues from premium-rate services - including the now discontinued ITV Play channel and late-night strand - were down by £58 million following the various phone vote scandals.
Michael Grade, exec chairman, pointed out viewing share, both across all ITV channels and on ITV1 was up as was the company’s share of overall TV ad take. He said the next challenge was to increase the contribution from ITV Productions by upping its commission wins.
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Internet TV set to boomeMarketer projects that nearly 80 per cent of US Internet users will watch online video at least once a month in 2008, meaning 52.5 per cent of all Americans or 154 million people will watch online video in 2008.
That’s a 12.1 per cent gain over 2007, but represents a slower increase, as more Internet users become online video viewers. By 2012, there will be an estimated 190 million video viewers, which will be a mere 3.8 per cent change compared with the prior year.The majority of video consumed online today are clips rather full TV episodes or full-length movies. The most popular online video content, watched by more than 40 per cent of the US online video audience, are clips of five minutes or less. They consist of news, jokes, movie trailers, music videos and TV shows.
With about four out of five US Internet users watching online video at least once a month, the potential Internet TV audience is both large and ready for more content. US surveys show that people prefer to watch professional programming and will increasingly open doors for TV networks’ content online.
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US IPTV revenues $13.7bn in 2012IPTV service revenues will approach $14 billion in 2012, growing from $694 million in 2007, according to "US IPTV Forecast and Outlook," from Strategy Analytics. Although there are numerous IPTV providers of all shapes and sizes in the US, the landscape is dominated by the two incumbents: AT&T and Verizon, each of which has a different approach in terms of technology and investment.
"2007 was a watershed year for IPTV in the US market," said Ben Piper, Director of the Strategy Analytics Broadband Network Strategies service. "The two major US players reached critical mass in terms of subscriptions. The onus is now on service providers to quantify and articulate the benefits of IPTV against ‘traditional’ Pay TV media, such as cable and satellite."
ARPU is expected to remain relatively stable throughout the forecast period, and service growth will come largely from an increased number of IPTV-passed homes, and higher take-up rates.
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UK DAB uncertain futureCrisis talks regarding the future of DAB Digital Radio in the UK have been taking place with senior figures in the industry all debating what measures should be taken to ensure the survival of the medium. Proposed solutions include the possibility that Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 and Five Live would gradually switch to DAB only, albeit over a long time period.
Meanwhile it has been reported C4 executives are having to fight to keep the company backing its digital radio plans. There are doubts over viability after Gcap, UK’s biggest commercial radio player, shut its DAB stations.
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Indian mobile TV market to hit $360m in 2008
India's mobile television market will be worth $360 million by the end of this year, according to a report by Springboard Research. According to - ‘Mobile TV in India: Understanding the Mobile Entertainment Needs of Indian Users’ - as many as 84 per cent of the users are waiting for an affordable mobile TV service in the country.
"The market is ripe for the launch of mobile TV services and we believe that India will have around 12 million mobile TV subscribers within the first year of launch of service," said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, manager of syndicated research at Springboard Research.
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Pirates would heed ISP warning
UK piracy would be massively reduced if offenders received a warning from their Internet service provider, according to a survey by Entertainment Media Research. The report suggests that 70 per cent of people would cease piracy if they received a warning. The percentage of those who would stop downloading unauthorised content if contacted by their ISP rises to 78 per cent among male teens.
"Fear of being caught is a strong theoretical deterrent but most pirates believe it's unlikely they will be prosecuted. If pirates themselves say that a direct warning from their ISP is the most effective measure, then this reinforces current thinking to combat piracy with an ISP strategy," commented Russell Hart, chief executive, Entertainment Media Research.
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UK Switchover awareness improving
Nine out of ten adults are aware of digital television switchover, according to new research from Digital UK and Ofcom. The Digital UK/Ofcom Tracker Survey at December 2007 indicates national awareness of switchover has reached 89 per cent, up from 66 per cent at the beginning of Digital UK’s public information campaign in May 2006.
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Pair face jail over ‘chipped’ boxesTwo Scottish men who supplied cut-price cable TV to hundreds of customers are facing jail. The pair adapted NTL decoder boxes so viewers could dodge subscriptions. They raked in £50,000 (E67,000) in just four months until police were tipped off about the venture. The men charged a £150 one-off fee to give viewers access to premium channels which would normally cost hundreds in yearly fees.
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du Deploys Tandberg iPlexTandberg Television, part of the Ericsson Group, has announced that its award-winning iPlex UltraCompression IPTV video processing and transcoding system has been selected by du, the Dubai-based telco, as the head-end for its IPTV services. du is the United Arab Emirates’s newest telecommunications company, launched in February 2007, it already has 1.5 million customers.
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RRsat Global Communications Network a provider of comprehensive content management and global distribution services to the television and radio broadcasting industries, announced that SVT, (Swedish Television), Sweden’s public television broadcasting service has chosen RRsat to expand its coverage all over Europe. Over the past three years RRsat has been distributing the SVT channel over its Global Network to Asia through the Thaicom-5 Satellite. Under the new agreement, RRsat also distributes the SVT channel to Europe, Northern Africa the Middle East through the Direct-To-Home distribution network, over Eurobird-9 satellite.
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Wednesday 5th March
Hulu: Advertisers need to be creative
InOut TV launches Butaca TV
DTH satellite TV revenues $50bn in 2009
Brazilian DTT low take up
TRAI to review foreign owner limits
FCC DTV education order
Control of IPTV home network key to operators
Deutsche Telekom relying on IPTV
Tsinghua acquires 40% of BesTV
Multimedia Polska deploys Harmonic
Hulu: Advertisers need to be creativeThe head of online video site Hulu has called on advertisers to think outside the 30-second box for web video ads. In comments made at an Interactive Advertising Bureau meeting, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar suggested advertisers adopt different models for streaming video ads.
Instead of simply repurposing 30 second TV spots, Kilar said, advertisers must build shorter, more creative and interactive ads that draw users in rather stimulating a bathroom break.
Kilar cited comments from Hulu users to back up his points, observing that they view shows on Hulu differently than on TV. Hulu mixes video overlay ads with shorter breaks in shows that contain just a single ad.
Warner Bros. recently agreed to feature programming on the site, which is co-owned by Fox and NBCU. Hulu launches to the public next month.
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InOut TV launches Butaca TV
From David Del Valle in Madrid
The technology company InOut TV has launched Butaca TV, a kind of a VoD service that will allow Spanish viewers to hire up to 10 latest-released TV movies through DTT by sending a SMS message.
Equipped with a PVR device and with access to DTT, viewers will be able to watch their favourite films for E2.5 and E3.5 (the latest-released movies) each. To enjoy the service, users will have to send a SMS to receive the videos directly to their PVR. Butaca TV will also distribute TV trailers and podcast videos (among them some from YouTube) for free.
"If you make it easy (the downloading of films), they (users) will prefer it rather than to have to learn a lot of computing to download videos with a poor quality", said the CEO of the company, Eudald Domenech.
InOut TV hopes that the service may boost the development of PVRs in Spain where currently there are 50,000 different models in the market. While, according to the company, in the USA 1 out 4 households use them, in Europe the penetration is around 11 per cent with Spain, Italy and France only representing 2 per cent.
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DTH satellite TV revenues $50bn in 2009
Europe and North America account for over 80 per cent of the global DTH Satellite TV revenues. However, as the major markets mature, focus is seemingly shifting towards developing markets such as Asia-Pacific and East European countries. Driven by the increasing number of subscribers for DTH services, in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Central and Eastern European regions, the global market for the DTH satellite TV services market is projected to be around $51.2 billion in 2009.
DTH pay TV services comprise nearly 60 operating platforms all over the world. Revenue is growing faster than subs numbers as ARPU increases.
DTH satellite TV subscribers worldwide, are projected to be over 133 million in 2010, says Global Industry Analysts.
World DTH satellite TV services market is projected to grow at compounded annual rate of over 9.6 per cent. DTH satellite TV subscribers in Europe account for nearly 50 per cent of the total subscribers globally. However, as the North American and West European markets mature, focus is seemingly shifting towards developing markets such as Asia-Pacific and East European countries. Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing market for DTH satellite TV services, registering a CAGR of nearly 23 per cent.
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Brazilian DTT low take up
From Branislav Pekic in RomeDespite the fact that DTT broadcasts launched in Brazil only three months ago, there is widespread dissatisfaction regarding take-up. Broadcasters and manufacturers have accused the government of not fullfilling its promises, as well as overtaxing the industry. On the other hand, manufacturers have come under attack from the government for putting on sale few and expensive set-top boxes. The high price of the STBs resulted in only 10,000 households in the Greater Sao Paulo area being able to access the new transmissions. A TV set with an embedded digital box costs up to $7,500.
Digital TV broadcasts will be extended to the cities of Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador by July of this year, with a national analogue switch off set for June 2016.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian government has authorised manufacturers of TV sets and digital receivers to install a blocking device in order to prevent the recording of content, such as movies, soap operas and football matches. However, Communications Minister, Hélio Costa, said that it remains to be decided whether this blocker will be used in practice. Since the issue still splits the ministers making up the Committee for the Development of Digital Television, the government has decided to move in stages.
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TRAI to review foreign owner limitsIn view of convergence of broadcasting and communication technologies, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is to review Foreign Investment (FI) limits in the electronic media to provide level playing field among competing technologies.
The regulator has floated a consultation paper for reviewing the existing limits in different segments of the broadcasting sector. "Presently the policy regarding Foreign Investment is not uniform across different segments of broadcasting sector. In view of the divergence the need to undertake a review of the FI policy for the broadcasting sector has been highlighted," TRAI said in a statement.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had sought TRAI recommendations on Foreign Investment limits for various segments including news and non-news broadcasters, teleport, DTH, satellite radio, Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS), cable operators and FM radio. The Authority has invited all stakeholders comments by March 28.
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Federal Communications Commission has released its digital TV transition education order requiring broadcasters, pay-TV services, retailers and consumer electronics manufacturers to promote awareness of the nation's switch to digital television, set for February 17, 2009.
For pay-TV providers like satellite TV and cable, the companies must provide monthly notices about the digital TV transition in customer billing statements, stated the FCC rules. Broadcasters must provide on-air information to viewers about the transition and comply with one of three alternative sets of rules to best serve their viewers, the FCC said. As part of the efforts, broadcasters must report about their work on a quarterly basis to the commission.
On the equipment side, manufacturers of television receivers and related devices must provide notice to consumers about the transition and the impact on electronics. "One of the commission's top priorities is to do everything in its power to facilitate a successful DTV transition," said FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. "Ensuring that no Americans are left in the dark after Feb 17, 2009, is an enormous undertaking. Significantly, it is one which no single entity, public or private, can achieve alone. Rather, it requires the commitment and cooperation of government, industry and consumer groups."
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Control of IPTV home network key to operatorsA report from MRG, IPTV Home Networking Strategies, 2008, has explored the importance of the Home Network for IPTV Operators. It reveals how effective Home Networking (HN) strategies can improve the competitiveness of an IPTV Operator against Cable and Satellite platforms, reposition the IPTV Operator in the growing battle against the PC and CE industries, and can reduce operational expenses through use of best-practices for installing and managing the Home Network. By improving their monitoring and management of the Home Network, IPTV Operators can position themselves for future converged services while reducing opex.
"Winning at the IPTV Home Network game requires a three-prong strategy," states Jose Alvear, IPTV Analyst at MRG. "Operators need a flexible approach to the physical network in the home along with strong commitment to managing the Home Network and using it as a platform for delivering a rich set of services."
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Deutsche Telekom relying on IPTVDeutsche Telekom has said that sales of television services to broadband customers will help it gain market share. The company wants to offer TV over the Internet to 20 million homes by the end of the year, board member Timotheus Hoettges said. A home entertainment package including about 150 TV channels and 2,600 video-on-demand titles will be offered to existing customers for an extra E10 a month.
Deutsche Telekom had 44 per cent of Germany's new high-speed Internet customers last year, compared with a share of less than 20 per cent in 2006. The company aims to more than triple users of its combined Web and television service, marketed under the T-Home brand, to 500,000 customers this year from 150,000 users in 2007. Another 13 towns and cities will be connected to Deutsche Telekom's high-speed digital subscriber line network in 2008, he said.
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Tsinghua acquires 40% of BesTVBesTV, China's largest provider of IPTV, has agreed to sell a 40 per cent stake to Chinese PC maker Tsinghua Tongfang for 150 million yuan (E13.9m). BesTV, a Web TV service run jointly by Shanghai Media Group and fixed-line telecoms carrier China Telecom Corp, said in a statement Tsinghua's strong market position would help expand BesTV's reach.
After allying with SMG, the two parties will jointly work as operators and this will upgrade Tsinghua Tongfang's business to a new stage where it will begin focusing more on IPTV services.
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Multimedia Polska deploys HarmonicHarmonic has confirmed that Multimedia Polska, a leading cable and IPTV service provider in Poland with more than 600,000 subscribers, has deployed Harmonic's on-demand solutions for its new video-on-demand (VOD) service launched in September 2007. Multimedia Polska is the first cable operator in Poland to roll out VOD, and the service, initially available in six cities, will be available to their entire digital cable subscriber base by the end of the year. Multimedia Polska is also an existing customer of Harmonic's optical transmission solutions.
Tuesday 4th March
Virgin channels for sale?
Online content to generate $6.5bn in APAC by 2013
Canal+ 2007 net subs up
Kudelski sinks on hacks
YouTube live streaming
XM, Sirius still hanging on for merger
Disney launches Stage 9
MTV MySpace Chart
BiBC signs deal with CME
Wegener teams with ViaSat
Virgin channels for sale?Newspapers in the UK are speculating that Virgin will try and sell its TV channels and its half stake in UKTV. The forecast is based on the company’s declared preferred strategy of focussing on marketing its broadband and VOD services.
If true it would mark yet another strategic change for Virgin – the company that emerged from the merger of ntl and Telewest. At the time of the merger ntl’s lukewarm attitude to content almost ruined the deal as it believed Telewest was placing an unrealistic value on its TV channels. ntl demanded an auction to try and extract a value but the merged company kept the business when bids came nowhere near the £800 million (E1.11bn) asking price.
Performance of some of the channels in the old Flextech group has improved but others remain marginal. However, most scepticism on value centres on the fact the BBC has change of control rights on the JV that is at the heart of the business.
There would be plenty of bidders for an auction: Sky, RTL, Turner, NBC. and the BBC could use its leverage to get a good deal; it is said it demanded E140 million not exercise its rights in the context of the previous auction.
Online content to generate $6.5bn in APAC by 2013
An ABI Research study on online content usage in the Asia Pacific region (APAC) forecasts that online media activities in the region will deliver at least $6.5 billion in annual revenues by the end of 2013."Telcos now regard media and entertainment as an effective means of replacing their declining voice revenues in a market where VoIP, IPTV, and fixed-mobile substitution are rapidly growing in popularity," says ABI Research analyst Serene Fong.
Japan is currently leading the legal content revenue market in APAC and is expected to continue doing so, growing at a 6 per cent six-year compound annual growth rate. But ABI Research also notes that while the prospects for the legal online content market are very good, the birth of high-speed connectivity has also inadvertently given rise to P2P file-sharing sites that have perpetrated widespread content piracy.
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Canal+ 2007 net subs upThe total of subscribers in France and its overseas departments and territories and Africa, came to 5.3 million at December 31, 2007, representing an annual net increase of 80,000. The Canal+ ‘Le Bouqeut’ package recorded 715,000 new home and institutional subscriptions, its best performance in 20 years. The cancellation rate for home subscriptions in France stood at 12.8 per cent, versus 12 per cent in 2006. The digital service now accounts for 71 per cent of the portfolio, compared with 61 per cent at year-end 2006.
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Kudelski sinks on hacksKudelski, the world's largest supplier of digital pay-television smart cards through its Nagravision unit, said profit halved last year and earnings will decline further in 2008. The shares dropped to a five year low. Net income fell to 67.4 million Swiss francs from 138.5 million francs (E87.4m) a year earlier The Switzerland-based company said sales rose 33 per cent to 925.8 million francs.
The company indicated operating profit will drop to as low as five million francs this year from 87.7 million francs in 2007 as Kudelski switches to renting its digital-TV cards rather than selling them. The stock has lost 67 per cent of its value in the past 12 months as Premiere AG, Germany's biggest pay-TV company, said hackers breached encryption.
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YouTube live streamingYouTube plans to launch a live streaming service later this year, in a bid to take on internet TV services. The live channels will enable users to create live feeds of news events, entertainment and even 24-hour "lifecasts".
The live streaming channels could also include live music, breaking news stories and other entertainment content. The long rumoured addition to the video sharing site was confirmed by YouTube co-founder Steve Chen who said live video was planned for the Google-owned site.
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XM, Sirius still hanging on for mergerXM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio extended their merger agreement until May 1, agreeing not to exercise their right to terminate the deal. There had been a March 1 trigger for unwinding the proposal if it had not received an OK from the JJustice is expected to come first, but FCC chairman Kevin Martin said recently that he expected the commission to be done with its review by the end of March. The FCC has been considering the merger, which has been strongly opposed by terrestrial broadcasters, for 266 days.
The key issue has been whether or not the satellite-radio marketplace is its own separate entity - XM and Sirius are the only national license holders - or part of a larger audio marketplace that includes terrestrial radio, cable radio, Internet radio and downloads.
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Disney launches Stage 9Disney-ABC Television Group has launched an experimental new media content studio Stage 9 Digital Media. Stage 9 was designed to "bridge the gap between user-generated content and traditional production," said Ann Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television Group, in a release. It will premiere with a comedy series "Squeegees", that is available on ABC.com and YouTube.
Stage 9 has an active slate of more than 20 programmes in comedy, drama, animation and reality. The unit, which will collaborate with Disney-ABC International Television on global digital content distribution, is focused on content creation and the distribution of its programming through top video sites, online social networks, mobile and download services.
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MTV MySpace ChartMusic channel MTV has signed a deal with social networking site MySpace to create a weekly chart show. The show, branded The MySpace Chart, will be shown on the MTV2 channel. It will feature the best music videos as voted for by viewers watching the channel and MySpace users of the MySpace Chart website, due to launch on March 16th.
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BiBC has signed a deal with Central European Media Enterprises (CME), a leading Central and Eastern European broadcaster to launch an internal online video exchange portal to eliminate the need to transfer tapes and DVDs between stations. CME is the latest company to sign up to use ReelMaster, BiBC's end-to-end solution for the digitisation and distribution of content.
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Wegener teams with ViaSatWegener Corporation, provider of equipment for television, audio and data distribution networks worldwide, has confirmed the operation of live video broadcasts on a VSAT network from ViaSat, showing compatibility of Wegener 's video overlay solution for VSAT networks.
VSAT networks provide bandwidth efficient solutions for distributing interactive IP data between thousands of data centres, retail locations, corporate LANS, schools, the Internet, and home offices. Using standard ViaSat LinkStar uplink and downlink equipment Wegener added live high definition and standard definition video streams to a VSAT network traditionally used to transmit data files. Artifact-free video was successfully decoded by the Wegener SMD 515 IPTV set top box.
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Monday 3rd March
RAI, BBC and NHK to develop Ultra-HDTV
Premier League fights streaming
XM lowers loss
Viacom positive Q4
Belgacom: 300,000+ IPTV
Portugal Telecom signs up 21,000 for IPTV
Cablevision turns profit
CEA says switchover subsidy needs more time
blinkx Partners with BBC
Sky expands HD line-up
Broadcast Media develops Austrian mobile TV
Man United online
RAI, BBC and NHK to develop Ultra-HDTV
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItalian public broadcaster RAI has signed an agreement with its counterparts from the UK (BBC) and Japan (NHK) for joint research towards the development of the Ultra–HDTV technology.
Talks between the three partners initiated in February 2007, but no agreement was reached on a common business plan. After several meetings, the state broadcasters agreed that NHK and BBC will continue with research on the picture compression technologies in "super high definition", which offers 16 times higher video quality than the current HD 1080p.
Meanwhile, RAI and NHK will work on the satellite transmissions of the ultra HDTV signal in the 21 GHz band. The Japanese public broadcaster will also cooperate with Germany’s IRT institute on developing technologies for those who have communications difficulties.
The three public broadcasters will also exchange researchers and jointly organise events, with the goal of achieving the first results within six months to one year.
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Premier League fights streamingThe UK Premier League has won High Court injunctions against three websites accused of illegally streaming its live football matches over the net. The sites had been re-distributing signals from rightsholders like Sky Sports. It’s been a growing problem for the league over the last few years as the global audience grows for the English game.
FreePremierLeague.com had charged £7, (E9.4) for example. Now both it and FootballOn.net have disappeared, the League says the precedent will be used to pursue other site in the UK and abroad.
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XM lowers lossLike its putative partner XM Satellite Radio said that it narrowed its fourth-quarter loss, helped by a 20 per cent increase in revenue. XM reported a loss of $239 million compared with a loss of $263 million in the comparable quarter a year ago.
Fourth-quarter results in 2006 were reduced by a one-time charge of $57.6 million to reflect the declining value of XM’s stake in Canadian Satellite Radio. XM’s revenue rose to $307.7 million from $257.1 million.
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Viacom positive Q4Viacom reported a 16 per cent gain in fourth-quarter earnings as it benefited from DVD sales and a strong performance at its core cable television division. Viacom earned $559.5 million, compared with $480.8 million during the same period a year earlier. Revenue jumped 19 per cent to $4.25 billion.
Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said the company had benefited from improved ratings at MTV, its flagship network, as well as a continued shift of advertising dollars from traditional TV to cable. "To date, the slowdown in the economy has not affected our ad sales," Dauman said.
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The Belgian incumbent has claimed 305,319 year end subs for its Belgacom TV IPTV service, adding 165,654 new homes in 2007. ARPU vice was E16.10 a month. The digital subs total puts it not far behind main cable operator Telenet with about 400,000 digital homes. Total digital penetration now stands at 22 per cent.
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Portugal Telecom signs up 21,000 for IPTV
From Branislav Pekic in RomePortugal Telecom has signed up 21,000 so far for its IPTV service, 15,000 of which were added in the last three months of 2007. According to PT vice president, Zeinal Bava, the expansion of the IPTV service will be one of the priorities during 2008, together with the launch of the existing Meo triple-play offer on satellite. PT plans to launch the DTH service before the summer and it will be complementary to IPTV, helping to boost subscriber figures more rapidly. Bava added that, unlike rival TV Cabo, PT’s satellite service will be in HDTV.
Portugal Telecom has so far invested E43 million for the launch of Meo service on satellite.
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Cablevision turns profitCablevision Systems says it swung to a profit in the fourth quarter from a loss a year ago as it added more Internet and phone customers. Cablevision earned $6.6 million in the quarter, compared with a loss of $23.9 million a year ago. Revenues rose 10.8 per cent to $1.84 billion from $1.66 billion.
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CEA says switchover subsidy needs more timeConsumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro has said the US government should give viewers more time to cash in their digital-TV-to-analogue converter-box coupons. Shapiro said there was a growing consensus that viewers should be allowed to reapply for the coupons being handed out by the government toward the purchase of the converter boxes, which will allow viewers with analog-only sets not hooked to cable or satellite to still see full-power TV-station signals after Feb. 17, 2009.
Shapiro said he thought the DTV-education programme was going along well and he did not buy the doom-and-gloom scenarios about Feb. 17, 2009. "The world is not going to shut down and nuclear missiles are not going to go off" if a few people lose TV service for a short amount of time, he said, comparing what he called a "minuscule" number of those with, say, the "two million people who lost their homes due to foreclosures in 2007."
Shapiro added that the DTV-education initiative, in which the CEA is a leader, would do all that it could to try to make sure nobody lost service because they were unaware of the transition. That's our job," he said, adding, "Everyone should know about it." Shapiro said he expected that fewer than 10 per cent of TV households would need the converter boxes, pointing out that cable and satellite penetration are already about 86 per cent and growing and that more than one-half of TV households have DTV sets, with another 32 million projected to be sold in 2008.
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blinkx Partners with BBCblinkx has inked a partnership deal with BBC iPlayer, the BBC’s online on-demand service, to give blinkx viewers direct access to the latest BBC TV footage. Through the partnership, BBC iPlayer programmes will be searchable and accessible via blinkx.com with a preview offered to users prior to viewing on the BBC’s iPlayer download or live streaming service.
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Sky expands HD line-upSky UK will offer more high definition programmes on its service by increasing the range of channels available via its HD service. Over the next couple of months, Sky Sports HD 3, Sky Movies Premiere HD and FX HD will be added to the line-up offering a wealth of new content and a number of UK firsts. The channels will increase the total number of HD channels available on the Sky platform to 17.
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Broadcast Media develops Austrian mobile TVBroadcast Media, service provider for the broadcasting and media industries, has been given approval to build and operate a nationwide multiplex platform for mobile terrestrial broadcasting in Austria by the regulatory authority KommAustria. Broadcast Media will seek to develop and employ a DVB-H network before the Euro 2008 football tournament begins in the summer.
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Man United onlineManchester United football club is to roll out a free, desktop news service for fans that will offer video, match results and news in real time. Users will be able to download the tool from the Manchester United site from the end of March, and it will automatically update with the latest news and multimedia content as soon as it is released. The tool was built by Zebtab, who have also built a similar desktop tool for the BBC.
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