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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday Friday 17th October 2008
Kangaroo beta
Kangaroo beta
FCC will allow white space' open season
Currie: Ofcom should rule online”
BBC Chair warns off Ofcom
Comcast has 1,000 HD choices
Nielsen: US unprepared for DTV
FastWeb launches i-concerts branded VoD
Bebo launches Bebo Originals
More IPTV for Beijing
Devices key to mobile media
Sardinia set for November 1 DSO
Oz regional switch approved
Myvideorights distributes Eagle Rock
Scorecard wins Kingston
Harmonic for 3 ITALIA
Haas for Anevia
Broaden and Vidiator deliver for Tele2 Sweden
From Colin Mann in CannesProject Kangaroo, the joint venture between BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV, plans to launch in closed beta by the end of the year, CEO Ashley Highfield told delegates at MIPCOM. "With the Competition Committee's blessing, we hope to launch in closed beta by Christmas time," he claimed.
Highfield would only reveal that Kangaroo would be a closed beta of some sort...that will go on until February. But we need to communicate to bring this to the market."
He said there had been talks with US studios to bring US films and programmes on to Kangaroo and confirmed he was in talks with Five and large independent producers.
On advertising, Highfield said the platform will launch with minimal ad inventory while pointing towards using behavioural targeting techniques to drive higher CPMs in the future. "Over time we will build demographics so we can optimise ads and achieve higher CPMs. One of the ways which we will sell ads is by looking at what the individual is doing on the site."
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FCC will allow white space' open season
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has said that the FCC will propose allowing mobile unlicensed devices to operate in the white spaces between DTV channels. Martin said that he was proposing allowing devices with both remote-sensing and geo-location capabilities, such as laptops and so-called smart radios - to operate in the DTV band so long as they can tap into a database of broadcast TV channels in the area so they would not interfere with them.
He also said power levels would be more limited for devices operating on channels adjacent to TV channels than for other channels. Martin said the FCC was proposing allowing the devices to operate at 100 milliwatts, but only 40 milliwatts on adjacent channels.
He said the FCC's white spaces report, released this week, concludes that the devices can be employed without interfering with broadcasts, - a conclusion broadcasters argue with. The FCC has been testing prototype devices, with mixed results.
David Donovan, who heads the Association for Maximum Service Television, told Broadcasting & Cable that allowing 40 milliwatts of power on a first adjacent channel will "decimate over-the-air TV." MSTV has been a leading voice in opposition to allowing the unlicensed devices, arguing they could wreak havoc with DTV reception at the same time that the government is trying to convert the entire country to DTV.
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Currie: Ofcom should rule online”
Outgoing Ofcom chairman David Currie has said that his successor should expect the communications regulator to have an expanded remit with responsibility for stricter control over internet content. Currie said there was an appetite among legislators for putting a tighter rein on the internet now the medium had moved beyond its formative stages.
Echoing comments last month by culture secretary Andy Burnham, who argued that it was time for a different approach to tightening up taste and decency' online, Currie said Ofcom was likely to find its remit expanded, following his departure, to encompass digital media.
"Ask most legislators today, and, where they think about it, they will say that period [of forbearance] is coming to an end. Currie made it clear that any scenario that saw an expanded Ofcom remit would not simply "import old broadcasting-style regulation to the internet".
In his speech Currie also added his weight to calls from the ITV executive chairman, Michael Grade, and the Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, that the government needed to act quickly to drive legislation arising from the outcome of Ofcom's second public service broadcasting review through parliament.
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The BBC chairman, Sir Michael Lyons fired a shot across the bows of regulator Ofcom over the proposals laid out in the regulator's second review of public service broadcasting.
Lyons warned against a "quick fix" and pointed out that it was not in Ofcom's remit to help plug Channel 4's funding gap by giving the rival broadcaster money from the corporation's commercial subsidiary, BBC Worldwide. He said the industry should "stop looking to Ofcom for the answers, because more regulation is not what's needed" and instead find "active" ways to "encourage greater cooperation".
Briefing members of the UK's Broadcasting Press Guild, Lyons warned: "Hasty moves to dismantle structures which have taken decades to mature in return for a quick financial gain might look tempting at first glance, but they have a habit of coming back with a bite.”
He also gave a strong reminder to Ofcom that it did not have the power to hand over any of BBC Worldwide's money to Channel 4. "It's owned by the BBC. It's a subsidiary of the BBC," Lyons said. He added that when he read Ofcom's second public service broadcasting review, published last month, he found the "wording relating to transferring Worldwide to Channel 4 ... extraordinary".
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Comcast announced that it has reached a major milestone in its Project Infinity” initiative to expand its HD programming and on-demand choices, which Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts unveiled at the CES show in Las Vegas last January. It says it now has over 1,000 high-definition viewing choices” between its linear channels and its on-demand offerings, reaching the goal that Roberts set out in his CES keynote and helping Comcast keep pace with its satellite and telco competitors.
"Consumers can't get enough HD, so we're now offering over a thousand HD choices, five times more than last year,” said Derek Harrar, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Video Services for Comcast, in a statement. However, it's not just about HD volume, but about having the highest-quality content consumers really want, whether they want to watch live or on their schedule.” Comcast now offers over 200 HD on-demand movies from top studios, all the major sports channels, and nearly 300 television shows.
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Nielsen: US unprepared for DTV
According to The Nielsen Company, more than 9 million households are not ready for the upcoming transition to all-digital broadcasting and would be unable to receive any television programming at all if the transition occurred today. Another 12.6 million households have at least one television set that will no longer work when the digital transition occurs, meaning that nearly one in five U.S. households are either partially or completely unready for the transition.
Under government-mandated action, all television stations are required to switch to digital programming in February 2009. In a research paper released today, Nielsen reported that the number of fully unprepared homes decreased 1.4 percentage points from May 1 to September 1, 2008, leaving 8.4 per cent of all U.S. households still completely unready.
Nielsen also found that nearly a quarter of all "unready" analogue sets are not being used to view regular television. These sets, which are in both partially and completely unprepared homes, are being used for DVD, VCR and Video Games.
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FastWeb launches i-concerts branded VoD
From Colin Mann in CannesItalian triple play telco FastWeb is teaming up with i-concerts to launch a Video-on-Demand (VoD) channel offering concerts and live music performances. FastWebTV's subscribers will be able to watch hours of the most popular A-list artist performances, and live concerts.
i-concerts on-demand not only enriches our branded channels,” said Andrea Conte, FastWeb's Director of Consumer Business Unit, but is exciting for music fans of all ages.” He said that FastWebTV, with its multi-thematic and multi-channel approach, was a perfect match for an inquisitive target audience which was used to navigating on the Internet and was searching for new formats and new languages via a traditional medium such as the TV.
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Bebo launches Bebo Originals
Social media network Bebo has committed to a minimum of six original productions for 2009 under a newly created programme banner Bebo Originals.
Building on the success of KateModern and Sofia's Diary, Bebo is developing a commissioning and scheduling policy for 2009 that will broaden out from successful dramas to encompass entertainment, reality and comedy.
Scheduling will give all new shows an opportunity to perform on Bebo without competition as well as offering them promotional support across the network.
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The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has issued a new IPTV licence to the Beijing-based company Huaxia Network. Previously, SARFT had awarded licences to operators including the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China Central Television (CCTV), Southern Media Corporation (SMC), China Radio International (CRI), and Hangzhou-based Wasu.
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The entry of a broad range of new mobile devices able to display video will have a profound effect on the mobile video market, reports In-Stat. The reach of new device choices will provide more markets for mobile operators, mobile broadcasters, advertisers and other content owners, the high-tech market research firm says.
Even though cellphones and smartphones will remain the predominant method of viewing mobile video, over 160 million other devices that provide mobile video over networks now in exclusive use by cellphones will be sold in the next five years,” says David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst.
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
The research, Global Cellular Video Devices: Internet Video Expands the Market', covers the worldwide market for devices that can support mobile video.
- Shipments of 3G video-capable cellphones will increase at 11.2 per cent annual growth, reaching over 641 million by 2013.
- The number and types of devices using digital mobile broadcast networks such as ISDB-T, DVB-H, MediaFLO, and DMB-T will expand to nearly 127 million in five years. China's CMMB will make up over 12 per cent of those devices.
- More than a half-billion devices capable of viewing Internet video over 3G networks will be sold in 2013. Cumulative sales will approach 2 billion units.
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AmberFin announced the results of a research survey conducted at this year's IBC conference in Amsterdam. AmberFin spoke to industry experts attending to gauge their opinion on what issues would most influence the industry in the coming year.
The results clearly demonstrate the use of multiple platforms such as broadband, IPTV and mobile handsets as key drivers for the industry moving forward. However, although most (60 per cent) felt that the industry has improved its knowledge and use of multiple delivery platforms in the last year, it was agreed by 70 per cent of respondents that content owners could still be distributing their content more effectively across multiple platforms.
The quality of content was named as a key factor affecting take up of these newer delivery platforms. When asked which platforms they felt were being used effectively by the industry 27 per cent named broadband content viewed on a PC, while 15 per cent of respondents named IPTV.
Content consumed over broadband generated one of the most mixed responses overall. Although two thirds said they had viewed content over the internet, quality varied widely between individual experiences, with as many experts saying they had experienced poor or average quality (52 per cent) content as those who had experienced good quality (48 per cent).
Respondents agreed there is potential for better use of specific platforms: 52 per cent of the industry experts surveyed felt that mobile phones and handheld devices could be used more effectively. The potential of using multiple platforms was widely recognised and the experts themselves claimed that they would watch more content if the quality was better. For example:
- 57 per cent would watch more IPTV
- 59 per cent would watch more content on their PC via broadband
- 44 per cent would watch more content on their mobile phone
- 34 per cent would watch more content on their iPod touch or other small screen deviceOverall, the research demonstrated that the broadcast industry needs to look at improving the quality of video content on current and emerging media platforms while lowering the cost per deliverable.
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Sardinia set for November 1 DSO
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItaly will become the first country to switchover an entire region to digital terrestrial on November 1, the Undersecretary for Communications, Paolo Romani, has claimed. The switch-off of analogue transmitters in Sardinia was initiated on October 15 in the south-eastern part of the island (Sarrabus and Ogliastra), Medio Campidano, Sulcis Iglesiente and the Cagliari area. The process will be completed on October 31, when the population of Oristano, Nuoro and Sassari will also require a digital box to continue receiving their terrestrial TV channels.
Regular TV licence fee payers in Sardinia can obtain a coupon worth E50, made available by the Ministry of Economic Development, for the acquisition of a digital decoder. According to government estimates, 85 per cent of the 1.6 million inhabitants of Sardinia are already equipped with a DTT decoder. From November 1, they will be able to choose from a total of 150 TV channels on DTT.
The Italian government has decided to anticipate the introduction of DTT, with a programme that aims to introduce the new technology to 70 per cent of Italian households by 2010.
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A report prepared by the Government's Digital Switchover Taskforce has been presented to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and enabling legislation is expected to he passed during this week's sitting of the federal parliament. The first region to switch from analog to digital transmissions is expected to be in northeast Victoria, centred on Mildura. This region already has a relatively high take-up of digital-enabled television sets because the Channel 10 signal has been broadcast locally on a digital channel since 2006.
The head of the Australian Digital Switchover Taskforce, Andy Townend, was formerly the deputy head of Britain's Ofcom regulatory body, which is overseeing its switch to digital transmissions. It is understood the task force recommends that the switch-over process be started in the second half of 2010. The Government has already set a date for completion -- December 31, 2013. The legislation before parliament gives the minister power to extend or modify the proposed switch-off timetables by up to six months, which means it would be possible to delay the final date in some markets until mid-2014 if unexpected difficulties arose.
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Myvideorights distributes Eagle Rock
Myvideorights.com has announced a global deal to provide Internet and IPTV platforms with hundreds of videos from Eagle Rock Entertainment's catalogue of music performances and history documentaries
The international deal (excluding North America) will see myvideorights.com capitalising on the growth in popularity of music videos online by distributing Eagle Rock Entertainment's pop, rock, classic and country music videos to selected internet and IPTV platforms. Successful acts included in the deal are; Babyshambles, Madness, Beach Boys, The Doors and ZZ Top, as well as the nostalgic and classic online content of Johnny Cash, Deep Purple, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and BB King.
Launched by Ashley Mackenzie and Richard Mansell, myvideorights.com is backed by Peter Bazalgette, Rupert Dilnott-Cooper and Kelvin Mackenzie. The company's mission is to help content owners and publishers achieve greater value from digital distribution. Myvideorights.com provides only rights-cleared content and allows entertainment producers an effective way of monetising their video and, enables digital publishers to acquire safe, clean advertiser-friendly media.
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Scorecard Systemshas been selected by UK operator Kingston Communications to provide the broadband and telecommunications provider with a more robust and rich subscriber and service analysis capability from its traditional fixed line operations to complicated hosted and multi-site networking services.
Scorecard's solutions, which claim to drive deeper, more accurate analysis of customer activity and reduce commission and acquisition costs, put powerful analytical ability directly in the hands of end-users. Kingston Communications is the third European operator to partner with Scorecard Systems. The company's subscriber and service analysis system has been deployed at dozens of carriers and currently measures results for over 100 million subscribers.
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Harmonic announced that its Rhozet Carbon Coder video transcoding solution has been selected by 3 Italia as part of its cross-media strategy, designed to deliver mobile TV over its DVB-H network. Rhozet Carbon Coder was chosen for media transcoding due to its extensive format support, the high quality of its format output, as well as its transcoding speed and automated features.
In 2006, 3 Italia was the world's first mobile operator to offer a DVB-H mobile TV service. Since the service launch, 3 Italia's DVB-H mobile TV subscriber count has grown substantially to over 850,000. 3 Italia is currently implementing its mobile TV and Internet cross-media strategy, which brings broadcast TV, thematic channels, TV 2.0 and social networking to the mobile handset. Rhozet Carbon Coder is used to quickly and automatically transcode this content and make it available to 3 Italia's DVB-H network.
"Carbon Coder's automation, performance and scalability make it possible for 3 Italia to rapidly integrate a wide array of broadcast and Internet content into DVB-H format, while delivering the quality their subscribers desire," said David Trescot, Vice President of the Rhozet Business Unit at Harmonic Inc. "To be chosen as an essential technology component of 3 Italia's mobile TV service points to just how effective the system is for delivering the high volume of content for this new generation of mobile services."
Harmonic's Rhozet Carbon Coder is a universal transcoding application that facilitates the transfer of media between a variety of platforms, including acquisition, editing, playout, archive, the Internet and mobile devices. Carbon Coder can run as a stand-alone application or as part of a multi-node, fully-automated rendering farm. Carbon Coder provides high-performance, scalable and cost-effective transcoding for a broad range of business environments, from specialized studios to enterprise-scale installations.
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Anevia, a video service infrastructure provider, announced the appointment of Thomas Haas in the newly created position of Central Eastern Europe Sales Manager. As Area Sales Manager, Thomas Haas will be responsible for increasing sales and partnerships in the CEE region. Based in Anevia's regional office in Austria, he will focus on the telco, CATV, hospitality and broadcast industry markets, as well as the indirect sales market to system integrators and resellers. This new position enables Anevia to strengthen its presence across Europe.
Thomas Haas brings to Anevia a wealth of 10 years experience in sales, management, partnerships and the Telco industry. Back in 2006, he succeeded in the Austrian company Ocilion IPTV Technologies as Account Manager for the CEE and CIS regions, acquiring and growing a portfolio of major IPTV customers throughout Europe. He previously held different positions such as account manager and founder in the Telco and CATV system integration industries.
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Broaden and Vidiator deliver for Tele2 SwedenMobile technologist Vidiator and mobile media solutions provider Broaden have struck a partnership to deliver mobile TV services for Tele2 Sweden. Broaden provides Tele2 with a complete mobile TV solution, including content management, rights and customer interfaces. Previously Broaden had developed open-source software to provide streaming for the Tele2 TV service, and moving forward will leverage Vidiator's software.
Daniel Söderberg, Broaden CEO, said the Vidiator streaming services would be a key component in its platform, ensuring the highest quality of service available.
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Thursday 16th October 2008
YouTube CEO: work with us
YouTube CEO: work with us
BBC: we will create an IPTV standard
Sky Italia men for Premiere
Virgin Media criticised by ASA
FCC: US switch will be messy'
Set-Top Box market to remain in flux
Viaccess for C-Net
Witbe: channel change average is 1.9 secs
From Colin Mann in CannesYouTube co-founder Chad Hurley has called on broadcasters to work with the online video community to extend their reach and develop business models. Delivering a MIPCOM keynote speech on Managing Content in the Internet Age, Hurley told delegates: We want to continue to be your partner and continue to work with you. We want to work with content owners to make more and more informed decisions about managing and distributing your content.”
For those of you wary of this new decentralised distribution model, Hurley implored them to understand that technology exists to give you control and that in opening up your content to digital distribution you gain unprecedented reach and scope. It's your greatest opportunity to evolve a business model.”
He noted that at one stage, the BBC was YouTube's only broadcast partner; it now had 900. YouTube could offer the Four Rs'. Reach, Research, Revenue and Rights Management. YouTube's VideoID tool gave rights owners the choice of what they wanted done with uploaded video content; whether to monetise, track, or take down. Working together benefits all in the content ecosystem,” he said.
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BBC plans open IPTV standard
From Colin Mann in CannesThe BBC is aiming to develop an open industry standard IPTV platform that would allow content providers easily to launch Internet TV services. Erik Huggers, the broadcaster's director of future media and technology, speaking during the Broadband Video Summit at MIPCOM, said the service, codenamed Canvas, would potentially be available through a set-top box, and enable "any service to build applications onto the platform. He claimed that creating an open industry standard would make sure that a 'death by a thousand cuts' situation didn't arise.
Any such service would require approval from the BBC Trust, but Huggers claimed it would be an opportunity for the iPlayer to extend its functionality. "If it's approved, it'd give a clean path into the living room. It's about getting into the living room with the richness and community that the web offers." Huggers suggested that Canvas is at least 12 to 18 months away.
With the BBC recently enabling users of Nokia N96 mobile phones to download iPlayer content, Huggers questioned the fragmented approach that currently existed. "Do we have to do a separate build for every device thereby building thirty or forty types for different devices or can we make an industry standard
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Premiere CEO Mark Williams has brought in execs from Sky Italia to try and rescue the floundering German pay TV group. Giovanni Brunelli, Marcello Maggioni and Gaetano Pannito have taken up executive positions at Premiere, with Brunelli named senior vp customer operations, Maggioni appointed senior vp sales and marketing and Pannito named vp sales.
The appointments follow a disastrous month for Premiere, which has seen the resignation of its CFO and a profit warning that decimated the company's share price. Premiere also had to admit that subscriber figures were almost one million lower than previously announced.
Williams is counting on Sky Italia's dream team to kick-start Premiere ahead of the key Christmas season. Their track record speaks for itself. Since launching in 2003, Sky Italia has soared and boasts 4.56 million subscribers. Premiere, which launched in 1990 in a larger TV market, has only 2.4 million direct subscribers.
News Corp., which owns Sky Italia, is the largest shareholder in Premiere, with a 25% stake.
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Virgin Media criticised by ASA
Virgin has been reprimanded by regulators for misleading consumers about its broadband speeds in a recent advertising campaign. In response to a complaint by Virgin's rival BSkyB, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled Virgin's print and poster advertisements did not make sufficiently clear that customers could experience connections below the advertised 20 megabits per second.
Meanwhile, Virgin Media has criticised some broadband speed tests, saying they rely on "dirty data". It said current tests were often inaccurate.
It is concerned that tests for 50Mbps (megabits per second) services, which are starting to launch, will be even more inaccurate. Online speed tests generally work by sending a file to a computer and timing how long it takes. This so-called payload is often too small, according to Virgin, to give an accurate result.
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The switch of all U.S. televisions to digital will be messy, a federal communications official said urging broadcasters to step up local efforts to educate the public. Broadcasters have the most to lose if viewers' screens fade to black when analogue signals are turned off, said Robert McDowell, a Republican on the five-member FCC, urging broadcasters to tailor informational campaigns to local markets.
Despite a wide-ranging education campaign by the government and broadcasters, consumers are likely to face glitches, McDowell said. "The transition will be messy ... but we will get through it," he said.
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Set-Top Box Market to Remain in Flux
Although Set-Top Boxes (STBs) have been around in one form or another for more than 30 years, the industry is far from settled down. Whether looking at the technology or the business aspects, STBs should remain one of the most dynamic areas of the electronics industry for at least the next decade, and quite possibly beyond, according to iSuppli Corp. The form that the STB may ultimately take is uncertain, but what is certain is that the next decade's version will look and function quite differently from the box sitting in most people's living rooms today.
Over the next few years, much of the STB market will be driven by expanding box capabilities. For millions of consumers worldwide, High Definition (HD) and Digital Video Recording (DVR) have become technological necessities of life that they just can't do without. In fact, HD and DVRs are becoming such a part of consumer lives that by 2012, more than 70 per cent of digital Set-Top Boxes (STBs) shipped are expected to integrate support for one or both of these technologies, up from about 35 per cent in 2007 according to iSuppli Corp.
DVRs are cheap to integrate into STBs because Hard Disk Drive (HDD) costs have plummeted so much,” said Jordan Selburn, principal analyst for set-top boxes for iSuppli during a presentation at iSuppli's North American Briefing here last week. With the street price of storage just pennies per gigabyte and falling daily, the time is not far off when video storage hardware, whether at home or remote, will be both essentially limitless and virtually free. With cable or satellite companies only charging $5 or so a month for DVR support, who wouldn't want the ability to record their shows and movies?”
HD falls into a similar category as DVRs,” Selburn said. HD video processing chips are migrating to 65-nanometer semiconductor manufacturing technologies, causing their incremental costs to drop compared to standard-definition devices. HD display prices are falling rapidly as well. iSuppli forecasts that more than 125 million of these displays will ship in 2008, and customers will demand HD content to watch on their new televisions.”
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Viaccess and C-Net, an Indian system integrator and set-top box leader, have signed a partnership for digital pay TV in the South-Asia region. Viaccess and C-Net will deliver high level products and services for digital pay television and secured content distribution.
C-Net is a reference integrator in digital pay television in India, providing effective and optimal solutions while adhering to the highest standards of quality. Viaccess has established a local presence in India since 2007 to come closer to its clients, prospects and partners and this partnership reinforces the presence of Viaccess in India.
François Moreau de Saint-Martin, Viaccess CEO, comments: We are very keen to develop our digital pay TV solutions and the distribution of secured contents in India and we are glad to work with C-Net for this specific market. This partnership is a clear evidence of our development in India ”.
Anoop Kumar, C-Net chairman, says: Viaccess and C-Net aim to provide digital pay TV solutions that will meet customers' needs and surpass their expectations.We are more than proud to be a part of this exciting initiative and work with one of the safest conditional access system in the world.”
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Witbe: channel change average is 1.9 secs
Channel change time and image quality are central to TV service suppliers in today's competitive market. Witbe carried out a study of digital TV services (via DSL, cable, FTTH, satellite and DTT), looking at 30 operators in 16 countries on 4 continents. The average channel change time measured using P+/P- was 1.9 seconds. If the user chooses the channel number, the change time came out at 3.4 seconds with a more uniform distribution than in P+/P- mode.
Witbe noted important variations between operators but also between technologies. Witbe distinguished amongst these factors:
- The broadcasting technology: satellite is twice as slow as IPTV
- The maturity of the services tested: services launched recently are often slightly slower
- The IPTV system used: for example, Microsoft Mediaroom platforms have the best results in P+/P- mode, with an average of 0.6 seconds. Channel change times of 0.7 seconds can be measured on other platforms.
- The performance of the decoder and notably the buffering policy
- The presence of retransmission mechanisms or forward error correction which, when they are not combined with rapid channel change systems, can degrade the quality.
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Wednesday 15th October
Virgin Media reschedules debt
Viacom CEO: content, not platform
4 Digital mull options
25% broadband homes could be mobile
Eurosport VOD
Digital cable reached 18%
Joost Flash debut
France 24 mobile
BT picks fibre pilots
VOOM HD co-production deal
TeliaSonera launches media distribution service
Starz Media set to expand
Brightcove 3Virgin Media shares rose by a quarter after the group said it had persuaded its 10 biggest creditors to support moves to rearrange its debt of more than £4bn (E5bn). Worried by the banking liquidity crisis Virgin brought forward the negotiations as it sought to roll back its major repayments by two years.
Virgin Media said that it had the unanimous support” of its 10 biggest bank lenders. They represent between 45 and 50 per cent of the £4.3bn in loans that the cable group has outstanding. Its shares on Nasdaq rose 23 per cent, they had fallen by 74 per cent in the past year.
In a statement, the company said it was seeking the necessary consent of two-thirds of its lenders to changes in the main agreement. In effect, all major repayments would be postponed to June 2012. Under the current arrangement, Virgin Media has to begin repaying the debt in early 2010, and analysts have said that its ability to service more than the early stages of that schedule was open to doubt. If they consent to the new arrangements, the banks will receive fees totaling up to £70m and a further £50m a year in increased margins.
Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media said the new arrangements were in the best interests of the company, its shareholders and the banks.
The problem for Virgin will be if ARPU declines in a recession; it won't be able to sustain capex and meet debt commitments but cutting capex could leave it vulnerable to competition from BT and others.
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Viacom CEO: content, not platform
From Colin Mann in CannesViacom CEO Philippe Dauman has identified new media as an area where the company was breaking new ground but stressed that the content had to come first, not the means by which it was distributed. "Our focus is on utilising digital platforms not to replace the TV experience but to extend and deepen it," he told MIPCOM delegates.
Delivering a keynote speech on creativity in the digital world, Dauman admitted that as Viacom depended on advertising for only a third of its revenue, the downturn would not hit the company as hard as it will other media groups. Its growing investment in consumer products, live events and video gaming would also soften the blow, he said. He identified franchises and brands as the central pillars supporting the company's business going forward.
"If you centre your slate on your franchises and brands, and you supplement that with films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', you have the possibility strategically of building a sound business," Dauman said. "Controlling distribution allows us to control the destiny of our product."
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The remaining partners in the 4 Digital radio consortium have held emergency talks following the exit of majority shareholder Channel 4, but the future of their proposed digital radio services looks bleak.
At least six of the 4 Digital group's proposed 10 new national radio stations will now not launch, including the three Channel 4-branded stations, with serious doubts over the future of the remaining four.
4 Digital, BSkyB, Bauer, TalkSport parent UTV, UBC Media and Carphone Warehouse are discussing their options. BSkyB said it was "unlikely" to find the new partner it required to launch Sky News Radio. Bauer Radio is understood to have its plans for a digital radio spin-off of its successful women's magazine, Closer, on hold. None of the three Channel 4-branded stations - Channel 4 Radio, E4 Radio and Pure4 - will launch following the broadcaster's decision to pull the plug on its entire radio project last week. Three other proposed stations had already been withdrawn.
One reported possibility is the BBC could play an expanded role in the future provision of digital radio, akin to its role in resuscitating the ailing digital terrestrial TV platform. Following Channel 4's withdrawal from digital radio, it is thought that BBC radio chief Tim Davie has been approached by commercial radio
As well as operating a DAB multiplex, the BBC also operates five DAB-only stations, plus its main analogue stations on DAB. Meanwhile, there is only one DAB-only commercial national station in existence: Planet Rock.
Tony Moretta, chief executive of the Digital Radio Development Bureau, said: "I know the BBC wants to launch more interactive radio services, so it could move one or two of its services from its own national multiplex to one of the commercial ones [Digital One or Digital Two], which would free up some slots for its interactive plans."
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25% broadband homes could be mobile
Fixed operators need to come up with strategies for dealing with a rapid and invasive expansion of mobile broadband into their core growth area, according to a new report, by Analysys Mason.
The report forecasts that by 2013, 47% of European broadband subscriptions will use mobile networks and nearly a quarter of broadband-equipped sites will use mobile-only.
The speed of take-up of broadband via mobile USB modems has surprised many in the fixed broadband business – and, indeed, the mobile business – and the early indications are that consumers in Europe are using mobile broadband as a substitute for fixed.
DSL subscriber net additions are drying up, and headline prices for mobile broadband are frequently lower than those for DSL. Nearly half of fixed broadband users currently have a usage profile that is no higher than the average usage on mobile broadband, making the size of the addressable market for mobile broadband as a substitutive consumer proposition enormous.
Mobile broadband is an opportunity that MNOs cannot afford to miss, but they face some difficulties in keeping the momentum going. While increasing the capacity of networks is essential to avoid reductions in service quality, MNOs need to dissociate rises in network costs from the exponential increases in bandwidth demands that have already been seen. This will involve access network upgrades, but also, crucially, the transformation of legacy backhaul to an aggregated IP infrastructure.
In the shorter term, MNOs need to manage customer traffic volumes at a retail level, selling to the kind of customers who will not put excessive pressure on the networks,” says Matt Hatton, Principal Analyst. In this respect, MNOs can pull many levers, including volume-based caps, pay-as-you-go charging and fixed–mobile bundles.”
Fixed operators are currently underestimating the scale of the threat of mobile broadband”, says the report's main author Rupert Wood, who argues that a repeat of fixed–mobile voice substitution will play out.
Eurosport is launching a new VOD service including a catch-up TV offer that will include the best of Eurosport and Eurosport 2. The TF1-owned network is making available up to 4,000 hours of programming including premium events such as the Australian Open and US Open. The catch-up TV service will be available for up to seven days following its initial transmission.
Eurosport will push the content to cable, IPTV and satellite operators over FTP. The content will then only be made available to those viewers that have subscribed to the channel. Jean Thierry Augustin, Eurosport's managing director of distribution and development said the new service would provide viewers a new window to watch the channel through. We are pleased to be able to facilitate cable and satellite operators by providing them with an additional and innovative way to provide subscribers with quality sports programming which contributes directly to increased customer satisfaction and improved customer loyalty”.
Digital cable subscribers have jumped 18 per cent to 16.3m in the first half of the year.Cable Europe, the cable industry association representing operators reaching more than 70m households, welcomed the figures as evidence that cable platforms can attract new customers for digital TV, internet and telephony services.
Manuel Kohnstamm, President of Cable Europe, said: Demand for digital services is showing that customers are upgrading their older analogue services faster than ever. The new digital services enable the industry to provide a richer audience experience.”
Of Europe's largest pay-TV markets, Screen Digest, which comiled the figures, reported 32 per cent growth in Germany to 3.4m customers; 12 per cent in France and Spain to 1.6m and 1.05m customers respectively; a 15 per cent increase in the Netherlands to 1.8m; and 3 per cent growth to 3.36m customers in the highly competitive UK market.
The growth rates in digital TV services were broadly mirrored in cable internet and cable telephony, which rose 6.7 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively for Europe as a whole between the end of 2007 and June 30, 2008.
Joost has debuted their Flash, web-only service. But the relaunch, moving away from a proprietary P2P platform, comes hot on the heels of the news that CBS, an investor in Joost, will begin releasing full length shows on YouTube. Joost, and its all-advertising model, must now compete head to head with Hulu, Veoh and others.
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The French international news channel offers mobile phone users throughout the world the possibility of receiving the three versions of FRANCE 24 (French, English, Arabic) live, together with a large number of programmes on demand.
Users can register free of charge on the FRANCE 24 website and will then receive the "FRANCE 24 Mobile" application by SMS. This live broadcasting and high-quality video on mobile service is available thanks to the mobiclip.com platform developed by Actimagine.Philippe Rouxel, FRANCE 24 Vice-President of Worldwide Distribution, said, "We are particularly pleased to launch this brand-new service, which allows us to offer the three versions of FRANCE 24 live on all the world's mobile phones, independent of networks and local operators. Thanks to mobiclip.com, FRANCE 24 will be able to attract a new type of TV viewer more interested in mobility."
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Residents in north London and South Wales, are to be the first to try next generation broadband in the UK. Exchanges in both areas are to become pilot sites where the fibre-based broadband will be tested. Once they are upgraded, home users should be able to go online at speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps).
Up to 15,000 home and business customers in each area will get the chance to take part in the pilot.
The operational pilots will run fibre-optic cables to the street cabinets that connect homes and businesses to telephone exchanges. A BT spokesman said the two sites were chosen because of their mix of customers and net providers in these areas as well as the make-up of the local communications network and geography.
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From Colin Mann in Cannes
VOOM HD Holdings, which distributes high-definition programmer VOOM HD Networks, and production house Infinite Frameworks (IFW), have sealed a deal to co-produce and distribute up to $20 million worth of high-definition programming over the next five years. VOOM and IFW will each invest up to $10 million in production and post-production activities. The parties will collaborate with top production companies from around the world to create first-rate programming in genres as diverse as sports, art, lifestyle, fashion and music. All post-production on these projects will take place at IFW's facilities in Singapore.
Greg Moyer, VOOM's General Manager said that driven by the demands of a world increasingly hungry for quality high-definition content, VOOM's objective was not only to supply the best in HD to the international marketplace, but to also seek out and identify producers in Asia and elsewhere whose content and vision complemented VOOM's key brands.
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TeliaSonera launches media distribution service
From Colin Mann in CannesTeliaSonera International Carrier is launching a new media distribution service consisting of a content publishing platform together with an extensive IP network. MPS Broadband has been selected as the exclusive partner to provide the publishing platform which will underpin a portfolio of new services for the distribution of video and rich media content over the TeliaSonera International Carrier global IP network.
The new TeliaSonera International Carrier Media Distribution Service will offer a complete end-to-end service for upload, storage and distribution of video content to the end user over the TeliaSonera International Carrier IP backbone. The service will also handle all aspects of content management, business models, DRM, security, reporting, statistics and end-user interfaces. The new service is complementary to TeliaSonera International Carrier's fibre based contribution network designed for the transport of real-time, broadcast quality video content.
We are very confident that with the combination of the TeliaSonera International Carrier global IP backbone and the MPS publishing platform, we will be able to offer broadcasters and content rights holders a complete portfolio of services comprising live streaming, download, video-on-demand and secure storage,” said Malin Frenning, President of TeliaSonera International Carrier.
"The co-operation agreement with TeliaSonera International Carrier will enable our vision of a global content eco-system',” added Anders Nilsson CEO, MPS Broadband. It is a huge change in process, a change that will alter the way in which we consume media, and where we consume it.”
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Starz Media set to expand
From Colin Mann in CannesProgramming production and distribution company Starz Media has revealed a key expansion of its partnership with Xbox LIVEwhich will significantly grow its digital distribution presence internationally. The new digital rental deal will make a range of anime movies, classic horror films and other popular titles from Starz Media's catalogue available to Xbox 360 users in the UK, Ireland and Canada.
Marc DeBevoise, Starz Media's senior vice president of digital media and business development, noted that this will be the first time many of the Anchor Bay and Manga Entertainment titles will be accessible for digital rental in Canada, the UK and other European countries, although they have been available on DVD, TV and even theatrically in those territories.
Titles are available in the Xbox LIVE Video Store for video-on-demand (VOD) purchase, with standard usage rules: Consumers can rent the titles for up to 30 days, and can watch as many times as desired within 24 hours of starting each title.
We've been hearing from fans across Europe and the rest of the world, asking when they would be able to get our content digitally ever since we started putting it on services in the US, so we're thrilled to be able to give it to them now,” DeBevoise said. This is the first of several ex-US deals we'll be rolling out in the near future, and we hope that soon everyone will be able to get our content delivered digitally, no matter where they are.”
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Brightcove announced the availability of the Brightcove 3 online video platform, which transforms the way video is published and consumed on the Web. Built from the ground up, the new platform claims to empower website producers to be successful in the era of pervasive video.
Video has gone from being a consumer-driven entertainment experience on the Web to being a basic feature of any professional website across all media and corporate sectors,” said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer. While online video is becoming ubiquitous, one size does not fit all. Built as an extensible SaaS application, Brightcove 3 provides tremendous flexibility to online publishers to meet the needs of the full spectrum of different end-user scenarios.”
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Virgin targeted ads
Virgin targeted ads
PPV slump in Spain
Viacom cuts forecast
Legal downloads outstrip pirates
Sequoia: it's very bad
Mobile TV five years away'
iPlayer mobile
NDS for Singapore mobile
RUSH on KabelKiosk
On Demand Deutschland Launch Warner VOD
TechniSat for ITV PartnerVirgin Media is launching its first targeted advertising trial on its VOD platform featuring advertisers such as Kelloggs and Royal Mail. Using ad insertion technology from SeaChange, ads will be inserted before and after on demand content in real time.
Virgin Media's trial, in its north London cable franchise, will match ads to programme genres, test a range of ad lengths, including single 30-second pre-rolls, consecutive pre-rolls and end rolls, and update campaigns weekly. The number of ads will be capped and there will be a limit on the volume of programmes that will have ads placed around them.
Ids and Channel 4 are managing the ad space for the trial with advertisers. Mark Schweitzer, chief commercial officer at Virgin Media, said: "As consumer usage of on-demand continues to build, this trial will help us explore the best ways to reach a large and growing audience with engaging and relevant advertising."
Virgin Media claims to be the UK's leading on demand TV service with 4,600 hours of available content, with half of Virgin Media's 3.5 million TV customers using its VoD service regularly.
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PPV slump in Spain
From David Del Valle in MadridThe battle over football TV rights between Sogecable, owner of Digital Plus, and Mediapro, shareholder in La Sexta, and the financial crisis are the main reasons behind a sharp drop of 45 per cent in the number of ppv sales in the second quarter of the year. According to the CMT, a Spanish regulatory body, in that period 2.5 million ppv events were bought by viewers against 4.5 million the same quarter the previous year. In contrast, the number of pay-TV subscribers grew by 9 per cent, from 3.6 million to more than 4 million.
The CMT's report reveals that ad revenues in the audiovisual sector dropped by 6%, from E 1,062 million the same period last year to E1,006 million, with a big impact on public television. The state-owned group RTVE experienced a 15.8 per cent drop in ad revenues, with private TV channels Antena 3 dropping by 12% and Tele 5 3.4%.
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Viacom cut its full-year profit forecast on Friday as the softening economy has clouded its ability to make accurate advertising projections. CBS also expects full year profit to fall in the mid-teens range and it will write down the value of its licenses by $14bn. Later, National Amusements, an entity that controls executive chairman Sumner Redstone's interests in Viacom and CBS, said it planned to sell $400m in aggregate of the two companies' non-voting stock to pay down debt to comply with its debt covenants.
The news triggered a 17.83 per cent decline in Viacom shares and a 20.12 per cent plunge in CBS stock, worse than the broader sell-off of US media stocks. Given the rapid softening of the economy and the uncertainty this creates in forecasting advertising growth, we are taking the prudent step of moderating our near-term targets,” Viacom chief executive Philippe Dauman said.
Viacom's anticipated shortfall could continue into next year as the cable advertising market is seen declining in 2009 for the first time in history, according to UBS estimates. Separately, CBS is viewed as one of most vulnerable major media companies due to its reliance on local and national broadcast television advertising.
Viacom, which owns MTV Networks and the Paramount movie studio, says it now expects 2008 adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations to rise in the mid-single to low double-digit percentage range, down from an earlier three-year projection of earnings per share growth of low-double digits.
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Legal downloads outstrip pirates
Legal music downloads have outstripped pirated tracks for the first time in the UK, according to a survey by Entertainment Media Research (EMR). The EMR survey of 1,500 consumers found that 51 per cent legally purchased digital downloads.
It's the first time this figure outweighed the number of those who download illegally, which fell to 39 per cent from 43 per cent year-on-year, in the five years the survey has been produced. The shift has been attributed to both a growth in the number legal download services launched by companies including Nokia, MySpace, Play.com, Tesco and Sky.
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Silicon Valley's most successful VC Sequoia Capital called an emergency meeting for its portfolio companies and is bringing back messages it sent to entrepreneurs in 2000. Sequoia partners presented a long analysis of how the United States economy got to this point. It is not a normal crisis,” they warned, and it will take a long time to emerge from it. They reminded entrepreneurs that tech spending depends on the economy and that e-commerce and advertising are already deteriorating.
They made sure that entrepreneurs understand the new realities they face, like smaller fund-raising rounds, customers that are slow to sign on to new services, fewer acquisitions for smaller sums and a very long road to an initial public offering of stock. They repeated their advice to start-ups: cut costs, get profitable and spend every dollar as if it were your last.” They said it would be the survival of the quickest — as in, the quickest to slash expenses.
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A new report from StrategyEye, 'Mobile TV – Separating Hype from Reality', concludes that receiving television on our mobile phones will not be an everyday reality for at least another five years. Despite the hype, mobile TV will remain a digital media pipedream for at least five years,” concludes Thomas Warren, StrategyEye Digital Media Analyst and report author. Currently, no credible financial rewards combined with a lack of broadcast and handset technology standardisation have hamstrung the sector.”
The StrategyEye report examines why, despite its potential, the sector is impeded by numerous hurdles. Since its inception in Korea in 2005, watching broadcast TV, interactive TV and video on our mobile phones has been an alluring concept and the mobile TV sector has seen some steady growth in Asia and moderate or lesser growth in Europe and the US. Widespread and large-scale investment has taken place across all three continents, but the sector is yet to yield profits and users experience a high level of technical frustration.
There are about six different standards of broadcasting around the world and, without standardisation, mobile TV is hard to roll out," says Thomas Warren. "If you add to this the fact that few handsets are able to receive broadcast TV, then you start to see the scale of the problems facing the Digital Media sector.”
StrategyEye maintains that it will take government legislation to force broadcasters and handset suppliers to comply with standardisation.
The EU created non-binding legislation but this has not worked,” says StrategyEye CEO Nick Gregg. Maybe when they do make it binding, as is planned, we will start to see real progress.”
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The BBC has signed a set of agreements to allow users to download television programmes from BBC iPlayer direct to their mobile handsets, via a wireless internet connection or over the air'. The agreements were signed with technology and licensing companies CMLA, CoreMedia and Intertrust. As a result the BBC is now allowed to use OMA DRM 2.0, a digital rights management protection system developed by the Open Mobile Alliance and offer audiences the ability to download television programmes from BBC iPlayer directly to their mobile device.
The system, which debuted on the Nokia N96, will be compatibility tested with other mobile devices with the intention to roll out on more devices in the future.
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NDS announced that it is providing the core conditional access (CA) security infrastructure for the world's first commercial trial of the new OMA BCAST SCP standard, an emerging key standard for mobile TV content protection in Singapore.
Mobile telecommunications providers M1, SingTel and StarHub are working with MediaCorp, the country's leading media company, to run the three-month trial. Alcatel-Lucent's Mobile Interactive TV solution powers the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) platform for the trial. The trial includes mobile devices from Samsung and Smartcard Profile-compliant SIM cards from Gemalto.
The NDS solution is based on NDS Unified Headend architecture, which provides a single point of rights management for all video broadcasts, irrespective of the delivery networks or the rendering devices. The new platform supports multiple mobile broadcast profiles and multiple handsets simultaneously and cost-effectively, centralising content distribution from a single headend for consumption on multiple devices.
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VOOM HD Networks and Eutelsat visAvision GmbH have announced the launch of RUSH on the KabelKiosk platform, a move that strengthens the channel's growing distribution throughout Western Europe. RUSH, a 24/7 linear channel devoted to extreme sports and adrenaline-filled action, becomes part of the leading independent European digital platform KabelKiosk, a 100-channel digital satellite service available to operators in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Denmark.
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On Demand Deutschland Launch Warner VOD
On Demand Deutschland (ODD), the joint venture between On Demand Group (ODG) and Tele München Gruppe (TMG), has concluded a multiyear licensing agreement with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution to launch Warner TV, a new subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) branded service which will provide theatrical motion pictures and TV content from Warner Bros. to viewers in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. The announcement was made today by Tony Kelly and Bernd Schloeterrer, both joint CEO, ODD; and Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, President, WarnerBros. International Television.
ODD will launch the subscription-based Warner TV channel via its operating partners in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ODD has concluded a content management deal for the Warner TV service via aonTV, the Digital TV service of Telekom Austria.
The launch of Warner TV on ODD continues WBITD's strategic expansion into subscription- and advertiser-supported video-on-demand branded services around the world. WBITD has previously launched Warner TV VOD channels with Top Up TV, Tiscali, Virgin Media and BT in the U.K., FASTWEB in Italy.
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TechniSat for ITV Partner
ITV Partner is the second largest Pay TV provider for digital satellite broadcast in Bulgaria specializing in telecommunications and Internet Services, as well as being a digital operator for Pay-TV. To receive the DTH bouquet from ITV Partner, a decoder using Cryptoworks CA supplied by TechniSat Digital S.A., is required as well as a 60-80 cm antenna. This equipment allows every customer to receive the wide and comprehensive range of TV and radio programs that ITV Partner has to offer, including channels such as Eurosport HD in different languages, HBO Bulgaria, Fox Crime Bulgaria, Discovery Channel Eastern Europe and Animal Planet Eastern Europe.
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C4 ditches digital radio
New Italian DTH platform
EC still not happy with Phorm
SARFT: Cable DTV subs reach 40m
Ifilm rights for IPTVUK's Channel 4 has abandoned its entire radio project, dealing a huge blow to the future of the DAB sector, as it seeks to make £100m (E128m) in savings. C4 said it would close its radio division with the loss of up to 15 jobs, saving an estimated £10m in 2009.
The broadcaster was to launch a series of radio stations, including a competitor to BBC Radio 4, and youth music channel E4 Radio, as part of a second digital radio platform that would carry a host of other new channels. Channel 4 said it would inform its fellow shareholders in 4 Digital Group, which would have run the second national commercial digital radio multiplex.
The future of commercial digital radio was already uncertain with the closure of a number of stations including GCap Media's TheJazz.
Commercial radio groups have been reluctant to invest further in the platform because, despite encouraging takeup of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio sets – as a result of persistent BBC promotion, they have been unable to make it pay.
The Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, who was previously a big champion of Channel 4's radio ambitions, said: We've taken this decision very reluctantly. We've pursued our radio plans in good faith and continue to believe DAB has a strong future and that we could make a return from radio in the medium term. Frustratingly, our plans have been overtaken by a drastic recent downturn in our revenues and we will have to forgo this future profit stream.”
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RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media are combining to launch a DTH platform called Tivu, to support Italy's DTT sector. RAI and Mediaset will own 48 per cent each with Telecom Italia taking 4 per cent.
The launch could be as soon as March 2009. All three companies already hold capacity on the Eutelsat Hot Bird, the same satellite used by their principal competitor Sky Italia. No new capacity has been contracted yet for the new service.
Although Tivu's broadcasts will be offered free-to-air, a smart card will be required because of the issues surrounding sports and movie rights, with Irdeto the conditional access provider. Irdeto is already used by Telecom Italia's DTT pay package La7 CartaPiu.
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The European Commission has again written to the government for an explanation of UK authorities' response to BT's allegedly illegal secret trials of Phorm's ISP adware system.
Brussels still wants answers after a September letter from the UK goverment failed to address legal issues surrounding past deployments of the technology, and didn't provide details about how future rollouts will be regulated.
EU officials originally wrote to the UK at the end of June to find out why no action had been taken over the 2006 and 2007 trials, which were conducted in secret and without customer consent. The European Privacy and Electronic Communications directive demands that customers are given informed prior warning if their communications and data are intercepted or processed in any way.
The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) said the government believed that Phorm's system could operate within the law in future if conditions for consent and anonymity were met. It did not tackle the interception and profiling of tens of thousands of BT customers' web data that had already occurred.
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SARFT: Cable DTV subs reach 40m
Vice director Wang Lian of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)'s department of technology said at the China Digital TV Forum 2008 that 33 cities and regions across China had completed DTV conversion projects as of August of this year, bringing the number of digital cable subscribers nationwide to more than 40 million, expected to increase to more than 45 million by the end of the year. 155 premium DTV channels are now broadcasting around the country.
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Big Screen Entertainment Group has announced a new partnership with Ifilm Rights of England. Ifilm says the partnership will allow BSEG to get its numerous films directly to IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) broadcasters, eliminating middlemen buyers around the world. Two new online download sites are also under construction for BSEG's titles that will be available for download directly to consumer.
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