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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday
Friday 3rd July
Court extends stay on DISH box deactivation
KDG eyes Escaline-Orion
Broadband users happiest with FTTH
TV ads considered most helpful
Solaris finds W2A S-band payload issues
NCC mulling five new TV licences for Taiwan
NTC to reallocate frequencies for Philippines DTV
ProSieben streams Gossip Girl
TechniSat STBs for Cyfrowy Dom, Freesat HD box
Court extends stay on DISH box deactivationEchoStar and DISH Network have won a stay, pending their appeal, of a Texas court's order that they disable millions of digital video recorders that infringe on TiVo’s patent for ‘time warp’ technology. The US Court of Appeals also sped up the schedule for the appeal by set-top box maker EchoStar and satellite pay TV provider DISH so that the case will be placed on the court's November calendar, if possible.
EchoStar and DISH said in a statement they were pleased with the ruling and "as a result of the stay, our customers can continue using their DISH DVDs."
The appeals court found that DISH and EchoStar had met their "burden of proof of demonstrating the requisites for a stay" by showing that they could prevail in their appeal or that they have a "substantial case" and could suffer potential harm from the lower court order.
The appeals court order finalises a temporary stay it granted last month in a long-running case over TiVo's ‘Time Warp’ software, which allows users to record one TV programme while watching another.
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KDG eyes Escaline-OrionGerman cable operator Kabel Deutschland (KDG) is interested in acquiring struggling rival Escaline-Orion, the parent company of cablecos Tele Columbus and PrimaCom,
Talks are reportedly underway between the two parties, though the country’s anti-trust agency, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) would probably view such a takeover as enhancing competition against the incumbent telco Deutsche Telekom.
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Broadband users happiest with FTTHCustomers of telecom companies that run fibre optic lines are more likely to give high ratings to their TV and Internet services than those who access their services via cable modem or DSL, according to survey results released by the fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council.
The survey found that 67 per cent of FTTH users gave the highest rating – "very satisfied" – to their Internet connection speeds, compared to 58 per cent of cable modem users and 46 percent of DSL users.
In addition, 74 per cent of those watching television over FTTH were "very satisfied" with the quality of the HD picture they received, compared to 50 per cent cable TV and 51 per cent of satellite TV subscribers. FTTH users also reported higher satisfaction rates with regard to their service reliability, particularly its "uptime."
"When you listen to what real subscribers are saying about their broadband services, we found that those who have end-to-end fibre are the most satisfied broadband customers around," said FTTH Council President Joe Savage. "On average, they are getting faster Internet and higher quality television services and are paying less for them."
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TV ads considered most helpfulAccording to a poll by AdweekMedia and The Harris Poll, over one-third of Americans (37 per cent) say TV ads are most helpful in making their purchase decisions while 17 per cent say newspaper ads are most helpful and 14 per cent say the same about Internet ads.
Radio ads (3 per cent) and Internet banner ads (1 per cent) are not considered helpful by many people. Over one-quarter of Americans (28 per cent), however, say that none of these types of advertisements are helpful to them in the purchase decision making process.
Half of people aged 18-34 (50 per cent) say television ads are most helpful while three in ten (31 per cent) of those aged 55 and older say they find newspaper ads to be most helpful. There is also a slight regional difference. Two in five Southerners (40 per cent) say they find television ads most helpful, while only one-third (33 per cent) of Midwesterners feel the same.
Almost half of Americans (46 per cent) say they tend to ignore Internet banner ads. Much further down the list are Internet search engine ads (17 per cent of people ignore), television ads (13 per cent), radio ads (9 per cent), and newspaper ads (6 per cent). One in ten Americans (9 per cent) say they do not ignore any of these types of ads.
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Solaris finds W2A S-band payload issuesA technical investigation of Solaris Mobile’s S-band payload on Eutelsat’s W2A satellite has revealed, "significant non-compliances from its original specifications," according to a Solaris Mobile statement.
As a result, the company, along with its shareholders, Eutelsat and SES Astra, have filed a claim for the full-insured value of the payload and have downgraded their confidence that the payload will be able to fully meet the commitments made to the European Union on its awarded S-band spectrum to provide mobile satellite services to the continent.
The W2A was placed in orbit in April, shortly before Solaris and Inmarsat were tapped by the European Commission to operate mobile satellite services in Europe using 60 megahertz of S-band radio spectrum. Some of the losing bidders have filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the European Commission decision. Solaris Mobile said that, despite its payload findings, it remains entirely committed to provide these services to the European market.
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NCC mulling five new TV licences for TaiwanA Taiwanese National Communications Commission (NCC) spokesman has said yesterday that the commission would consider the impact on the media market when issuing operation licences for terrestrial TV services.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications are planning to release a maximum of five terrestrial TV licences. The ministry is in charge of the planning and use of the nation’s radio spectrum. The commission issues the operational licences and sets the issuing rules.
The ministry wants to add five terrestrial TV stations to the five that already exist. The spokesman said the ministry was still seeking input from the public on the plan and the commission was awaiting policy instructions from the ministry.
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NTC to reallocate frequencies for Philippines DTV
THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) plans to reallocate more frequencies in the Philippines for digital terrestrial TV (DTT) use ahead of the full migration by 2015.The agency said it would reallocate the ultra high frequency (UHF) channels 14 to 20 (440 to 512 megahertz), which is presently assigned to fixed/mobile service, for digital TV.
The NTC plans to stop issuing permits for analogue TV service by next year in preparation for the migration to digital TV. The UHF TV channels 14 to 51 are supposed to be allocated for DTT broadcast service.
Ariel Padilla, director of the NTC Department for Broadcast Services, said the Frequency Management Department (FMD) has directed the preparation of a frequency allocation plan for the efficient transfer of affected authorized users of channels 14 to 20 (470 to 512 Mhz). Padilla, however, said the agency has yet to decide on which platform to adopt.
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ProSieben streams Gossip GirlWarner Bros. International Television Distribution's ‘Gossip Girl’ has become the first American series to be streamed on German broadcaster ProSieben's online video portal, available to consumers on an ad-supported basis. The series is available to view on ProSieben.tv directly following the free-TV broadcast. Episodes will be available for a week. In addition, episodes of the show are available for purchase and download a week ahead of their television debut on the VOD platform maxdome.
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TechniSat STBs for Cyfrowy Dom, Freesat HD boxTechniSat Digital has expanded its range of STBs for Cyfrowy Dom´s pre-paid service "Telewizja na kartê"! At the same time Discovery Networks and Cyfrowy Dom have. finalised their contract and all users of Telewizja na kartê will have access to Discovery Channel without any additional charges. Cooperation between Cyfrowy Dom. and Discovery Networks will allow 200,000 users of the pre-paid service from Telewizja na kartê (TNK), access to the channel and will expand the range of channels offered by the biggest pre-paid platform in Central Europe to 15.
TechniSat Digital has also confirmed the launch of the HDFS Satellite HD digital receiver - a premium product for the reception of all Freesat SD and HD services plus extended features and functionality. The HDFS offers playback of movies, music and pictures from USB memory sticks, SD/MS/MMC cards, CompactFlash or a networked PC via LAN or wirelessly using the optional USB WLAN Adaptor.
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Thursday 2nd July
ITV looks to micro payments as ratings hit record low
Joost over and Volpi out
‘New’ Pirate Bay will pay sharers
Five wants a UK Hulu
Chen quits YouTube
Operators miss tru2way deadline
IPTV standard enables content location
Operators must invest in Asia/Pacific IPTV
Paramount home entertainment merger?
Elgato brings HDTV to Macs
Amino and Prime Time partner for IPTV upgrade
Telairity appoints Silva
ITV looks to micro payments as ratings hit record lowSpeaking at the Future of Broadcasting event, Carolyn Fairbairn, director of group development and strategy at ITV, said the broadcaster viewed micropayments as "very interesting".
She said charging for content was an area of focus for the broadcaster, although she had no details how this might work. "We will continue to look for ad-supported models, absolutely," she said. "However, the idea people will pay is something we should look at and we do. We need some kind of payment system and then we will see if it flourishes."
Dan Marks, who until this week was chief executive of BT Vision, said broadcasters needed to examine new funding models to sustain themselves. Marks, now a consultant, called on broadcasters to "cooperate" more with communications providers such as telephone groups like BT and Virgin Media who were evolving into content players.
Meanwhile, ITV1 suffered its worst ratings in its 54-year history as it slipped to an all-hours audience share of just 16.1 per cent. According to unconsolidated ratings figures, ITV1 pulled in an all-hours live individuals share of 16.1 per cent for the week ending on June 28th. This compares with a previous worst ever week low of 16.13 per cent, recorded three weeks ago.
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Joost over and Volpi outJoost the much-hyped OTT video provider is dropping its consumer proposition and reinventing as a "cost-effective" white-label video provider. Along the way it is cutting many staff possibly preparing for a sale as a technology company rather than an entertainment platform.
Mike Volpi its high profile CEO is stepping down although will remain as chairman. Matt Zelesko, the SVP of engineering who joined from Comcast in January, replaces Volpi while keeping his engineering portfolio. Stacy Seltzer, who has been SVP of international business development and content acquisition, will run business operations.
Volpi admitted what many others have drawn their own conclusions on: "it’s been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform. In order to position ourselves well for the future, we began investigating additional lines of revenue for Joost." The solution they’ve chosen is focusing primarily on building a white-label option for others who want to run portals.
The company was founded in 2007 by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstroem, the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Joost raised upwards of $50 million in funding.
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‘New’ Pirate Bay will pay sharersThe new owners of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay say users will be paid for sharing files. Global Gaming Factory’s (GGF) CEO Hans Pandeya told the BBC that the only way to beat illegal file-sharing was to make something more attractive. "We're talking about next-gen file sharing so you can create revenue from storage and internet traffic optimisation," he said.
According to Pandeya, GGF's the business model for The Pirate Bay would be that it continued to be a file-sharing site. The only difference - at least in terms of content - would be that the files would be hosted legally, rather than stolen from copyright holders. Pandeya said that one of the biggest hurdles in overcoming illegal file-sharing was that there was zero cost to the users, while legitimate sites required users to pay for content. The only way to make something more attractive than free was to pay users to share files.
"We are going to set up a system where the file-sharer actually makes money.
More than half of all internet traffic is file sharing and P2P traffic and buying Pirate Bay gives us one of the biggest sources of traffic.
We can then use this massive network of file-sharers to help ISPs reduce overload. Let's say a popular song comes out. Rather than a million downloads from a site - which would cause a considerable strain on that ISP - we can take that song and put it out on P2P. The copyright holder still gets paid, the users still get their file, the ISP doesn't have a million people all grabbing a file and - for the users who share that song - a payment for putting that file on the P2P network."
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Five wants a UK Hulu
Five CEO Dawn Airey says broadcasters here are "staring into the abyss" if they don’t form a Hulu-like alliance. She told Variety "unless video-on-demand services such as the proposed Project Canvas - backed by the BBC, ITV and British Telecom - are greenlit, the ‘major beneficiary’ is likely to be a company like Hulu."
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Chen quits YouTubeYouTube confirmed that Steve Chen, a co-founder and most recently YouTube’s chief technology officer, was no longer working at the company. Chen left some time ago to work on unspecified engineering projects at its parent, Google.
YouTube said: "Steve shifted his focus to help with some Google engineering projects. He’s still involved with YouTube and invested in its success."
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Operators miss tru2way deadlineComcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications don’t yet have tru2way interactive-services technology enabled across their entire footprints, despite having pledged it should be active by July 1st in agreements with consumer-electronics companies last year.
But executives from Samsung Electronics and Panasonic, said the two biggest cable operators have made good-faith efforts to date on deploying the technology and they expect additional tru2way markets launched soon.
"I can't say I'm happy about the results -- we would have liked for things to happen more quickly -- but we have to be realistic about the complexity of this project," said Jeff Cove, Panasonic's vice president of strategic alliances, adding, "My sense is the cable companies are trying to meet the deadlines."
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IPTV standard enables content locationITU has given first stage approval to a new standard that enables an IPTV end user to locate and subscribe to content coming from different, independent service providers. The standard will enable a greater deal of choice for end-users and will help service providers offer a more competitive package.
Recommendation ITU-T H.770 - Mechanisms for service discovery and selection for IPTV - describes the mechanisms for service provider discovery, service discovery and selection. Services such as linear TV and video-on-demand are addressed with metadata that describes programming and delivery protocols detailed.
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Operators must invest in Asia/Pacific IPTVDespite the massive investments necessary in Asia/Pacific's IPTV market, both in technology and content procurement, telecom operators must invest to gain subscriber market share according to a report from Pyramid Research, the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network.
Although Asia/Pacific has the distinction of having the most successful IPTV operators globally, and rollouts continue throughout the region, operators continue to face challenges in three key areas: regulatory constraints, content, and technology costs, notes Charles Moon, analysts at Pyramid Research and author of the report. "Typically, regulatory issues come first, then the mammoth challenge of valuing and procuring content along with technology issues - both of which can affect subscriber take-up and bottom lines," says Moon.
"One of the most glaring problems surrounding IPTV has been the lack of any framework around the service, putting it in a grey area, with neither the telecom nor broadcasting regulators having clear oversight of the sector," says Moon. Also, the initial investments required in order to acquire content can be prohibitive for smaller players. "To make matters worse, the entrenched position of cable companies in markets like Japan and South Korea make it even more difficult for new IPTV players to negotiate for content rights," he explains. "In addition to the lack of adequate infrastructure and the high cost of STBs hindering adoption, the fight to defend market share is intensifying."
Asia/Pacific provides good lessons for operators faced with developing a business case for IPTV services and determining an appropriate strategy for long-term success. "We believe the long-term opportunities that IPTV brings outweigh the short-term risks," Moons says. "The promise of media, and the escape it provides from dumb-pipe business models, is encouraging carriers to take risks and make grabs for market share," he adds. "Further, the benefits associated from capturing customers - such as lower churn, new service provisioning, and higher cash flows - provide a case for short-term sacrifices."
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Paramount home entertainment merger?Viacom’s Paramount Pictures studio is seeking to merge its home entertainment division with a rival and is in advanced talks with Sony Pictures and News Corporation’s Fox studio, signalling that Hollywood could soon see a wave of consolidation.
The negotiations follow an industry-wide slump in DVD sales, the entertainment sector’s most profitable revenue stream. Sales have fallen by as much as 20 per cent in the past year, forcing studios to cut costs in order to maintain profit margins.
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Elgato brings HDTV to MacsElgato has introduced EyeTV Sat, a new satellite TV tuner that delivers the clarity of HDTV to the high resolution display of the Mac. EyeTV Sat connects the home satellite dish directly to the Mac via USB 2.0, and receives DVB-S and DVB-S2 transmissions. Powered by Elgato’s award-winning EyeTV 3 software, EyeTV Sat enables users to watch, record, edit and enjoy satellite HDTV on a Mac. For switchers, it also offers a complete Windows solution in the form of TerraTec Home Cinema software. EyeTV Sat has a built-in CI slot to enable Pay TV programming with an appropriate subscription module.
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Amino and Prime Time partner for IPTV upgradePrime Time Communications, provider of integrated IP-based services, and Amino Communications, have completed a major upgrade programme to deliver new expanded HD services to its customers in Utah.
Prime Time, which offers IP-based services to over 10,000 subscribers including 4,000 customers across Salt Lake City’s fibre-to-the-home UTOPIA network, faced a challenging schedule to upgrade service to customers of Mstar, the Utah-based internet service provider, which it acquired in April 2009. With the current MPEG2 stream set to end, Prime Time programmed a rapid two week changeover programme, to convert 3,800 customers to MPEG4 video signalling using Amino’s award-winning AmiNET130 and AmiNET530 HD set-top boxes (STBs).
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Telairity appoints SilvaTelairity has confirmed the appointment of Ben Silva, an IP video industry veteran and award-winning entertainment and media industries executive, to the position of vice president of sales for communications, media and entertainment. Telairity is a supplier of real-time MPEG-4 video compression solutions for broadcasting, backhaul, IPTV, and related markets.
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Wednesday 1st July
Sky on attack over PSB ‘conspiracy’
Pirate Bay goes legit?
ESPN secures EPL slots
Setanta Ireland buyout deal
Supreme Court backs Cablevision DVR
Canal+ for Europa
HD models taking over PVR market
100,000 customers for mio TV
Pace appoints Sheldon
Sky on attack over PSB ‘conspiracy’Trading blows over Ofcom’s plan to regulate pay-TV market prices has started. Mike Darcey, the chief operating officer at BSkyB, has accused public service broadcasters, industry regulators and politicians of breeding a "culture of dependency" that has failed to allow the UK TV industry to explore new business models.
Darcey told the Institute of Economic Affairs Sky might cut back on its investment in UK original production, including drama and arts programming, if it is forced by Ofcom into wholesale deals with other pay-TV operators for its premium sport and movie channels. He argued that the era of reliance on advertiser funding by commercial PSBs ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five's main source or revenue, is over in a digital world.
He claimed the reason "much of the commercial broadcasting sector has failed to move on. The reason is deeply rooted in the culture of the public service broadcasting system which binds the broadcasters together with those responsible for UK broadcasting policy."
"In this complex system of privileges and obligations, the fortunes of the terrestrial broadcasters have been reliant on winning the support of regulators and politicians. The consequence is a culture of dependency which shapes the mindset and strategies of the licensed broadcasters."
Darcey argued that Lord Carter's Digital Britain report is the latest example of how, to be successful, the PSBs have to persuade policy-makers that they are vital to achieving public policy goals."It remains the case that UK broadcasting policy is geared almost exclusively around the free model. So it is no coincidence that the attitudes of the commercial PSBs should be so closely aligned with those of the people who can make or break their businesses. The focus of policymakers on advertising as the core means of funding public service content beyond the BBC has remained unshakeable despite the evidence of the sustained challenges facing the terrestrial broadcasters."
Darcey hit out at Ofcom's proposal to force Sky to wholesale its premium sport and movie channels to rivals at a potential 30% discount. He said BSkyB, which has threatened to launch legal action if the proposals become reality, would have to look at cutting back programming investment across the board. "One of the many things that is remarkable about the proposals is the ease with which Ofcom feels able to undermine incentives for continued investment in high-quality content," he added.
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Pirate Bay goes legit?Publicly listed Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X (GFF) says it wants to buy The Pirate Bay for SEK60 million (£4.7m) and will begin compensating copyright owners for material its users find and download. The Bay’s founders get half the money in cash and half in new GFF shares. This comes a day after Pirate Bay announced it would begin streaming TV channels, including copyright material.
GFF CEO Hans Pandeya says he wants to see "copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site". The Bay tells its supporters in a blog post not to worry about the site’s future, adding that it’s being sold for "a great bit underneath its value". And it’s not a total abandonment of radical values: the Bay says "all profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets."
In the Swedish court case brought by major music labels and films studio earlier this year, the Bay’s four main founders and operators were sentenced to one year in jail and to pay fines of SEK30 million (£2.4 million). That case is being appealed but it could be that the Bay simply need the cash to pay their fines.
GGF announced it will also buy P2P technology company Peerialism and plans "to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners", when the deal is closed in August.
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ESPN secures EPL slotsESPN, which last week acquired its first live English Premier League (EPL) TV rights, has secured its presence on Freeview and is expected to launch a high- definition version of its soon-to-launch EPL channel on Sky. Broadcasting on Freeview pay-TV service Top Up TV, ESPN America is using a channel previously occupied by Setanta, which went into administration last week.
ESPN will broadcast live EPL action in the UK for the first time in its history, after landing the rights to air 46 games for the 2009/2010 season and 23 games in each of the three following seasons.
It is understood to have paid about £250 million (E294m) for EPL rights over the next four seasons. Access to the 9.9 million homes that Freeview, both free-to-air and via pay-TV through Top Up TV, provides is key for ESPN as it looks to sign up enough subscribers to make its EPL investment pay off.
The Disney-backed sports broadcaster has also struck what it termed "interim" deals with Sky and BT Vision to make ESPN America available via these operators' platforms.
Meanwhile, ESPN is understood to be working on deals to wholesale its new EPL channel to Top Up TV, Virgin Media and BT Vision. It already has such a deal with Sky, with the pay-TV platform marketing and retailing the channel instead of ESPN.
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Setanta Ireland buyout deal
Setanta's founders and MCD boss Denis Desmond are expected to take full control of the sports giant's Irish business after agreeing a buyout with original investors, including Doughty Hanson and Goldman Sachs.The deal comes as secured debt holders, who are owed E220 million by Setanta, consider fresh "commercial terms" offered by the Irish team. Once the new Irish venture is formally established, it is expected to immediately begin negotiations to get its carriage contract with BSkyB on a firm footing, after the UK broadcaster threatened to pull the plug on transmissions after a row over payments.
The new Setanta Ireland company will also be targeting substantial fresh investment and has already spoken to UPC owner Liberty Global as well as two Irish venture capital companies, according to reports.
Meanwhile some reports have said the total losses of the Setanta companies in administration total £520 million (E612m).
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Supreme Court backs Cablevision DVRThe US Supreme Court has handed Cablevision a victory in its remote storage DVR fight when as expected, it refused to hear arguments in the case, instead deferring to a lower court's decision that the DVR service does not leave cable providers liable for content owners' copyrights. Cablevision called the decision, which paves the way for a rollout of its remote storage DVR service later this summer, a tremendous victory, adding that it recognises the concerns the technology has raised among programmers.
"We believe there are ways to take this victory and work with programmers to give our customers what they want - full DVR functionality through existing digital set-top boxes - and at the same time deliver real benefits to advertisers," said Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge in a statement.
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Canal Plus has struck a deal with UEFA to secure the rights to the Europa League, formerly the UEFA Cup, for the next three seasons. The deal will allow Canal Plus Sport to broadcast 205 matches, including 190 live matches. The new format of the competition will allow Canal Plus Sport to air a flagship programme on Thursday nights built on the template of Canal Plus’s coverage of Champions League matches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Other matches will be aired by Sport Plus and Foot Plus.
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HD models taking over PVR marketThe personal video recorder (PVR) market is continuing to grow, fuelled by high-definition models, reports In-Stat.
"Demand for HD units has increased dramatically recently," says Mike Paxton, In-Stat analyst. "Over the past 18 months, HD PVR product unit shipments have not only surpassed SD PVR product unit shipments, they now account for nearly 3ž4 of all PVR product shipments."
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
- Global PVR unit shipments exceeded 25 million in 2008.
- Multi-room or "whole home" PVR service has become available in an increasing number of cities in the US over the last year.
- On a regional basis, growth of PVR products is much stronger in Asia Pacific and Europe, compared to the more mature North American market.
- Over 1ž4 of US survey respondents were extremely or very interested in multi-room PVR capability.
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100,000 customers for mio TVSingapore Telecommunications has announced that its mio TV service has surpassed its 100,000 customer mark. The milestone coincides with the service’s second birthday and to celebrate, all new and existing customers will be able given a special selection of ten movies which they can watch on-demand for free. mio TV was launched 20 July 2007 and has since brought many new, innovative offerings and features to Singapore’s pay TV market, which was dominated by a single service provider for over a decade.
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Pace appoints SheldonPace, independent developer of digital TV technologies for the global payTV industry, has appointed Scott Sheldon as Chief Strategy Officer. Sheldon will join the Pace Executive team to drive development of the Group’s future strategy in the global market for digital TV technology. Sheldon joins Pace from N M Rothschild & Sons where he was a Director and Global Head of Technology Investment Banking.
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Tuesday 30th June
Canal+ on Xbox
Pirate Bay streaming
English news for Chinese
TV networks online a hit
Virgin PictureBox VOD
TV viewers taking greater control with PVR
Eutelsat launches Fransat
Nearly half of Koreans watch mobile TV
NDS Unified to integrate Pontis MDP
KIT teams with Akama
Canal+ on XboxCanal+ Group has followed suit with Sky and announced a major strategic partnership that will put the French pay-TV operator’s content across all Microsoft’s platforms.
Initially the Xbox 360 will be enabled to receive the Canalplay VOD service and its Foot+ football offer. The one million owners of the Xbox in France will be able to access some 6,000 titles, including 3,000 films, through the Zune video marketplace.
Also available to Canal+ subscribers that have signed up to Xbox Live are Canal’s popular shows Le Grand Journal, +Clair, Dimanche+, and Le Zapping. Coverage of top flight English, Spanish, German and Italian football is also available, in addition to access from the French Ligue 1 and Champions League. Users will be able to use the Xbox social networking features to comment on the coverage.
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Pirate Bay streamingThe world's highest profile file-sharing website, The Pirate Bay (TPB), has lifted the lid on its new video sharing website, The Video Bay.
Billed as a rival to YouTube, the service will offer unrestricted video content, in violation of copyright.In April, a court in Sweden jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay and ordered them to pay $4.5 million (£3m) in damages. Speaking by video link to the Open Video Conference in New York, TBP founder Peter Sunde said the service would use the latest HTML 5 features.
"This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk encoding, so please don't bug us too much if the site isn't working properly," he added. Although the site is in its early stages, a preview showed a number of copyright music videos available for viewing in the navigation sidebar.
The move will be seen by some as provocative, given that the founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail in April, though they are currently on bail pending appeal.
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English news for ChineseChina’s official news agency Xinhua, will launch an English-language tele-vision news programme this week on screens in supermarkets and outside Chinese embassies in Europe, in a cautious first step towards spreading Beijing’s view of the world to western audiences.
The move, planned for Wednesday, comes six months after the Chinese government launched a plan to improve its global image through English-language television news channels to be built by trusted state-owned media. "Our goal is to get China’s voice and perspective of things out there and to offer a different choice to a news audience all over theworld."
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The online web-based TV services of the four major US TV networks – ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox – together with Hulu, the joint venture between NBC, News Corp and Disney, accounted for a combined 53 per cent of an ad-supported US online TV market that generated $448 million in revenues in 2008. The remaining share of revenues was made up of the online video services of major sports leagues, video services from traditional online portals, and direct services from other major channel groups and content owners.
The findings have just been published in a report by Screen Digest which goes on to state that the combined dominance of the leading broadcaster-supported platforms will drive the total ad-supported model for the distribution of online programming to more than $1.45 billion in revenues by 2013.
In contrast, third party platforms such as YouTube, Joost and other portals, which have no direct vertical affiliation with major rights holders, nor direct access to premium content rights, will struggle to aggregate ad-supported movies and TV shows. The Hollywood Studios and major rights holders will continue to limit such deals, instead preferring to build their own syndicated ad-supported online video services – such as Crackle, developed by Sony Pictures, and the CBS Audience Network. This is a trend that will gather momentum. As a result, third party ad-supported video platforms may have to either diversify into new forms of their own original programming, exit the content aggregation business and offer technology and advertising solutions to the content-owners’ and broadcasters’ own services, or settle on the low-margin business of becoming affiliates of the player-platforms distributed by the content rights holders themselves.
According to Arash Amel, author of the report, "With better targeting and increased ad inventory, online TV services could be generating per-viewer revenues comparable to an average TV broadcast viewing in as little as three years. However, based on the current online ad strategies implemented, it will account for 2.2 per cent of all US TV advertising revenue by 2013, but definitely won’t be generating enough to offset the $2 billion we expect total US TV advertising to have declined by during in that period.
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Virgin Media and Universal Pictures are teaming up to launch PictureBox, a movies-on-demand TV subscription service. From July, the PictureBox service will be available to Virgin Media's 3.6 million TV subscribers for £5 (E5.87) per month, and will provide a selection of recent and library feature films. Subscribers will be able to view films from a selection of 28 films at any given time, with seven new titles added to the line-up every Friday. PictureBox is wholly owned by Universal Pictures.Virgin Media said that more than half of its 3.6 million TV customers are now regularly watching on-demand content.
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TV viewers taking greater control with PVRResearch from UK’s Ofcom reveals that more viewers are taking greater control over the way they watch TV as the total number of digital video recorders sold in the UK has reached almost nine million (8.9 million). Its Digital Progress Report for the first quarter of 2009 showed that the number of digital recording devices had increased by nearly one million on the quarter.
The report also shows that the total number of digital households reached 89.2 per cent with digital switchover now underway in the West Country, Border and Isle of Man.
The total number of households with a DTT device on any set reached 18 million, up from 17.7 million during the quarter. Since Freeview launched in 2002, the total sales of DTT devices reached over 43 million units, with over 23 million set-top boxes and nearly 20 million Integrated Digital TVs (IDTV)
BSkyB reported that its customer base grew by 80,000 to over 9.3 million households in the UK and Ireland during the quarter. This is up by 430,000 subscribers year-on-year.
By March 2009 the BBC/ITV Freesat service reported that sales had reached 350,000 up from 230,000 sales in the previous quarter. Of these almost three-quarters of sales were HD ready receivers (263,000). According to the consumer research there were around 500,000 households with free satellite services down around 100,000 on the previous quarter.The total number of cable TV customers reached its highest ever figure with 3.65 million subscribers, up by almost 137,000 in twelve months Over half (53 per cent) of its customers were using its VOD service.
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Eutelsat launches FransatEutelsat has confirmed the full commercial launch of Fransat, the new service giving satellite access in metropolitan France to all French free DTT channels.
To receive Fransat, households can buy a labelled Pack comprising a decoder and a Fransat conditional-access smartcard. Packs are already available at typical points of sale for satellite TV (individual suppliers and antenna installers, as well as major DIY centres, specialist retail warehouses and hypermarkets), with particular emphasis on availability in ‘white zones’. The service is principally addressing the 10-15 per cent of TV homes in metropolitan France which will be unable to receive terrestrial DTT or who will have poor reception with the definitive switch-off of terrestrial analogue broadcasting, scheduled on 30 November 2011.
Fransat offers access to France's 18 free DTT channels, plus France Ô and the four HD channels TF1 HD, France 2 HD, M6 HD and ARTE HD.
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Nearly half of Koreans watch mobile TV
Almost half of all South Koreans subscribe to mobile TV services that enable users to view programmes, movies and other entertainment content via handheld devices according to industry data.TU Media, the country's sole operator of satellite-based digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), said the number of its subscribers topped 2 million as of last week, four years after it launched the service. "We lured 2 million subscribers in just four years, the shortest span among fee-based broadcasting firms," a company official commented.
In addition, more than 20 million terrestrial DMB devices, including mobile phones, were also sold as of the end of May. The numbers suggest that about 45 per cent of South Korea's 49-million population enjoy mobile TV service.
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NDS Unified to integrate Pontis MDPNDS, provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, has teamed up with Pontis to integrate its Marketing Delivery Platform (MDP) with the NDS Unified headend. The integrated solution will enable digital pay-TV operators to up-sell and cross-sell services to their subscribers more effectively by giving them the ability to create real-time, personalised offers, promotions and content recommendations on both linear and VOD channels. The solution will help operators to improve the customer experience and raise ARPU by delivering relevant, contextual offers and recommendations to subscribers.
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KIT teams with AkamaKIT digital, a global provider of IP-based video management technologies, and Akamai Technologies, specialist in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, have joined forces to deliver IP-Video across multiple mediums, including online, mobile networks and IPTV-enabled set-top boxes. The companies have signed a new strategic agreement which calls for them to build upon a long-standing vendor relationship and engage in collaborative sales and marketing efforts on a global basis. This is a unique initiative for both companies and reflects their shared vision for the future of the IP-video market.
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Monday 29th June
Ofcom: Sky should share content
Broadband remains a top spending priority
MPAA files new complaint against RealNetworks
Fujisoft and Sonic Solutions bring movies to Wii
Microsoft and VivaKi team for advertising
enableTV offers royalty-free a tru2way solution
Ofcom: Sky should share content
BSkyB has reacted furiously to Ofcom’s proposition to force them to sell its sports and premium movie rights to other platforms at regulated prices. Ofcom said such a move may be a "most appropriate way of ensuring fair and effective competition".
BSkyB has immediately rejected the proposal, saying it will "use all available legal avenues", and that it "fundamentally" disagreed with Ofcom. Ofcom has asked interested parties to respond to the proposals, which are the latest to flow from its investigation into the whole pay-TV market, by August 18th. Ofcom said its proposal would enable more rival broadcasters to access and offer the channels to viewers, "thereby promoting choice and innovation".
"We do not believe that this proposed remedy would have a disproportionate impact on Sky, since we consider the proposed prices are above the level required to allow Sky a reasonable return on its content costs," said Ofcom.
Ofcom set out a range of prices below what Sky currently charges the cable operator Virgin Media. The aim is to make channels such as Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 and Sky Movies more widely available on pay-TV services such as Top Up TV, BT Vision and other broadband services.
The regulator proposes dropping the cost of buying Sky Sports 1 or Sky Sports 2 from £13.48 (E15.9) to between £9.41 and £11.24.
At the lower end, that is just 34p above the "cost-plus" price, the point at which Sky has covered all its costs and made a "reasonable return" on its investment.
A bundle of Sky Sports 1 and 2 and the movie channels – which now costs Virgin £23.40 per subscriber to buy wholesale from Sky – would cost between £16.98 and £20.43, a 27 per cent discount on current prices and the same as Sky's cost-plus price. Virgin Media would be expected to pass at least some of this discount on to its cable TV subscribers.
The watchdog also outlined plans to examine the terms of Sky's rights agreement with the FA Premier League. And it warned that it could refer the other cornerstone of Sky's subscription success, its deals for movie rights with Hollywood studios, to the Competition Commission.
Ofcom is to hold a further 12-week consultation before setting out its final verdict.
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Broadband remains a top spending priority
Consumers are unwilling to part with their broadband services at home even in the midst of the economic downturn, preferring to cut spending on things like dining out and leisure travel, according to a series of studies sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent.Broadband services appear to be nearly recession-proof, with 84 per cent of consumers identifying broadband as an essential network service and therefore the least likely target for spending cuts. The studies also showed that more consumers globally are planning to subscribe to and/or upgrade their broadband services, even while reducing spending in other areas. Key factors driving this preference include a desire to reduce the cost and travel time associated with commuting, coupled with a preference for greener alternatives. In developed countries, respondents also noted a growing dependence on the Web as an information source, business tool, social network and entertainment venue.
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MPAA files new complaint against RealNetworksAs both sides await a judge’s ruling over the legality of RealNetworks' DVD copying software RealDVD, the major studios have filed a new complaint, charging that RealNetworks lied in court about circumventing DVD copy protections.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) asked the Judge to include in the court record five patent filings by RealNetworks, published by the Patent and Trademark Office on June 11th. The MPAA claims that RealNetworks seeks to patent DVD copyright circumvention technologies for RealDVD that it denied existed in the April hearing.
"These patent applications flatly contradict the testimony and proposed findings submitted by Real and strongly support the studios’ contentions regarding Real’s circumvention of ARccOS and RipGuard," the studios claim in the filing. RealNetworks called the latest charges "false and misleading."
Whether RealDVD and planned DVD copying device Facet circumvent copy-protection technologies to copy DVDs is at the heart of the lawsuit between the studios and RealNetworks. The major studios claim that RealDVD and Facet violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by circumventing copy protection on DVDs.
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Fujisoft and Sonic Solutions bring movies to WiiSonic Solutions is partnering with Fujisoft to deliver entertainment to the Nintendo Wii game console. Sonic's Roxio CinemaNow will be providing Hollywood content, beginning with new releases and catalogue titles from Paramount Pictures, for Fujisoft's video-on-demand service in Japan, called "Minna no Theater Wii" (Everyone's Theatre Wii). The companies will continue to work together in order to expand the range of entertainment available for instant streaming to the TV via the popular game console.
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Microsoft and VivaKi team for advertisingMicrosoft and VivaKi, the digital arm of Publicis, have unveiled a broad cooperation deal spanning the fast-growing digital advertising sector to targeted television advertising. The deal will lead to the creation of a customised VivaKi advertisement exchange for television advertising delivered via Microsoft's Admira software.
As part of the agreement, VivaKi's units Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia and Digitas, will use Admira technology to help clients plan and buy media ads when Admira goes live in the fourth quarter 2009. Admira, developed by Microsoft's Navic division, helps advertisers target specific television audiences, thus saving on the costs of placing ads in front of consumers who are unlikely to buy their products.
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enableTV offers royalty-free a tru2way solutionenableTV is offering a tru2way deployment solution including its royalty-free, commercial version of CableLabs tru2way Reference Implementation. The enableTV OCAP middleware package includes full source for the Java middleware, and is the sole source of example porting layers, porting layer test suites, porting and testing documentation, technical product support and optional porting services. enableTV will provide OCAP 1.1.1, and the DVR I05, Device Settings I01 and Front Panel I02 OCAP extensions. The Home Networking and Multi-Screen Manager extensions will be provided as updates.
