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Our Latest Issues
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Tuesday
Friday 15th March
BT Vision 423,000
UK report recommends spectrum caps
Premiere drops subs
EC paves the way for mobile satellite services
ITV sees further fall in revenues
Sony posts losses
BitTorrent still dominant in P2P
Shanghai IPTV subs hit 800k
Eutelsat sales increase
TechniSat goes green
Discovery launches HD network in Latin America
BT Vision 423,000BT picked up 99,000 broadband customers in the quarter taking its broadband base to 4.8 million. Its Vision IPTV service is now up to 423,000 customers, up from 398,000 at the end of 2008. Vision’s VOD is now getting 30 video views a month from each subscribers.
BT has said it will cut about 15,000 jobs this year after it reported an annual loss of £134 million (E149m).
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UK report recommends spectrum capsLord Carter's adviser Kip Meek has proposed a radical shake-up of the UK's airwaves he believes will bring mobile broadband to everyone at twice the speed the communications minister originally envisaged within five years.
Meek wants part of the spectrum that will be freed up by the switch-off of analogue television by 2012 – the so-called "digital dividend" – to be sold next year under the condition that it is used to get basic mobile broadband coverage to 99 per cent of the population. The UK's five mobile phone companies will also have their existing 3G licences extended in return for extending high-speed mobile broadband coverage from its current base of just over 80 per cent of the population.
"What is the prize?" Meek asks in his report as Carter's independent spectrum broker, "By expediting the introduction of, and investment in, nationwide next generation mobile services, it is within the UK's grasp to achieve within five years mobile broadband at around 4Mbps across the UK as a whole and more than 50 megabits per second in many urban areas. This would put the UK at the forefront of commercially-deployed mobile technology around the world, delivering economic and social benefits that far outweigh the costs."
Meek's proposal for services at around 4Mbps is twice the speed that Carter had proposed in his interim Digital Britain report in January.
Under Meek's proposals, O2 and Vodafone will not be forced to give up some of the capacity they were granted when they started mobile phone services in the 1980s, abandoning a plan that dates back to 2007. Instead Meek has recommended capping the amount of spectrum that the mobile phone operators can hold, as reported by the Guardian last month.
This would preclude O2 and Vodafone from buying the new spectrum that can be used once the analogue television signal is switched off in 2012, unless they sold some of their existing holdings. Meek plans to auction this spectrum in three blocks, which will include regional coverage targets. Successful bidders would also have to allow other companies to use their networks for their own services.
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Premiere drops subsGermany’s Premiere increased first quarter losses of E80 million, against E28.1m in Q1 2008. It lost 28,000 subscribers on the quarter, for a total of 2,371,000. ARPU was up E1 at E23.86 million. The churn rate was steady but at a high 22.4 per cent. The company said it expects to reverse its decline in subscriber numbers in the second half of 2009.
"Our Q1 results are in line with our expectations. We expect subscriber growth to commence only in the second half of this year following our comprehensive sales, marketing and customer service initiatives," said Premiere CEO Mark Williams. He predicted a return to profitability in 2011. He confirmed Premiere would take the name Sky Deutschland.
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EC paves the way for mobile satellite services
The European Commission has selected two operators, Inmarsat Ventures Limited and Solaris Mobile Limited, to provide mobile satellite services across Europe. The services, such as high-speed Internet access, mobile television and radio or emergency communications, will be provided over a specifically reserved spectrum. The Commission says both satellite operators demonstrated an advanced level of technical and commercial ability to provide these services.
"Mobile satellite services have huge potential: they can enable Europeans to access new communication services, particularly in rural and less populated regions. I therefore welcome that we have now cleared the way for the swift launch of these pan-European services," said EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding. "This was possible thanks to the first pan-European selection procedure, developed in close cooperation with the European Parliament and the Member States. A Europe-wide market for mobile satellite services is now becoming a reality. I call on the Member States to take without any delay all the required follow up steps in order to allow a timely and proper launch of mobile satellite services."
Mobile satellite services (MSS) will offer innovative wireless communications to millions of EU consumers and businesses all over Europe thanks to portable terminals carried by a person or mounted on a car or a ship. They can also help bridge the digital divide in the availability of high-speed Internet coverage in Europe by reaching rural and less populated regions.
The selection of two mobile satellite operators for the EU by the Commission concludes the first EU selection procedure for satellite operators launched in August 2008. Four operators were admitted to the selection phase in December 2008. With the assistance of independent experts the Commission analysed the technical and commercial development of these mobile satellite systems in close cooperation with national authorities.
Member States now have to ensure that Inmarsat Ventures and Solaris Mobile have the right to use the specific radio frequencies identified in the Commission's decision and the right to operate their respective mobile satellite systems. These providers have to be authorised to use their satellite systems all over Europe for 18 years from the selection Decision. This is consistent with national practice in the sector and should allow investment to be recouped by satellite providers.
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ITV sees further fall in revenuesITV saw its revenues decline 14 per cent in the first three months of this year, and said it now intended to cut costs by a further £40 million (E46m) in 2010. The firm, which announced 600 job cuts two months ago, said revenues for the January to March period totalled £425 million, down from £492 million a year earlier. ITV's advertising sales declined 15 per cent.
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Sony posts lossesSony has reported its first annual loss in 14 years, after being hit by a big drop in sales. It reported a loss of $1.04 billion for the year to the end of March.
The company blamed the global downturn and the strong yen for the loss. Worldwide sales were down 12.9 per ceny. It had previously announced it would be cutting 8,000 of its 185,000 workforce and closing 10 per cent of its factories.
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BitTorrent still dominant in P2PBitTorrent has extended its dominance as the most popular file sharing application for unauthorised content, and while infringements in the US have dropped, Spain, Italy and France have surged, according to an annual report on digital piracy issued by BayTSP.
The report is based on cumulative data from all of BayTSP’s clients, which include movie studios, sports franchises, pay-per-view broadcasters, record labels, software companies, video-game developers and the publishing industry.
"BitTorrent and eDonkey are optimised for large file distribution and, despite the growing popularity of streaming video, are still where the majority of copyright infringement takes place," said BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. "The US, which topped the list of countries with the most infringements in 2007, dropped to No. 4 behind Spain, Italy and France."
US Internet service providers Comcast, AT&T and Road Runner each had more than one million infringements of client content in 2008 while all of the top 10 international ISPs - including Telefonica De Espana (Spain), Telecom Italia (Italy) and France Telecom - had more than two million identified infringements each.
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Shanghai IPTV subs hit 800kStatistics from Shanghai Telecom and Shanghai-based cable TV operator Oriental Cable Network (OCN) show that through the end of 2008 Shanghai had almost 800,000 IPTV subscribers and nearly 600,000 DTV subscribers.
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Eutelsat sales increaseFrance's Eutelsat, the world's third-largest satellite operator, has raised its full-year revenue targets after posting a 5.6 per cent increase in third-quarter sales. The company said it now expected full-year sales of E925 million against E910 million previously forecast. The group had already raised its revenue guidance from E900 million to E910 million three months ago.
Video applications, which account for three-quarters of group's sales, were up 4.5 per cent at E172.3 million. Eutelsat posted third-quarter sales of E236.5 million, up 3.6 per cent.
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TechniSat goes greenTechniSat has launchesd a new HDTV product family incorporating environmentally conscious, energy saving technology. TechniSat Digital is one of the leading manufacturers of IDTVs, Set-Top-Boxes and digital TV reception equipment in Germany. The new HDTV 32 utilises a new energy saving power supply that allows a standby power requirement of just 0.2 watts.
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Discovery launches HD network in Latin AmericaDiscovery Networks International, a division of media company Discovery Communications, is expanding its international portfolio of HD networks with the rollout of Discovery HD Theatre, launching on the Sky platform in Brazil this month. This is the first HD offering from Discovery to launch in Latin America, adding Brazil to the list of 30 markets worldwide where the company distributes HD services.
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Thursday 14th May
BBC readies iPlayer 3
France approves 3-strikes bill
BBC C4 deal would make £200m
Canvas responds to Sky criticism
Setanta’s Premier League audiences rise
UKTV Food becomes Good Food
DVD still favoured over downloading
Opportunities for Internet video on the TV
Cablecom appoints Tveter
Conlon leaves Virgin
JDSU Introduces MR-ODM module
BBC readies iPlayer 3
From Colin Mann in LondonThe BBC has revealed plans for the next-generation of its online video service, the iPlayer, which include increased functionality and recommendation possibilities.
The BBC’s Director of Future Media and Technology, Eric Huggers, told members of the Broadcasting Press Guild that the new service would be as much a "you player as an iPlayer." Among the planned enhancements are a recommendation engine that would learn from previous user experience; a new playlist functionality, which enables a programme of interest to be stored for later viewing; the ability to follow items of interest, be they programme, actor or topic related, as well as the ability to trawl for TV content.
There would also be some ‘cosmetic’ changes to the iPlayer’s appearance "more of a scrub than a face-lift," said Huggers. "There will be new features and functionality, but we aim to keep things simple." He suggested that the changes would help the BBC to grow even further the use of the services. The enhancements are set for Beta testing in the summer of 2009.
Huggers also revealed that earlier approaches to satellite operator BSkyB to enable its services to be carried on the iPlayer had been rebuffed. Sky had heavily criticised the BBC Trust's decision not to conduct a full market impact review of Project Canvas, the broadband TV joint venture with ITV and BT (see below). Huggers confirmed that, should the BBC Trust gives its ‘non-service’ authorisation for the Project to progress, BSkyB would be welcome to make its services available via the planned, open-standards set-top box. "It would be wonderful for Sky Player to serve homes they don’t currently reach," he said. If the Trust authorises Canvas, Huggers suggested that the first devices could be launched in the first half of 2010.
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France approves 3-strikes bill
France’s National Assembly has approved a bill which requires ISPs to disconnect users who have been caught three times illegally downloading copyright files. The "Creation and Internet" bill was passed by a vote of 296 to 233 by the lower house and will now go before the Senate for final approval. The bill, backed by President Sarkozy, was voted down when it first went to the assembly.The legislation was welcomed by global music industry body IFPI. But internet advocacy group La Quadrature du Net said the bill had won a relatively narrow victory given the size of the government majority. It said the bill was "legally dead" because it breached "fundamental principles of French and European law, including the respect of a fair trial, principle of proportionality and separation of powers."
The EU parliament last week rejected a telecom reform package because of a clause supporting three-strikes legislation.
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BBC C4 deal would make £200mA commercial partnership being negotiated between BBC Worldwide and Channel 4 would generate annual turnover of £800 million (E895m) and a profit of £200 million, John Smith, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, told the House of Lords communications committee. That partnership would include the corporation's commercial arm's UK assets, including its 50 per cent stake in the UKTV pay-TV channels business and its 60 per cent stake in DVD business 2Entertain.
Smith said the new BBC/Channel 4 venture would also look to buy the remaining stakes in the two businesses from their current owners – Virgin Media owns the other 50 per cent of UKTV and the now defunct Woolworths plc had 40 per cent of 2Entertain.
"If you form the venture with Channel 4 which would include these stakes, the effect on Worldwide is not that significant from a turnover point of view. The effect is much more substantial for Channel 4 as they get the benefit of 50 per cent of the turnover. On top of that, both organisations would get 50 per cent of the synergies."
Smith, who said around half of BBC Worldwide's business currently came from the UK, said the corporation and Channel 4 would each hold 50 per cent of the new venture, receiving half each of the estimated £200 million annual profits.
He added that he expected an agreement to be signed within weeks, echoing comments made by his counterpart at Channel 4, Andy Duncan. "We are agreed on all the things that would really matter. There is not much fundamental disagreement, just a few things we haven't run to ground." Elsewhere it emerged one of those things is that the BBC wants C4 to relinquish any future claims over license fee money, something C4 has said it will not do.
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Canvas responds to Sky criticismThe BBC Trust and the companies behind Project Canvas, the proposed video-on-demand joint venture between the BBC, BT and ITV, have replied to BSkyB's criticisms of the venture (see ATV 13/5/09).
Project Canvas said: "The enormous consumer benefits that internet-powered TV can bring should not be restricted to paying customers. An open, standards-based platform that enables a far greater range of content providers to enter the market will be good for content owners and good for consumers, who gain a subscription-free alternative."
"Freeview and Freesat transformed digital TV, and showed what standards-based platforms can do for audiences and the industry. Canvas has the potential to do the same for the next generation of TV, bringing content on-demand from a huge range of providers into the living room, all for a one-off fee. Access to the Canvas platform would be open to any third-party, including Sky."
A statement from the BBC Trust said: "In assessing the BBC Executive's application to join the Project Canvas joint venture, the Trust has followed the processes set out in the BBC's Charter and Agreement." Sky had attacked the Trust’s decision not to hold a full inquiry into the BBC’s part in Canvas.
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Setanta’s Premier League audiences riseSetanta has revealed that subscriber growth has increased the size of the audiences it is attracting for football games broadcast this season.
The average audience for Barclays Premier League games shown live on Setanta this year is up by 36.3 per cent on the previous season. The biggest games - such as January’s derby between Liverpool and Everton drew audiences of more than 1 million. Audiences for the Scottish Premier League, which Setanta has been broadcasting since 2004, also continue to grow. The 2008-09 season has attracted 9.6 per cent more viewers than the previous season.
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UKTV Food becomes Good FoodThe agreement, negotiated between UKTV and BBC Worldwide, the owner of Good Food magazine, permits UKTV to rebrand its channel, associated website, as well as commercial and promotional activity to the new brand name. Launching with the strapline "We have fun with food", Good Food aims to target upmarket 25 to 44 year-olds searching for food inspiration.
In March, UKTV unveiled the rebrand of lifestyle brands UKTV Style and UKTV Gardens as Home and Really respectively. This followed the rebrand of UKTV People to Blighty on 27th February, UKTV Documentary to Eden on 26th January and UKTV History as Yesterday on 2nd March. In October, UKTV rebranded UKTV Drama to Alibi, UKTV Gold to GOLD and launched a new channel, Watch.
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DVD still favoured over downloading
According to The NPD Group, watching movies and other video content on DVD and Blu-ray Disc comprises the lion’s share of home-video acquisition and viewing, even as newer digital methods are beginning to gain a foothold in the consumer market. DVD and Blu-ray sales and rentals represented 88 per cent of consumer spending on home video content, based on a survey that asked about home video consumption over the previous three months.
Results from NPD’s March 2009 update to the "Entertainment Trends In America" consumer tracking study, which provides an in-depth look at shifts in entertainment consumption, revealed that the average US home video consumer reported spending an average of $25 per month on all types of home video purchases and rentals. When it comes to spending on home video content: 63 per cent was spent on DVD purchases; 7 per cent on Blu-ray purchases; 18 per cent on DVD/BD rentals from retail stores, subscriptions or kiosks; 9 per cent on video on-demand (VOD); and 3 per cent on digital downloads and online streaming.
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Opportunities for Internet video on the TVThe IMS Research study "Market Opportunities for Internet Video to the TV" reveals that an estimated 65 million households worldwide had the capability of viewing Internet video on their television set at the end of 2008. This represents growth of 134 per cent over year end 2007.
Households displaying Internet video on the TV set via a game console or proprietary device comprised the vast majority of total Internet TV households in 2007 and 2008. However, it is expected that households using a PC to deliver Internet video to the TV set via a media center PC and a media extender (or digital media adapter), will see an 85 per cent CAGR through 2013 reaching nearly 60 million households by that time.
Shane Walker, research manager and author of the study, states, "Windows Media Centre and media centres in general along with extenders have seen limited uptake, however, their use will increase as prices drop and as more PCs with media centre-like characteristics replace existing PCs. These characteristics include multi-core processing power to increase performance, advanced entertainment management systems capable of delivering content to multiple screens, and support of Internet-ready connectivity throughout the home."
Walker continues, "Demand for media extenders will diminish shortly after 2013 as more advanced Internet TV functionality is delivered via set-top boxes. However, media centres that are connected to the TV from a device other than an extender will most likely continue to grow beyond our forecast period, slowly replacing DVRs as consumers become more accustomed to managing large libraries of digital HD content."
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Cablecom appoints TveterEric Tveter has been appointed Managing Director of Cablecom, the Swiss cable broadband operation of UPC Broadband, the European cable division of Liberty Global. Tveter was previously President of UK cable operator Telewest and held a range of senior management positions at Time Warner Cable, Comcast Corporation and Cablevision Systems Corporation. He currently is a Non-Executive Board Member of Open TV.
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Conlon leaves VirginJohn Conlon, marketing controller of digital services for Virgin Media, is to leave the company after nine years. He was responsible for ensuring Virgin Media’s range of digital content was made available via mobile and was heavily involved in the relaunch of the company’s cross-network mobile portal in December.
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JDSU Introduces MR-ODM moduleJDSU has introduced the Medium Range Optical Dispersion Measurement (MR-ODM) module for the T-BERD/MTS-6000 and -8000 platforms. The single plug-in module includes a patented solution for chromatic dispersion (CD) measurements and offers polarisation mode dispersion (PMD) and attenuation profile test functions, making it the industry’s most compact and integrated dispersion solution dedicated to field testing fibre optic networks.
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Wednesday 13th May
BSkyB rips in to Canvas
Three in frame for VMtv
One Vision awarded DTT licence
C4 confident of BBCWW deal
Mobile ads grow more than expected
ISPs reject cut-off plans
VimpelCom launches Beeline TV
HiTV seeks Premier League football
Discovery appoints Patterson
History Channel expands European presence
S4C interactive TV from Ensequence
SecureMedia for TVBLOB STBs
BSkyB rips in to CanvasBSkyB has heavily criticised the BBC Trust's decision not to conduct a full market impact review of Project Canvas, the broadband TV joint venture with ITV and BT, and says the Trust needs to demonstrate it is genuinely independent of the service it is meant to regulate. Sky also believes the project, which aims to "bring catch-up from the PC to the TV" via Freeview and Freesat is "likely to qualify" for an investigation by the Office of Fair Trading as a "relevant merger situation".
BSkyB attacked the BBC Trust's decision not to submit Project Canvas to a full public value test, which would entail Ofcom conducting a market impact assessment of its affect on commercial rivals. It has also called on the BBC Trust to assess the likely risk of the project falling foul of European Union state aid rules before deciding whether to go ahead.
"The trust should subject the proposals to the highest level of scrutiny, in as transparent a way as possible, including submitting the proposals to a full public value test or equivalently robust procedure, with a market impact assessment conducted by Ofcom," said BSkyB in its submission to the BBC Trust's consultation on Project Canvas. "As a relatively new body, facing scepticism in some quarters as to its independence from the body it regulates, it is especially important for the Trust to demonstrate its ability to regulate the BBC's proposed activities ... in a rigorous and impartial manner."
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Three in frame for VMtvChannel 4, Time Warner and BSkyB have been shortlisted as potential buyers of Virgin Media's wholly owned VMtv channels Virgin 1, Bravo and Living.
Virgin Media intends to sell the channels separately from its joint venture with BBC Worldwide, UKTV, which will be sold at a later stage. The BBC has denied interest in purchasing the non UKTV channels.
VMtv made £121.8 million (E132m) for the company last year, with Virgin Media's half of UKTV generating £38.1 million in revenue. If Channel 4 is successful it intends to fold the channels into its putative JV with BBC Worldwide (see bleow).
VMtv and UKTV are expected to net about £400 million, about half the amount Virgin Media sought when it tried to sell its assets in 2006.
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One Vision awarded DTT licenceThe Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has awarded the digital terrestrial television (DTT) licence that was recently abandoned by Boxer to the One Vision consortium, made up of TV3, Setanta, Arqiva and Eircom. The consortium was the second-placed applicant for the DTT contracts, which were awarded last year.
In April it emerged that the Boxer consortium, which included Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp, had withdrawn its application for the three DTT Multiplex contracts, which were rewarded following a competition between a number of consortia last year.
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C4 confident of BBCWW dealThe Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, has told MPs that he expects to have an agreement on a partnership with BBC Worldwide signed within weeks. Duncan told the culture, media and sport committee that a memorandum of understanding with the corporation's commercial arm would be signed before the government publishes its final Digital Britain report on 16th June.
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Mobile ads grow more than expectedThe UK’s mobile advertising spend rose higher than expected in 2008 to £28.6 million (E32m), according to a study from the digital marketing trade body Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Spending doubled in size on a like for like basis in 2008, jumping 99.2 per cent year on year, as more British brands invested in the medium, driven by better targeting, immediacy and return on investment, the report said.
Mobile ad spend was divided evenly between mobile display advertising (49.8 per cent) and paid-for-search advertising on the mobile web 50.2 per cent. Mobile display, which includes banners, text links, tenancies pre/post roll and in game ads, accounted for £14.2 million in 2008, while paid-for search reached an estimated £14.4 million.
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ISPs reject cut-off plansUK Internet service providers have rejected calls for them to police the net and cut off users who repeatedly file-share material unlawfully.
The group that represents ISPs said disconnecting users would be a "disproportionate response". A coalition of UK creative industries wants the online connections of repeat offenders to be slowed or stopped. (See Daily News 12/05/09).
The Internet Service Providers Association (Ispa) said it disputed "calls from some elements of the creative industries for the disconnection of users or technological measures as a method of dealing with potential infringers of copyright online. Ispa members have consistently explained that significant technological advances would be required if these measures are to reach a standard where they would be admissible as evidence in court. ISPs and consumer groups consider disconnection of users to be a disproportionate response, a view that was recently supported by the European Parliament."
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VimpelCom launches Beeline TVVimpelCom Communications has confirmed the launch of Beeline TV, an IPTV service powered by Microsoft Mediaroom. Beeline TV is the first Mediaroom service to launch in Russia and the CIS and follows a successful commercial trial of the Microsoft platform by VimpelCom under the Corbina TV brand.
From launch, Beeline TV subscribers will be able to access: 3,000 on-demand programmes and movies; 125 channels including 4 HD channels; the Nash Football channel and several features such as DVR functions and instant search.
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HiTV seeks Premier League footballHiTV, one of Africa’s leading digital satellite operators, has outlined its intention to acquire the broadcast rights to the English Premier League for the African continent alongside eleven other pay-TV operators in Africa. This bid forms part of a major proposal presented to the FA by HiTV, which will also offer every country in Africa its own DTH platform.
HiTV is working with eleven other African broadcasters for the acquisition, which will spearhead the development of a brand new continent wide broadcast platform. The continent wide technology and content backbone being created will allow individual countries in Africa to develop their own independent broadcasting market and tailor their solution (e.g. cost, content, language) to meet the demands of regional viewers.
The English Premier League broadcast rights are currently divided between three of the leading pay-TV operators within the four African territories- with North Africa going to ShowTime Arabia, Nigeria going to HiTV, South Africa and the rest of Africa going to Multichoice‚s DSTV. HiTV proposes that the rules be relaxed to allow a remodelling of the current African broadcasting landscape. By removing current regulations, either a Pay TV or Free-to-air operator could own the broadcast rights for their country.
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Discovery appoints PattersonDiscovery Communications has confirmed the appointment of Chance Patterson to the role of Vice President of International Communications, Discovery Networks International. In this role, Patterson will be responsible for the development and implementation of all communications strategies for Discovery Networks International, which distributes 19 brands to 926 million cumulative subscribers in more than 170 countries worldwide. Patterson joins Discovery from Sirius XM Radio where he served as Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs.
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History Channel expands European presenceHistory and History HD have launched Czech-languaged services on Skylink in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The channels currently operate throughout Central Europe across Poland, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Montenegro. Besides Skylink, History currently operates in the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Self Servis and Smart Comp, while History HD is offered through Smart Comp, Mattes and BKS Capital Partners.
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S4C interactive TV from Ensequence
Ensequence, the interactive television company, has been chosen by Welsh broadcaster S4C to create and deploy interactive television experiences that reach the growing majority of the UK population watching Freeview digital terrestrial TV, plus some 8 million Sky digital satellite viewers. This represents the first multi-platform deployment for Ensequence in the UK.
The interactive television system, accessed through the red button, offers a host of interactive information including national and regional news, weather reports, TV listings and sports scores in both English and Welsh.
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SecureMedia for TVBLOB STBsSecureMedia, specialist in video and multimedia delivery over IP networks, and TVBLOB, a software and service development company, has announced that TVBLOB's hybrid internet set-top boxes (BLOBbox), is now protected by SecureMedia's Encryptonite ON System CA/DRM (conditional access/digital rights management).
Leveraging TVBLOB's free SDK from the BLOBforge, content owners anywhere can now realise new, 'over-the-top' television services and business models on the BLOBbox using standard Web technologies, while ensuring the highest levels of digital protection for content distributed in both linear and non-linear means including VOD, podcasts and HTTP streaming.
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Tuesday 12th May
blinkx STB deal
Mediaset under DTT monopoly investigation
Dish profits rise, subs drop
Media bosses unite to tackle piracy
CBeebies iPlayer
Dish Network Remote Access service
MGM content for Showtime Arabia
All3Media appoints Turajlic
blinkx STB deal
Video search engine blinkx has struck a deal with interactive TV company Miniweb that will see its services become available on digital set-top boxes in the UK. The deal will significantly widen the audience for blinkx's search offering, which indexes a range of online video content, including content from YouTube and the various web TV services offered by broadcasters, as well as recommendation and personalisation features.Miniweb currently supplies the white-label interactive software for Sky's set-top boxes as an alternative to red button. This sets up blinkx for future partnerships with tailored elements of the blinkx service. Most important, it says, is the potential for interactive advertising because profiles of blinkx users can be used to target ads. It also means broadcasters could recommend specific catch-up TV shows to viewers based on their viewing context.
"This will allow web-like business models to emerge on TV," said Miniweb chief executive Andrew Carver, "which enables our business partners to benefit from valuable targeted advertising and revenue shares from TV viewer transactions."
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Mediaset under DTT monopoly investigation
From Branislav Pekic in RomeItaly’s Communications Authority (AgCom) has initiated an investigation on the number of digital terrestrial TV channels operated by the broadcasters in respect of the quota of 20 per cent per group.
According to an initial inquiry, it emerges that commercial broadcaster Mediaset accounts for 14 out of the 42 national DTT channels, representing a 33.3 per cent share. If the Studio Universal and Steel channels are excluded, as they are not owned by the group but are carried on the Mediaset Premium pay-TV service, Mediaset’s share of the Italian DTT market would drop to 28 per cent. Public broadcaster RAI is below the 20 per cent limit, as it operates only 8 TV channels.
For its part, Mediaset claims that the existing regulations are unfair because they use an arbitrary standard to determine a dominant position on the Italian TV market. Mediaset vice-president, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, has even gone as far as to announce the launch of yet-another Mediaset channel, Italia 2, which will launch by the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010. The DTT channel will be free-to-air and mainly aimed at a younger audience.
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Dish profits rise, subs dropUS satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp has posted better than expected quarterly profit, despite losing 94,000 subscribers. Net income rose to $312.7 million from $258.6 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 2.1 per cent to $2.91 billion.
Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen, attributed the subscriber loss to the weak economic environment, as well as aggressive promotional pricing by its rivals, and the end of a distribution pact with AT&T earlier this year.
Dish, which competes for subscribers with local cable operators and its larger rival DirecTV Group, said its average revenue per user increased to $70.03 from $67.93, one year earlier.
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Media bosses unite to tackle piracyLeading figures from across Britain's biggest media companies have banded together to advise Lord Carter on how to tackle online piracy before his Digital Britain report is released on June 16th.
The "copyright squad", including Neil Berkett of Virgin Media and Michael Lynton of Sony Pictures, are urging Carter to include draft legislation that will compel ISPs to collect data on repeat offenders that can be used to prosecute them if other action fails. They want it to be handled by an enforcement body, owned by the industry but overseen by the media regulator Ofcom, to crack down on illegal peer-to-peer file sharing that costs the film, television and music industries an estimated total of £500 million (E556m) a year in lost revenues.
The body would be responsible for writing letters threatening consumers with disconnection, education campaigns and potential prosecutions, in effect outsourcing that job so that companies don't have to police their own customers.
Richard Scudamore of the Premier League, Channel 4's Andy Duncan, Jeremy Darroch from Sky and Lucian Grainge of Universal Music are also part of the six man squad.
Media bosses are frustrated at the lack of progress, saying uncertainty over legislation has delayed signing rights deals. They have rejected setting up a digital-rights agency, fearing it would interfere with commercial arrangements.
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CBeebies iPlayerThe BBC has launched its CBeebies iPlayer. The specially designed child-friendly BBC iPlayer offers children six years old and under the chance to watch a selection of children’s programming.
Designed to be a shared and flexible online experience with parents, the new service follows the launch of the popular CBBC iPlayer last year for six to 12-year-olds. Through the CBeebies website, the service is designed to restrict inadvertent access to non-children's programming and puts children's viewing priorities first. Most programmes will be available to view for a week after broadcast with some available for up to 13 weeks as "series catch ups".
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Dish Network Remote Access serviceDish Network has launched its Dish Remote Access service to customers across the US. The service - free to Dish Network customers with a broadband-connected ViP Series DVR - gives customers total access to all the features of their DVR from any Internet connected device, allowing them to manage their programming from anywhere in the world.
Dish Remote Access includes a comprehensive search functionality, which looks for desired content throughout a nine-day programming guide. It uses keywords and filters set by the user, such as genre, channel, sports, content rating and language, and more. Upon finding the programming event they want to record, customers simply click the record button next to the event description, selecting to either record the one event, all events, or only new events.
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MGM content for Showtime ArabiaMGM Worldwide Television, a division of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios, has concluded its first pan Middle Eastern Pay TV and VOD agreement with Showtime Arabia, the leading Pay TV network in the Middle East and North Africa, and its Show On Demand, the region's first video on demand service. The licensing agreement marks MGM's first VOD offer for the region and brings MGM's films to Showtime customers throughout the Middle East.
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All3Media appoints TurajlicAll3Media International, one of the UK’s leading independent distribution companies, has announced the appointment of Selma Turajlic as Head of Interactive Media and Licensing. Turajlic’s role will be to further develop interactive elements within formats and programmes and exploit opportunities in interactive, merchandising and licensing. Initial focus will be given to broadcast related interactivity, mobile and internet applications. Turajlic was most recently Director of Interactive and Licensing at 2wayTraffic - a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company.
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Monday 11th May
Premiere rebranded Sky
DirecTV Q1 profit down, subs up
Carphone buys Tiscali
Open TV profit dip
Sirius sinks
Interactive Web series successful
Time Warner selects OpenTV ad management
Verismo Networks rolls out enhancements
e-Player video network expands into Europe
Premiere rebranded SkyGerman pay-TV station Premiere will change its brand name to Sky despite heavy write-downs on the Premiere brand name. Premiere will trade under the Sky name as do other pay-TV stations partly or fully owned by News Corp.
News Corp has a 30.5 per cent stake in Premiere, and it fully owns Sky Italia and is the biggest single shareholder in British Sky Broadcasting Group.The rebranding will result in a hefty write-down of E331.6 million, the good will value of the name carried in the balance sheet.
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DirecTV Q1 profit down, subs upDirecTV has reported that first-quarter earnings fell 46 per cent even as subscriber growth hit a four-year high. Chief Executive Chase Carey said he expects intense competition to continue in the pay-TV business, as providers fight for consumers who have become more sensitive to price. Still, he predicted that customers will cut their spending to only a certain point because they "care about quality TV. It is a rich experience. It's not a commodity."
In the first quarter, the company earned $201 million, down from $371 million a year ago. Revenue climbed 7 per cent to $4.9 billion. Net new subscribers surged 67 per cent to 460,000, while churn rate hit a 10-year low. DirecTV credited its package of high-definition TV, interactive, sports and digital video recorder services. The company now has 18.1 million subscribers. But subscriber gains came at a cost. Because of discounts, monthly revenue per subscriber rose just 1 per cent to $80.35.
Carphone Warehouse is set to become Britain’s second largest broadband provider after it agreed to pay £236 million (E264m) for the UK assets of Tiscali. Carphone said it would be funded by its existing debt facilities and would raise its earnings in the current financial year to March 2010.
The move will also see Carphone move ahead of Virgin Media to become the UK’s second largest broadband supplier behind BT. It is currently third with 2.7 million customers at December 31st.
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Open TV profit dipOpenTV reported a 13 percent drop in first quarter revenues to $29.4 million, down from $33.8 million in the first quarter of 2008, but it was upbeat about the company's long-term prospects.
Net income for the quarter was $1.2 million, down considerably from the $7.6 million in profit that OpenTV reported this time last year.
CEO Ben Bennett said that the company is well-positioned for growth and maintains a healthy balance sheet, despite the slowdown. He called the outlook for 2009 "cautiously optimistic" and said the company would continue to make strategic investments to take advantage of new opportunities.
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The slump in the US car industry helped send Sirius XM Radio. to a loss of $236.6 million in the first quarter and its first-ever quarterly decline in net subscriber additions.
But the satellite radio company said it has enough access to financing and cash generated from operations to meet its debt obligations this year and in 2010. Sirius said its revenue rose to $587 million from $270.4 million a year ago when it was a standalone company. Adjusted revenue was $605.5 million, which adds back $18.5 million in prepaid subscriptions that was excluded for accounting purposes due to its XM purchase, compared to pro forma revenue of $578.8 million in the prior year. The pro forma figures assume the companies were combined a year ago.
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Interactive Web series successfulMaking viewing experiences more interactive is luring in more viewers and advertisers, according to the study, "WeVision: The Four Steps to Online Media Success," from digital media research company Futurescape. "Digital audiences can be remarkably generous to shows that reach out and involve them. They are prepared to contribute ideas, give practical support and even donate money to production costs," said Futurescape co-founder Özlem Tunçil of the report. "Web TV shows are a laboratory where the hottest innovation is taking place, so it’s where to look for the principles of entertaining the new digital audience."
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Time Warner selects OpenTV ad managementOpenTV Corp, a software and technology provider of advanced digital television solutions, has revealed that its next generation advertising campaign management product, OpenTV EclipsePlus, has been selected by Time Warner Cable to manage the cable operator’s advertising sales operations across all of its regional operating centres in the continental US. The deal covers more than 12.3 million subscribers, or 97 per cent of the operator’s total subscriber base.
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Verismo Networks rolls out enhancementsVerismo Networks has announced the release of VuNow 3.0, the latest software release for its award-winning Internet TV Platform that lets people watch millions of free Internet videos directly on their TV.
The new release responds to market needs and community requests, and enriches the user experience for accessing and enjoying a broad range of online video content on the television. VuNow 3.0 enhancements include: An additional 50+ live TV channels, an additional 35 popular websites, support for Internet radio and increased wireless security.
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e-Player video network expands into EuropeGlobal digital sport and entertainment specialist Perform has announced the exclusive distribution of their e-Player across Prisacom’s network of digital publishing properties. The e-Player, which streams premium on demand sports content to every major UK publishing group, will extend its network into Europe for the first time.
Launching this week on Prisacom’s sports website, the e-Player will provide Spanish sports fans with a range of on demand sports highlights, featuring 8 channels that combine Prisa’s sport content with Perform’s Omnisport.tv content including English Premier League, Serie A, Liga Sagres, International Football, golf and tennis. The e-Player currently streams over 25 million premium sports videos and reaches 8 million unique users a month in the UK and is expected to stream over 5 million videos in May across the Prisacom network.
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