China said it would consider launching an appeal against a World Trade Organisation ruling that the US claimed would help open up Chinese markets for media as well as curbing rampant intellectual piracy.The WTO said that it was impermissible to give one state-owned enterprise the monopoly for importing products such as films and books in […]
US reports say Discovery Communications is the latest company joining Comcast’s OnDemand Online Trial. Until now Discovery has resisted, its' main concern about making its material widely available online has been the risk of cannibalizing its existing business and upsetting the cable operators that provide its bread and butter. In July, CBS became the first […]
Warner Music Group and Cisco announced the expansion of their relationship into a strategic agreement in which WMG will use the Cisco Eos social entertainment platform to power many of its artist Web sites. Eos will now be available to WMG to deploy an unlimited number of sites for their portfolio of artists and labels, […]
Rovi Corporation (formerly Macrovision Solutions Corporation,) and TNS Media Research announced that they are collaborating on the development of advanced TV and set-top-box (STB) measurement solutions. The alliance joins Rovi's clickstream technology with the reporting capabilities of TNS Media Research to enable some of the richest measurement in the industry, including consumer viewing across live, […]
Swisscom has doubled the number of subscribers to its Bluewin IPTV service during the year to the end of June for a total of 165,000 customers after adding 26,000 during the second quarter. The Swiss telco said the simplified installation process introduced last year was proving successful with about 85% of new Bluewin TV customers […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish dominant broadcast network operator, Abertis Telecom, has backed out of the deal reached with two local broadcast networks in Andalucia and Madrid, Axion and Teledifusion de Madrid, to take over them, following the Competition Authorities imposing tougher conditions on the operation. Abertis Telecom had planned to take […]
Danish telco TDC reported 1.195 million TV customers at the end of June, up 6.3% year-on-year. The figures include analogue and digital cable subscribers of its YouSee cable operation and IPTV subscribers. TDC had 1.292 million retail broadband customers at the end of the first half, up 9.5% year-on-year. Wholesale broadband customers numbered 118,000, down […]
The pay-TV merger between Showtime Arabia and rival Orbit has concluded. The deal was announced last month, although no official valuation was given. Showtime Arabia had reportedly bought out its Viacom minority partner in its Gulf-DTH operation. Kipco, an investment vehicle ultimately controlled by the Kuwait royal family which already controlled 75.3% of Gulf-DTH.
Intelsat reported results for the three months and six months ended June 30, 2009 with revenue of $642.5 million and a net loss of $32.7 million for the three months. The company reported EBITDAi, of $522.4 million. "Intelsat's record Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2009 surpassed the $500 million level for the first […]
NBC Universal Global Networks has appointed Paul Curtis to the new role of VP, commercial strategy, for its portfolio of UK channels including Sci Fi, Hallmark Channel, Movies 24 and Diva TV. Curtis, a former deputy MD of Sky's in-house sales arm Sky Media, will report to Laurence Dawkin-Jones, MD (UK) NBCU Global Networks. Curtis […]