Advanced Television

UEFA to centralise rights sales

UEFA, the European ruling body for football, is moving ahead with plans to centralise the sale of broadcast rights for European Championship and World Cup qualifiers. It means national associations – in particular England’s FA – may suffer a drop in revenue, the FA currently makes over €200 million selling these rights. If the move […]

December 10, 2010

Play.me music service for connected TV

TV-connected software production company TVBlob and digital entertainment provider Dada have launched the Play.me music service on the Hybrid BLOBbox from TeleSystem. Subscribers to the web/mobile music subscription service Play.me can now access millions of music tracks from major and independent labels via their TV sets. Users pay E4.99 per month for unlimited online streaming […]

December 10, 2010From Branislav Pekic in Rome

Babelgum premieres FAST Weekly

Digital broadcast network Babelgum and production company Oktane Media Ventures have announced the creation of FAST Weekly, a custom content-driven programme highlighting must-see films and animation on the network’s Web and mobile platforms. Babelgum will air the show in weekly segments every Thursday through 2010 and into 2011. “With thousands of high-quality films and video […]

December 10, 2010

Bharti Airtel IPTV for Bangalore

Bharti Airtel has confirmed the expansion of its IPTV services to Bangalore, following a successful run in the Delhi NCR region. The service currently offers a library of 150+ titles, time shift TV and DVR “programme-stacking” and a selection of 42 linear channels. Girish Mehta, chief marketing officer, Airtel telemedia services, said ”Bangalore has consistently […]

December 10, 2010

Broadpeak integrates Skytide

Broadpeak, provider of content delivery network (CDN) solutions to Internet service providers and pay-TV operators worldwide, has confirmed that the Skytide streaming video analytics solution is now fully integrated into Broadpeak’s Mediator CDN system. This integration provides network operators and their customers with tools to visualise advanced statistical information and manage their video-on-demand or live […]

December 10, 2010

Jury out on YouView cord cut impact

Forecaster Oliver & Ohlbaum’s survey found four per cent of current Freeview homes plan to get YouView instead of pay-TV, and a total 18 per cent of existing pay-TV homes said they are ‘likely’ to switch away from their current provider to use YouView instead. However, O&O CEO Mark Oliver believes the threat is relatively […]

December 9, 2010

Macquarie buys more broadcasting capacity

Funds controlled by Australian investment bank Macquarie have again invested in broadcasting and transmission capacity. This time Macquarie has spend €574 million buying Ceske Radiokomunikace, the Czech Republic’s main TV and radio transmission service provider. As regards the Czech purchase, Macquarie has bought 100 per cent of Ceske Radiokomunikace from Falcon Group, itself controlling or […]

December 9, 2010By Chris Forrester

Japan’s NHK boosts HDTV

  Japanese public broadcaster NHK will shortly consolidate its three digital satellite channels into two in order that extra HDTV programming can be shown. Currently NHK transmits three of its main channels over satellite, one in HD and the other two showing standard definition programming.  From April the two channels will be given a new […]

December 9, 2010By Chris Forrester

Netflix secures Disney/ABC shows

The Walt Disney Co. has reached an agreement with Internet movie and TV subscription service Netflix that allows the platform to stream television shows from the ABC network, Disney Channel and ABC Family, significantly strengthening its position as an online video provider. The agreement raises the competition between Netflix and Hulu, the online streaming service […]

December 9, 2010

Europe fines Flat-Panel makers on price fixing

The European Commission has imposed fines on five South Korean and Taiwanese companies for fixing the prices of liquid-crystal display panels in popular devices like flat-screen televisions, computers and notebook devices. The fines, totaling €649 million were related to violations dating to 2001, when the companies started meeting to fix prices of LCD screens. Although […]

December 9, 2010