The four major TV broadcasters in Italy (Mediaset, Sky Italia, RAI and La7) saw a 3.5 per cent annual drop in revenues during 2013 to €8.97 billion (-9 per cent over the past five years), according to the R&S report of Mediobanca, mainly due to a 9.5 per cent fall in advertising revenues (-15.5 per […]
Broadcast technology specialist Motive Television has confirmed that it will start taking pre-orders for TabletTV UK (TTVUK) for Christmas delivery. Customers will be able to pre-order TabletTV UK on the TabletTV UK website www.tablettv.co.uk to ensure they will be among the first to receive the product. Once the units are ready to ship, pre-orders will […]
French FTA broadcasts under its Fransat system will switch from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 in 15-16 months from now, around Spring 2016”. The decision means that viewers will have to buy a new Fransat HD compatible MPEG-4 receiver from around 40 available on the market. Boxes will shortly start appearing with MPEG-4 and a logo (“Fransat […]
A group of US academics, under the auspices of the International Center for Law and Economics, has urged the nation’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to warn the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the adverse effects of adopting restrictions on potentially pro-competitive conduct such as paid prioritisation as it considers its rule-making on the Open Internet. […]
Surrey Satellite Technology (SST) has won a contract from Eutelsat for one of SST’s speciality craft. Eutelsat Quantum, the new satellite, will not launch until 2018, but is of a revolutionary design. Financed in part by the UK government’s Space Agency and the European Space Agency, the satellite will be ‘small’ compared to the usual […]
North Korea has denied hacking into the computer system at Sony Pictures in retaliation for a film depicting the country’s leader – but has praised the attack itself as a “righteous deed”. The attack crippled computers at Sony and led to upcoming films – including Annie starring Cameron Diaz – and workers’ personal data being […]
Hispasat’s Amazonas 4A satellite isn’t in the best of health with problems on its power sub-system. Amazonas 4A was launched in March 2014 and the anomaly declared in April 2014. The problems suggest that about half the satellite’s broadcast capacity has been lost. Hispasat has now awarded the contract for Amazonas 5 to Space Systems/Loral […]
Riyadh-based Arabsat is looking to invest a total of $2.5 billion in order to complete its 6th generation of satellites. “What is worth saying is that sixth-generation satellites are a quantum leap in terms of manufacturing technology and the capabilities of satellites. The new satellites will cover the Middle East, Africa, Asia and many parts […]
CBS and DISH Network have reached a multi-year agreement for carriage of CBS owned stations across the US, as well as CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, TVGN and Showtime Networks, which includes Showtime TV Everywhere and VoD rights. “We are very pleased with this deal, which meets all of our economic and strategic objectives,” said […]
South Africa’s Multichoice/DStv operation is still exhibiting no shortage of new subscribers, despite increased competition from would-be rivals. Multichoice says it has added another 342,000 new DStv subscribers in the first half of the financial year (to Sept 30) and its DStv ‘box office’ division is selling an impressive 600,000 movies a month. The Naspers-owned […]