Advanced Television

Spain: New DTT licences on hold

The Spanish government’s plans to award 5 new DTT licences have been put on hold until probably next September. They were originally slated to be awarded in the first half of the year. Local and Regional elections may be the main reasons for the delay. The digital migration to be completed on March 31st may […]

March 17, 2015From David Del Valle in Madrid


HBO Now on Cablevision

Cablevision has confirmed it will be the first cableco to offer HBO’s new steaming-only service, HBO Now, to its customers in the coming weeks. Cablevision didn’t disclose the deal’s terms or how much it’ll charge its customers. HBO said it will launch its HBO Now service early next month — in time for Season 5 […]

March 17, 2015

Andrew Neil: ‘UHD will strengthen traditional TV’

Broadcaster and commentator Andrew Neil has predicted that the advent of 4K viewing will give mainstream broadcast TV “a new lease of life”. Neil made his comments in a keynote address at the SES Satellite Monitor in London where the satellite operator revealed its reach figures for 2014. Suggesting that moving forward, Internet and satellite-delivered […]

March 17, 2015By Colin Mann

Digital TV homes to double in LatAm

Despite slowing economic growth, the number of digital TV households in Latin America will double by 2020. A report by Digital TV Research estimates 152 million digital TV households by 2020. Digital TV will climb from only 17.9 per cent penetration of TV households at end-2010 to just over the halfway mark by end-2014 and […]

March 17, 2015

Sky invests further $5m in 1Mainstream

Sky has invested a further $5 million in 1Mainstream, an OTT startup company that operates an automated platform for the distribution of linear and on-demand video to Internet-connected devices.  The investment, which is in the form of a convertible debt security, builds on the $2 million already invested by Sky in August 2013. 1Mainstream’s platform […]

March 17, 2015

GulliReplay 20m views in Feb

GulliReplay, the French catch-up TV service from family DTT channel Gulli, set a new audience record in February reaching 20 million views. This represents a 52 per cent growth compared to February 2014 and a 170 per cent increase on February 2013. The replay service is available on all platforms and devices: online, Android and […]

March 17, 2015From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris

New generation satellites in development

The annual Satellite Show in Washington is underway and news has emerged of some dramatic channels under development. The event’s opening panel saw Intelsat’s EVP/CTO Thierry Guillemin and SES’s CTO Martin Halliwell explain their approach to the new thinking. Guillemin told delegates that its 6 EPIC satellites now on order would expand the Intelsat fleet […]

March 17, 2015

Netflix NZ ‘unfair’ tax break

Netflix is set to receive a tax break in New Zealand. According to local reports, the streaming giant is not obligated to pay New Zealand’s goods and services tax (GST) due to it being an offshore company. The news has prompted an outcry from Lightbox, which is a local online television service. Andrew Pirie, a […]

March 17, 2015

SES claims 1.1bn viewers globally

SES has released its annual ‘Satellite Monitor’ numbers and say they have expanded their worldwide reach to 312 million (up 7 per cent) which means the 6500 channels they carry on their satellites are collectively reaching more than 1.1 billion people The market research shows that the growth is coming from emerging markets of Africa, […]

March 17, 2015By Chris Forrester

Sling TV on Xbox

Sling TV has released its app for Xbox One, the first gaming console to support the live, OTTTV service. Xbox One joins a constellation of other devices that support Sling TV, including Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick; current-generation Roku players and Roku TV models; Android and iOS devices; and Macs and PCs. “Sling […]

March 17, 2015