DirecTV's first-quarter net income rose 10 per cent amid higher net subscriber additions and a lower subscriber cancellation rate. The company reported net income of $371 million, up from $336 million, a year earlier. Revenue rose 17 per cent to $4.59 billion. DirecTV said US net subscriber additions rose 17 per cent to 275,000, putting […]
Orange is closing on 1.5 million subscribers to its IPTV service in France. According to Q1 numbers from parent France Telecom, Orange has 1.41 million subscribers in Europe as of March 31, 2008, up from 770,000 for the period a year earlier. The VOD service was a big winner with paid downloads at 1.064 million […]
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has said the company isn’t pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo. He said that the company put “a lot of effort” in the talks with Yahoo and has decided the two should pursue “independent paths.” Microsoft withdrew its three-month-old unsolicited bid for Yahoo, […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Portugal's ZON Multimédia has added 13,400 new clients for its pay-TV service ZON TV Cabo in the first quarter of this year, representing a 60.3 per cent increase of net additions on the same period in 2007. The percentage of subscribers to the digital service “Funtastic Life” rose from 20 […]
Channel 4 is said to be interested in purchasing a chunk of spectrum on the second national digital radio multiplex to use in the launch of mobile TV services. It could bid for some of the 22 per cent of the second multiplex’s bandwidth that is reserved for non-radio services such as mobile TV.Such a […]
Pressure from low priced DTH and IPTV services in its Central European markets dragged on Liberty's UPC cable net results for Q1 with the loss of 57,000 video subscribers. Nonetheless other measures were strong with total RGU bas up 7 per cent or 1.6m since March last year, 348,000 RGUs were added in the quarter, […]
Cablevision is close to an agreement to buy the Sundance Channel, jointly owned by NBC Universal, CBS, and actor Robert Redford, in a cash and stock deal valued at close to $500 million. A purchase of Sundance will strengthen Cablevision’s position in the independent-film programming arena as the cable operator already owns another film channel, […]
UK's Virgin Media added 4,900 net new customers for its services in the first quarter and said better customer retention and stabilising revenue per customer left it positioned for growth. “Our first-quarter results represent another solid operational performance. In particular, churn continued to decline, reflecting the emphasis that we have placed on this area,” commented […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish broadcaster Antena 3 TV and the largest cable operator in the country ONO has reached an agreement to distribute on VoD the main and most successful Antena 3’s TV series through ONO’s Ojo Videoclub service. ONO’s 1 million pay-TV subscribers will be able to enjoy TV series […]
DirecTV netted 275,000 customers during the three-month period, taking its customer count past the 17 million mark. DirecTV cited its ongoing HD programming push for part of the success, with CEO Chase Carey saying the company’s strategy “of offering the best television experience to higher quality customers continues to drive superior financial results.” In addition […]