Colombia has scrapped plans to buy and launch its own $250 million satellite, and instead will continue to lease capacity, data and imagery from other international satellite operators. Colombia’s vice-president German Vargas says the country does not have the budget. “We have explored the possibility over the last few years but the government concluded that […]
A comprehensive report to clients from investment bank Berenberg and which has compiled a series of ‘price tracker’ statistics on UK content and telco aggregators, says that BSkyB is still engaged in a period of “intense promotional activity” despite such efforts normally being more subdued with the start of the football season. “This year, however, […]
SCTE Denver. Shifts Happen was the pithy up sum on how cable has to keep on keeping up with every new innovation that tries to eat its lunch. It was provided by retiring Time Warner Cable CTO Mike LaJoie and was the prelude to a keynote by Tony Werner, Comcast’s current CTO, where he ran […]
The Middle East’s Broadcast Satellite Anti-Piracy Coalition, meeting in Cairo, say that their organisation has grown by six new members, including Rotana, ART, IAA, the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, Gulfsat and WWE. The Coalition also says that as a result of their efforts, 15 channels have been taken off air because of piracy in their […]
Middle East Broadcasting’s (MBC) CEO Sam Barnett says that his region is already home to about 1000 channels, many of them small and serving local audiences, but that it could absorb “several thousands more”. He said 100 were launched last year, about 43 in Kurdish alone. “There are lots more to come,” he added. Indeed, […]
Mexican broadcaster and media giant Grupo Televisa has lost its 18-point series of appeals against an earlier decision that it held a dominant position in Mexican media. Back in March the Mexican Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) ruled that Televisa was in breach of the 50 per cent market share threshold, and needed to curb its […]
Ratings agency Fitch doubts that electronics giant Sony can turn around the struggling fortunes of its mobile phone division. Sony says it will launch even ‘smarter’ so-called smartphones and a new range of high-end consumer devices. But the news might be a last throw of the dice and follows on from a massive Sony write-down […]
Getting anything decided, let alone implemented, is a near-nightmare. India’s Information & Broadcasting Ministry has decided to again set new dates for the implementation of its Digital Addressable Systems ruling, to December 2015 for Phase II cities and the following year, December 2016, for Phase IV smaller cities and towns. The existing rules (issued in […]
It was while browsing BSkyB’s September 5th prospectus on the raising of £10 billion in fresh financing (the £10 billion Euro Medium Term Note Programme) that it dawned on me: Sky should dump its advertising segments. The fact is that all the Sky channel ads, all the interruptions, all the commercials for ambulance chasing lawyers, […]
Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar and Luxembourg-based SES are continuing their close working relationship with the addition of a new satellite at 105 degrees West. The new craft will have two names. EchoStar will call it EchoStar 105 while SES will dub the craft SES-11. Airbus will build the satellite and it will launch quite soon in […]