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Squaring the content circle?

A pub landlady in England is a hero to the (non-Murdoch) press when she wins a ‘victory’ in the European courts over whether she’s entitled to buy her Premiere League soccer for public viewing from a foreign supplier. It isn’t actually a win yet (just an opinion from the official court adviser) and, of course, […]

February 9, 2011

Nilesat: Al Jazeera “breached Egypt’s laws”

Last week’s Egyptian protests saw Al Jazeera’s signals from Nilesat terminated. The problem meant that Al Jazeera’s viewers had to search the sky for alternate transmissions over the Middle East, not least looking to Arabsat and Eutelsat.  The loss of Al Jazeera’s signal meant that subscribers to the Orbit Showtime Network also lost their news […]

February 7, 2011

Optimistic glow for Sky Deutschland

In the past few days, Sky Deutschland (SD) has resolved a troubling legal dispute with former investors by settling $20 million on them, and also seen News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch say last week that his investment in the German pay-TV operator was “starting to pay off”. A week ago, SD raised €165 million via a […]

February 1, 2011

Key date arrives for Sirius and Liberty Media

The blogosphere is full of gossip and speculation that an upcoming key date, March 7, could be instrumental in taking pay-radio outfit Sirius XM onto its next stage. Currently the situation is that John Malone’s Liberty Media is – in effect – in control of 40 per cent of Sirius XM (Liberty injected $530m in […]

January 31, 2011

Avanti: “spectrum for 20 satellites”

UK-based broadband-by-satellite provider Avanti Communications is involved in a legal dispute with new launch provider SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) over use of its groundbreaking Falcon-9 rocket. Nevertheless, Avanti’s CEO David Williams says the new company has sufficient spectrum available to “launch perhaps 20 satellites”. Details of the legal spat were revealed in Avanti’s annual report. […]

January 28, 2011

European pay-radio: Getting ready

The past couple of years have not been good for pay-radio’s prospects in Europe. We’ve seen the Worldspace catastrophe, now well over two years into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy (WS filed in October 2008) and with legal bills still running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Worldspace’s European and other international operations […]

January 27, 2011

European pay-radio: Getting ready

The past couple of years have not been good for pay-radio’s prospects in Europe. We’ve seen the Worldspace catastrophe, now well over two years into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy (WS filed in October 2008) and with legal bills still running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Worldspace’s European and other international operations […]

January 27, 2011

Azerbaijan banning sat-dishes

BBC Monitoring is reporting that the government of Azerbaijan is to ban satellite dishes in this country. “A lot of channels broadcast in Azerbaijan via satellite will be banned and after a switch to digital broadcasting satellite dishes will be dismantled by force,” Information and Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov said. Transition to digital broadcasting is […]

January 26, 2011By Chris Forrester

Ofcom: wrong question, wrong answer

In the few hours since Jeremy Hunt announced his non-decision on referral of the News bid for BSkyB – Hunt (and Number 10) remain desperate to sit on the fence – the war of words that has broken out between News and Ofcom wouldn’t be out of place at a prize fight press conference. Barely […]

January 25, 2011

No IPO for Orbit Showtime – yet

Kuwait Projects Co (KIPCO) says there will not be an IPO this year for its Middle East pay TV Orbit Showtime Network. Mr Faisal al-Ayyar, Kipco’s CEO and vice-chairman, was quoted in an interview with Kuwaiti daily newspaper al-Watan, saying KIPCO would present the issue to shareholders and seek their approval prior to considering an […]

January 24, 2011