Turkey plans to launch two more communication satellites by 2014, Turkey’s transportation minister has said. BBC Monitoring reports that Turkey signed a $571 million deal with Japanese technology firm Mitsubishi Electric MELCO to procure and launch Turksat 4A and Turksat 4B. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim said that Turkey also started […]
There seem to be two final bidders for the satellite assets of Ottawa-based Telesat. Informed sources suggest that Intelsat, already the world’s largest operator of satellites, is one interested party. The other is reported to be a group of private equity investors. Europe’s SES and Eutelsat have each ruled themselves out of the bidding. Telesat […]
Boom TV, a struggling DTH operator in Romania owned by Israel’s DTH Television Grp, is being bought out of liquidation by Romtelecom. Boom was a late-starter in the over-crowded Romanian television market and has always struggled to make headway. Its signals are carried on the Amos satellites, owned and operated by Spacecom. Romtelecom is paying […]
As expected, Jeremy Hunt, culture secretary, has cleared the News Corp takeover of the 61 per cent of Sky it doesn’t already own. In a compromise to avert concerns on plurality in the UK news market, Sky News will be spun off as a separate UK PLC with shares distributed to BSkyB stockholders on their […]
BSkyB intends to connect with its viewers in ways other than via the TV, according to CEO Jeremy Darroch. He told delegates at the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference in London that advances in technology were creating new possibilities in the content the broadcaster could offer, with Sky’s future success being based on content […]
Dubai-based MBC is planning to launch “scores” of HDTV channels over the Middle East. Working in partnership with the UAE’s Etisalat telco the plan is to launch HDTV to serve the public’s growing demand for HDTV channels. MBC is the top-rated broadcaster in the region and reaches a claimed 106m viewers each day. Meanwhile, Etisalat, […]
News Corp is nearing agreement with UK regulators over a remedy for concerns about its bid for satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting, reports the Financial Times citing people familiar with the process. Discussions have taken place with the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT), with News Corp reportedly now closer to satisfying objections that combining […]
Dish Mexico, the Mexican pay-TV operator owned by local media giant MVS and Charlie Ergen’s Echostar, is predicting a 6m subs base by 2012, a strong growth rate compared with today’s audience of 2.2m subscribers. Dish Mexico has been active in the region since only since 2008, generally targeting lower-income viewers. Its ‘no frills’ service […]
Dish Network posted bigger-than-expected subscriber losses for the fourth quarter because of customers cancelling their service after a dispute with Fox Network in October blacked out sports shows. The second-largest US DTH provider lost 156,000 subscribers during the quarter. The company is losing market share to main competitor, DirecTV Group, which reported a higher-than-expected profit […]
The addition of HDTV channels and PVR capabilities are giving a new boost to Spain’s digital satellite platform Digital Plus. As a whole, the company added 29,468 new clients in January in comparison with a loss of over 15,000 subscribers the same period last year. Out of the total growth, 10,662 new subs are to […]