German pay-TV station Premiere will change its brand name to Sky despite heavy write-downs on the Premiere brand name. Premiere will trade under the Sky name as do other pay-TV stations partly or fully owned by News Corp. News Corp. has a 30.5 per cent stake in Premiere, and it fully owns Sky Italia and […]

DirecTV has reported that first-quarter earnings fell 46 per cent even as subscriber growth hit a four-year high. Chief Executive Chase Carey said he expects intense competition to continue in the pay-TV business, as providers fight for consumers who have become more sensitive to price. Still, he predicted that customers will cut their spending to […]

DirecTV will merge with John Malone's Liberty Entertainment to simplify its ownership structure and improve its ability to pursue deals; specifically making itself a more attractive target for one of the big telcos. Liberty Entertainment will be spun off from Liberty Media as previously announced, and will now include 54 per cent of the stock […]

SES has reported a 12.2 per cent rise in its first-quarter core profit, maintained its full-year forecast and said it signed a E2 billion credit facility. SES, the world’s second-largest satellite operator, said that EBITDA rose to E308.9 million. SES repeated its forecast of revenue growth between 3 per cent and 4 per cent on […]

SES Astra has made a partnership with the Arabic satellite operator Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat). They will create a new company operating under the YahLive brand that will offer Direct-to-Home (DTH) television capacity and services to more than two dozen countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South West Asia. YahLive will […]

Broadband households in Europe and the US consistently rank primetime anytime VOD services as the most valuable service out of all TV 2.0 offerings, according to the Parks Associates report 'Television Services: The Global Outlook'. The international research firm says that primetime anytime services, which allow viewers to watch a show on-demand on their TV […]

French digital terrestrial channels will be available from June on the Eutelsat Atlantic Bird 3 satellite in a package to be marketed as Fransat. The satellite has always been used to broadcast the DTT channels to homes beyond DTT reception. The 18 channels will be available from June for free though viewers will need to […]

French pay TV group Canal Plus has announced a switchover from analogue to digital via an offer available to subscribers immediately. All new subscribers to the group’s analogue service will now have access to Canal Plus Cinema and Canal Plus Sport, plus HD viewing and all 18 channels on the country’s DTT platform via a […]

Sky has successfully broadcast the UK's first live event in 3D TV to a domestic 3D TV set, via its satellite network and existing Sky+HD set-top boxes. The broadcast was part of a 3D music event co-produced by Sky, specialist 3D production company Nineteen Fifteen Productions and Island Records to coincide with Keane's live performance […]

From Colin Mann in London Satellite operator SES Astra has significantly increased its reach in Europe, particularly in France, Ukraine and the UK, and is now broadcasting to 122 million analogue and digital TV homes across Europe. At the heart of the increase in reach was the increase of Astra's digital satellite penetration across Europe. […]