Advanced Television

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Italian pay-TV revenues pass advertising

From Branislav Pekic in Rome By 2012, pay-TV revenues will surpass advertising income in Italy, according to the latest research by the Milan-based e-Media Institute consultancy. The research indicates that advertising revenues will continue steadily, even after the strong fall in 2009, while revenues from pay-TV, pay per view and video on demand services will […]

March 6, 2009

Sky: "C4 screwed itself up"

BskyB has bluntly blamed C4 for bieng the architect of its own demise. In an unforgiving response to comms minister Lord Carter's interim Digital Report, it claims Channel 4 has wasted millions of pounds on failed business ventures and could be profitable if it was better run. BskyB says C4 wasted £270m (E309m) on “unprofitable […]

March 6, 2009

VOD behavioural study

The Coda Research Consultancy has released findings from its three month market and behavioural study of UK Video on Demand via TV and online. Coda’s project “Video on Demand: Behaviour and Trajectories” shows that the launch of Project Canvas, and the launch of an aggregated subscription based VOD service by the middle of 2010 will […]

March 6, 2009

Sky Movies 'unwatched'

A fifth of subscribers to Sky Movies – at least 891,000 UK households – hadn't watched a single movie on the service in an entire month, according to a YouGov survey on subscription movie viewing habits conducted on behalf of BT Vision. 50 per cent of Sky customers surveyed spend more than £45 (E50.6) on […]

March 6, 2009

ITV in free fall

ITV the UK commercial channel has reported a worse than expected loss of £2.7bn (E3bn) after massive write downs on its assets. Its operating profit was £167m down 41% on 2007 with virtually all the damage done in the second half with a collapse of advertising revenue. ITV estimates Q1 09 advertising will be down […]

March 5, 2009

Viacom open to ‘TV Everywhere’

Viacom is sympathetic to Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” says CEO Philippe Dauman who said the company was “very open” to experimenting with models that would allow cable, satellite and telco TV subscribers to view cable content online. “We think it has to be seamless to the consumer, and we’re working [with the distributors] on the […]

March 5, 2009

Disney looks at online subs

Walt Disney Co was considering moves like creating a subscription-based online video club to capture online consumers as well as revenue that is being lost to piracy, Chief Executive Robert Iger said. Iger told analysts at the Deutsche Bank conference “We’ve also seen a pretty dramatic shift in how people consume entertainment with computers and […]

March 5, 2009

Code for behavioural ads

Internet companies in Britain are being asked to sign up to a new code of conduct for behavioural advertising, in an attempt to quell invasion of privacy concerns over the controversial marketing technology. The UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau has announced a set of guidelines for the systems, which have stirred up passionate reaction among civil […]

March 5, 2009

SBS drags on Sat 1

German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 cut its 2008 dividend and initiated a new cost-saving programme after its SBS arm and poor advertising markets propelled it to a net loss. The company said it was writing off E180 million against SBS for which it paid E3.3 billion in 2007. For 2008 the Group's consolidated revenues were E3.054 billion […]

March 5, 2009

Premiere raises E412m in face of critics

German pay-TV operator Premiere's shareholders have approved an E412m capital increase despite minority shareholders' reluctance and dissatisfaction with the company's previous management. Premiere, where News Corp is the largest shareholder, held an extraordinary general meeting on February 25 and small shareholders complained that previous management had wrongly inflated subscriber numbers the discovery of which had […]

March 4, 2009