Viasat Broadcasting' fourth quarter results show development in Central and East Europe and an increase in premium subs. Viasat's Nordic pay-TV operations grew sales by 10% as the combination of price increases and new services pushed up ARPU by 13% to SEK 4,097. Premium subscribers increased by 14,000 on the quarter, thanks largely to last […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian public broadcaster RAI has become a multimedia operator by relaunching its website and offering users access to all content as well as personalized services. Two new web portals are now available which provide access to a total of 22 live channels. Seven of them are RAI's TV channels (Rai […]
Setanta is said to be seeking an urgent meeting with the Premier League in the hope it will help broker a deal to regain the rights it lost in the recent record-breaking TV auction. The Irish sports pay-TV broadcaster won only one package for the rights to broadcast the Premier League between 2010 and 2013, […]
Telenor Broadcast's Canal Digital added 12,000 DTH subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008, ending the year with 1.113 million, down slightly from 1.131 million in 2007. The number of cable households increased by 5,000 in the three months to December 31, ending the year at 746,000, compared with 705,000 in 2007. Canal Digital posted […]
The second round of bidding for pay-TV rights of Premier League saw Sky secure one of the two remaining TV packages to air live games from 2010 to 2013, meaning it will have one more and Setanta one less than under the current deal. Setanta took the remaining package in the auction that netted the […]
With some analysts doubting Setanta's future after it failed to renew both its Premiere League packages, Access Industries, which is headed by the Russian-born US citizen Len Blavatnik, is understood to have acquired a stake of about 3%. Blavatnik’s petrochemicals business, Lyondell Basell filed for bankruptcy protection last month owing $26bn. Royal Bank of Scotland […]
Cable operator UPC Netherlands' video-on-demand service saw over 34 million requests from subscribers last year, the first full year of the service's operation. UPC said that about 50% of customers used the service on a monthly basis in the second half of the year, up from 40% in the first half. At the end of […]
RTL, the Germany-based owners of Channel Five, has offered to set up a government-appointed editorial board as part of merger plan with Channel 4. Five’s chief executive, Dawn Airey, told The Guardian that the independent editorial board would monitor the output of both channels if the two broadcasters were allowed to merge. The board would […]
News International is investigating working with News Corp sites such as Sky and MySpace, to create a behavioural targeting network across its properties. The creation of such a network would allow News International titles, such as The Times and The Sun to share data on reader behaviour and enable brands to target across both News […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The sale of DTT devices in December broke all records with more than 1,016,487 pieces sold in only one month, nearly two times the sales in November with 590,813 or in September with 546,163. Out of the total December sales Integrated DTT TV sets represented 444,000 units, with 369,000 […]