From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish media group Prisa, owner of newspaper El Pais, has launched a bid for the rest of Sogecable, Spain’s largest pay-TV group, that it does not already own, valuing the pay-TV operator, owner of Digital DTH platform Digital Plus and premium channel Canal Plus, at E3.8 billion. Prisa […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome There were nearly 1.500 digital TV channels available in Italy and in 2006 they earned E2.5 billion, according to the New TV Observatory of the School of Management of Milan's Polytechnic. The Observatory divided the channels into three categories, on the basis of the six platforms currently available (DTT, IPTV, […]
According to Ofcom figures, Freeview achieved near-record sales of 2.4 million digital television receivers in the third quarter of 2007. The media regulator’s quarterly digital TV progress report, for the three months to the end of September, showed that 361,700 households that had been analogue-only went digital during the period. This was down from 944,200 […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish telco company is launching Terra TV, a free-of-charge VoD service through the Internet, financed by ad revenues, that will allow users to watch TV programmes, specific Internet-adapted content (similar to MySpace TV’s minisodes) and share content with others. Running at 1Mbps speed, the service is aimed at […]
The chief executive of Vivendi has dismissed renewed talk on that his group may sell pay-TV unit Canal Plus. The statement followed speculation that the French media giant might exit Canal Plus in order to buy telecom operator Neuf Cegetel and so avoid possible competition issues. Vivendi has a 56 per cent stake in mobile […]
Former Channel 4 managing director David Scott has been appointed chief executive of analogue TV switchover body Digital UK. Scott will take up the post, which puts him in overall charge of the switchover programme, when current director Ford Ennals leaves in February 2008. Scott was a member of the original management team which launched […]
Australia's Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy minister Stephen Conroy has ordered that free-to-air television be broadcast only in a digital signal in all major cities by 2009 with a final switch-over across the nation by 2013. The Howard government before the 2004 election had proposed a date of 2008 for the switch Conroy said moving […]
Edgeware has revealed that Danish cable TV operator Telia Stofa is using the Orbit 2x server system to deliver the on-demand functionality of their new Zaptor service. Edgeware's distributed server solution enables Telia Stofa to integrate on-demand capabilities into their existing network, in a scalable and future proof architecture. The Zaptor service will offer video […]
Ofcom has raised possible concerns over competition within the UK pay TV sector. The concerns are raised in a consultation document investigating the pay TV market. Ofcom launched an investigation into the pay TV industry in March, following a submission from a group including Virgin Media. The submission came after Virgin lost access to some […]
Spacecom, the AMOS satellites operator, has claimed that during the last months of 2007 it improved its position as the satellite of choice for broadcasters all over Central and Eastern Europe. In Slovenia, Spacecom signed up privately owned music channel ?arli TV, while in Romania, Trinitas TV, owned by the Bucovina and Moldavia Church, joined […]