MultiChoice Africa, the leading pay-TV operator in sub-Saharan Africa, has boosted its capacity leases with Eutelsat Communications to support further expansion of its pay television and Internet services in sub-Saharan Africa. With the lease of four new Ku-band transponders on Eutelsat’s SESAT 1 satellite, MultiChoice Africa will be able to extend the range of digital […]

UK supermarket chain Tesco has launched what it claims is the UK’s cheapest digital set-top box with a £10 (E14.7) price tag. Manufactured by Techwood, the digital TV box offers the standard 40 Freeview digital terrestrial TV channels and numerous radio stations.

SES Astra will officially launch its new digital platform entavio at the international consumer show IFA in Berlin on 1st September. The service to digital satellite households in Germany comprises about 500 digital TV and radio channels, which continue to be distributed for free, and the technical access to pay-TV for a monthly flat rate […]

The Portuguese government has approved a draft bill to launch a tender for terrestrial digital TV, an official at the public works ministry said. They official said the government will now launch two tenders by the end of the year, one to manage digital free-to-air channels and one to manage digital pay-TV stations.

The Hispanic audience's growing power in US television was confirmed when Nielsen, the ratings group, said it would scrap a segregated system for measuring viewers and include Latinos in its main tally. The decision is a victory for Univision, the US's largest Spanish-language broadcaster, and Telemundo, a rival network owned by NBC Universal, which had […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome The Brazilian Government is planning to test the WiMax broadband wireless system as a return channel for interactive digital terrestrial television applications. The Communications Ministry, together with the Center for Research in Telecommunications (CPqD), will initiate interactive DTT trials in Hortolândia near Sao Paulo with set-top boxes provided by Brazil's […]

From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s ONO has reshuffled its pay-TV offer with the addition of new pay-TV packages and broadband Internet access with a speed of up to 25 Megabytes, being the first company in the country with such a capacity. Its three new pay-TV packages are Esencial (Essential), with more than 40 […]

The UK television advertising market will grow by up to 2 per cent this year, Channel Five owner RTL predicted as it said Five’s new digital spin-off channels boosted its audience share. Five’s family of channels recorded an audience share of 6.3 per cent in the first half of the year to June, with 5.5 […]

The Romanian MSO Digital Cable System (DCS) has selected Scopus' digital broadcast platform for its DTH service Max TV. Scopus will deploy a fourth transponder system in DCS' Bucharest headends. DCS groups together around 40 cable companies and launched Max TV, one of five DTH platforms serving the Romanian market, in July 2005.

With the launch of the Show On Demand service Showtime customers with will be among the first in the world to access a video on demand service via satellite, with the Showbox (DSR3000 digital video recorder) developed and manufactured by Altech UEC. The complete Show On Demand application, head-end utility and network integration services were […]