Eircom ‘s wish to bring in pay-TV are fading as telco’s One Vision consortium apparently reached the end of the line in its crucial negotiations with RTE’s networks division. The consortium has spent almost a year locked in negotiations with RTE in a bid to secure a transmission contract for the pay TV part of […]

An estimated 800,000 US households stopped their cable, satellite or telco TV subscription services last year, a number that could double to 1.6 million by the end of 2011, according to a study from Convergence Consulting Group. The report found that 17 per cent of the weekly TV audience watches at least one or two […]

From Colin Mann in Cannes Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive of BSkyB, delivered a robust defence of the satellite operator's business model and role in content value, as well as a strong attack on regulatory intervention in a Media Mastermind keynote speech at MIPTV. Identifying three key threats to the economics of content – piracy, commoditisation […]

Sky has confirmed that its Sky Player service is to launch on the UK’s first Freeview HD box as part of an expansion across Humax’s new range of digital boxes. Viewers will soon be able to watch Sky programming live and on-demand in HD on the Humax HD-FOX T2, which launched in February 2010 and […]

Consumers want their Internet TV, according to market research firm In-Stat. Based on In-Stat's new multi-client research, 26 per cent of US consumer respondents report viewing Internet TV more than once per week. However, rather than a substitute for traditional pay-TV services, consumers want Over-the-Top (OTT) Internet video to compliment traditional TV offerings. “Consumers want […]

Despite a depressed economy, global pay TV markets continue to grow. According to the latest market data from ABI Research, they will expand by a quarter from 2009 to 2014. According to industry analyst Michael Inouye, cable will remain the largest pay TV platform, satellite the second-largest and telco TV the smallest (DTT aside), but […]

Eutelsat Communications has signed a major contract with Upstar Comunicações for satellite capacity for the broadcasting of Zap pay-TV platform, expected to launch shortly in Angola. Upstar Comunicações is a joint venture between Zon Multimedia, one of the leading Portuguese media groups ,and the Angolan group SOCIP. The five-year contract covers the lease of five […]

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has approved lower advertising ceilings for pay TV that News Corp's Italian unit says will curtail its growth and that of other networks on Rupert Murdoch's satellite platform. New regulations will gradually limit the maximum amount of advertising per hour of pay television programming, to 12 per cent in […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome The number of pay-TV subscribers in Portugal increased 10.6 per cent in the 4Q 2009 to over 2.5 million or 45 per cent of total households, according to data released by the country's telecommunications regulator Anacom. The figure includes all platforms (cable, DTH, fibre and other technologies) and represents a […]

Dish Network Corp, the number 2 US satellite television operator, posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue as its subscriber base expanded in the face of a weak economy. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 1.4 per cent to $2.96 billion. Net income came in at $179 million compared with $217 million, the year-ago quarter. Dish, which is controlled by Chief […]