Rangers and Celtic football clubs are in talks to acquire the live UK rights to air Scottish Premier League football. The collapse of previous SPL UK rights holder Setanta means the rights are effectively back on the market Speculation has been rife that the SPL has been conducting talks with Sky and ESPN over a […]

HBO will provide some 750 hours of movies and original series to Comcast’s On-Demand Online trial, becoming the latest programmer to sign on to the cable operator’s 5,000-home Internet video-on-demand test. HBO’s participation comes on the heels of the announcement that Starz Entertainment will deliver about 300 movies and original shows for On-Demand Online. Customers […]

Bahrain-based Orbit and Dubai's Showtime Arabia are merging between the two rival pay-TV businesses. The new company is an "equal partnership" between Orbit, up until now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia-based Mawarid Group, and Showtime Arabia/Gulf-DTH which was owned by Kuwait's KIPCO and Viacom. The new business will offer new packages to viewers […]

From David Del Valle in Madrid The two largest pay-TV groups in Spain, Sogecable (more than 2 million subscribers) and Ono (over 1 million subs) have issued appeals against the Government’s Royal Decree bill that will allow pay TV services through digital terrestrial TV. Both argue that it breaks competition rules. For Ono, the bill […]

Preliminary results from IMS Research's forthcoming 2009 study on the World Market for Set-top Boxes and iDTVs has revealed that during 2008 the mantle of being the leading digital pay-TV platform was taken from DTH satellite by digital cable. According to Stephen Froehlich, a senior analyst in IMS Research's consumer electronics research group, "Digital cable […]

ESPN has been awarded two packages of rights containing a total of 46 matches available for season 2009/10 to air in Ireland. The move extends ESPN’s football offering that began with the acquisition of the UK Premier League broadcast rights following the collapse of pay-TV broadcaster Setanta last month. ESPN said the broadcaster was currently […]

The English Premier League will take until the end of the week to decide between the bids it has received for Setanta's relinquished 46 EPL games. The smart money is on half going to Sky (it can't take all of them because of competition regulation) and half to ESPN. Pay-to-watch service Top Up TV has […]

Viasat Broadcasting has signed an agreement with Swedish commercial broadcaster the TV4 Group to add TV4 Play to Viasat OnDemand, as a catch-up service for Viasat’s satellite TV subscribers through the recordable digital box. The public broadcaster’s service SVT Play joins the already present play channels TV3 Play, TV6 Play, TV8 Play, ZTV Play, TV1000 […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome Mediaset has reported a 85 per cent increase in the turnover of its pay-TV service on DTT, Mediaset Premium, during the first six months of 2009. The increase is 70 per cent if all activities connected to Mediaset Premium are taken into account, such as the sale of content. At […]

Setanta’s founders and MCD boss Denis Desmond are expected to take full control of the sports giant’s Irish business after agreeing a buyout with original investors, including Doughty Hanson and Goldman Sachs. The deal comes as secured debt holders, who are owed E220 million by Setanta, consider fresh “commercial terms” offered by the Irish team. […]