ITV has held talks with BSkyB about switching its advertiser-funded free-to-air digital channels such as ITV2 to subscription, meaning they would no longer be available to Freeview viewers. The commercial broadcaster has been forced to consider the option in the face of the worst advertising downturn in its history. The move comes despite the free-to-air […]
Pay TV broadcaster Setanta, currently losing an estimated £100 million (E115m) a year, is considering a radical switch of its business model that would mean ditching its subscribers in order to become a wholesale supplier of programmes, including Premier League football, to broadcasters such as British Sky Broadcasting and BT Vision. Setanta, with 1.2 million […]
Sky has turned down a request from Setanta for a £50 million (E57.3m) advance payment on a deal that would have involved Sky selling Setanta packages directly to its own subscribers. The advance payment would have bridged a funding gap at Setanta as it talks to rights holders about securing reduced terms on rights deals. […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian DTH operator Sky Italia will have to reimburse thousands of former subscribers, for applying cancellation costs judged as too high by a Rome Court. The decision is the result of a court case initiated in February 2009 by consumers association Movimento Consumatori, in which it accused of violating the […]
BSkyB' rivals are urging Ofcom to loosen the satellite broadcaster's grip on top sports events so that Premier League football, Test cricket and first-run Hollywood movies become more widely available. The broadcasting regulator meets this week to approve a ruling on the UK pay-TV market that BSkyB's rivals believe will oblige it to sell them […]
Research from Informa says that digital TV will make significant progress in Latin America over the next five years. Digital TV households will more than treble in that time – from 12.2 million at present to 37.1 million by 2014. Brazil and Mexico now combine to account for half of the region's digital subscribers, but […]
Sky Deutschland has confirmed it will launch its new digital bouquets in Germany and Austria on July 4th. The number of HD channels available will triple from two to six. Sky Welt will be the new basic package, offering 20 channels including Sky Krimi, Fox, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Jetix Disney Channel, and TNT Serie […]
With judgement set to be made on the legality of RealNetworks' DVD copying software, RealNetworks has filed a new charge against the Hollywood studios, alleging they violated antitrust law by banding together to fight the video-copying software. Real filed its amended complaint in a federal court in San Francisco. It claims that the six major […]
Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger (SdK), a German shareholders interest group has taken the former CEOs of German pay-TV platform Premiere to court over allegations of investment fraud and insider trading. SdK has brought a case against former CEOs Georg Kofler and Michael Börnicke in a Munich court, claiming the pair falsified subscriber numbers on two occasions. […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain's Telefonica has seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of its pay-TV clients around the world reaching a total of 2.3 million by the end of the first quarter of the year. Out of them 604,819 are in Spain to its IPTV service Imagenio, up 9.2 […]