TVN, Poland’s largest listed media group, has agreed to take control of pay-TV platform ‘n’ by buying an additional 26 per cent stake. TVN, which angered investors when it bought 25 per cent of Poland’s smallest satellite operator last year, said in a statement it would pay ITI Group as much as E106 million to […]
Western European digital television subscriptions broke through the 100 million household mark in 2008, according to a report by Strategy Analytics. The report estimates that Western Europe added 17 million net new digital households in 2008. On a platform level, Digital Satellite led in terms of overall subscriptions; however, Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) will fuel […]
BSkyB is lobbying to have the list of sporting events reserved for free-to-air television abolished in an ongoing government review. Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said Sky would argue for a situation where the World Cup or the Olympics could be shown on pay TV, with sports bodies free to decide where to sell their rights […]
A fifth of subscribers to Sky Movies – at least 891,000 UK households – hadn't watched a single movie on the service in an entire month, according to a YouGov survey on subscription movie viewing habits conducted on behalf of BT Vision. 50 per cent of Sky customers surveyed spend more than £45 (E50.6) on […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome By 2012, pay-TV revenues will surpass advertising income in Italy, according to the latest research by the Milan-based e-Media Institute consultancy. The research indicates that advertising revenues will continue steadily, even after the strong fall in 2009, while revenues from pay-TV, pay per view and video on demand services will […]
Viacom is sympathetic to Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” says CEO Philippe Dauman who said the company was “very open” to experimenting with models that would allow cable, satellite and telco TV subscribers to view cable content online. “We think it has to be seamless to the consumer, and we’re working [with the distributors] on the […]
Just as Comcast and other Pay TV operators have announced plans to push high-value cable network programming to the PC, research from TDG suggests that their intention to not charge for this content could be a major strategic error and leave hundreds of millions in additional fees on the table. "Cable operators are working aggressively […]
German pay-TV operator Premiere's shareholders have approved an E412m capital increase despite minority shareholders' reluctance and dissatisfaction with the company's previous management. Premiere, where News Corp is the largest shareholder, held an extraordinary general meeting on February 25 and small shareholders complained that previous management had wrongly inflated subscriber numbers the discovery of which had […]
Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch has predicted that the UK trading environment is going to get worse before it gets better. Darroch told a financial conference that Sky's core product remained relevant to customers during the recessionary period and this was common to pay-TV operators around the world. "By focusing on products like Sky+ and our […]
Dish Network has reported its fourth-quarter profit rose 24 per cent, but the second placed US DTH provider lost more than 100,000 subscribers. Dish Network earned $217 million for the three months ended December 31st, up from $175 million a year earlier. Sales rose 1 per cent to $2.92 billion from $2.89 billion. During the […]