Premiere is to offer live web-based coverage of individual top-flight football from the Bundesliga and German second division on a pay-per-view basis, including to non subscribers. The company announced it has won the exclusive live online rights to show games in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as renewing its cable and satellite TV rights. […]

Germany's Premiere wants a FTA channel, called Premiere Vitrine, to promote its pay TV services, and has applied to the Bavarian media authority for a licence. Premiere has struggled to make premium pay-TV a success in a country with over 30 FTA channels. Premiere closed Giga TV, a previous attempt at a stand-alone FTA channel.

Due to rising incomes and greater competition, the pay-TV market in Africa and the Middle East will enjoy the world’s highest growth rate over the next five years, with subscriptions increasing at a CAGR of 13 per cent and total regional pay-TV revenue to almost double 2008 levels by year-end 2013, according to a report […]

Viasat Broadcasting' fourth quarter results show development in Central and East Europe and an increase in premium subs. Viasat's Nordic pay-TV operations grew sales by 10% as the combination of price increases and new services pushed up ARPU by 13% to SEK 4,097. Premium subscribers increased by 14,000 on the quarter, thanks largely to last […]

Setanta is said to be seeking an urgent meeting with the Premier League in the hope it will help broker a deal to regain the rights it lost in the recent record-breaking TV auction. The Irish sports pay-TV broadcaster won only one package for the rights to broadcast the Premier League between 2010 and 2013, […]

Telenor Broadcast's Canal Digital added 12,000 DTH subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008, ending the year with 1.113 million, down slightly from 1.131 million in 2007. The number of cable households increased by 5,000 in the three months to December 31, ending the year at 746,000, compared with 705,000 in 2007. Canal Digital posted […]

The second round of bidding for pay-TV rights of Premier League saw Sky secure one of the two remaining TV packages to air live games from 2010 to 2013, meaning it will have one more and Setanta one less than under the current deal. Setanta took the remaining package in the auction that netted the […]

With some analysts doubting Setanta's future after it failed to renew both its Premiere League packages, Access Industries, which is headed by the Russian-born US citizen Len Blavatnik, is understood to have acquired a stake of about 3%. Blavatnik’s petrochemicals business, Lyondell Basell filed for bankruptcy protection last month owing $26bn. Royal Bank of Scotland […]

BskyB followed up securing a further three years of live Premier League football with a vitriolic response to media regulator Ofcom's consultation on the UK pay-TV market, accusing it of “serious flaws” and “perverse conclusions.” Responding to Ofcom’s second Consultation Document on pay TV which was published last September and said: "Retail competition that we […]

News Corp-owned Italian pay-TV operator Sky Italia added 322,000 net subscribers in 2008 for a total subscriber base of 4.7 million. It reported second quarter operating income of US$10m down $52m year-on-year. New Corp said marketing cost of subscriber acquisition and increased sports programming costs hit net income. News Corp's operating income for the second […]