Advanced Television

Funding

DirecTV investing $32m into Argentina

Senior DirecTV executives, meeting with Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, say they expect to invest $32 million into the country about one third of which will go into the manufacturing of locally-produced set-top boxes. The balance will go into building a new broadcast centre at San Isidro, to the north of Buenos Aires. The […]

March 22, 2012By Chris Forrester

China TV to invest in Sierra Leone

Chinese state-owned StarTimes Communication Network Technology is set to invest in Sierra Leone, according to a report carried by the BBC’s Monitoring Service. This was made known to officials from the Sierra Leone embassy in China by StarTimes Vice-President Charles Liu, during an official visit to the headquarters of StarTimes at Jianguo Road, Chaoyang District. […]

March 21, 2012By Chris Forrester

Ziggo set for Amsterdam stock exchange listing

Dutch cable television firm Ziggo plans to list on the Amsterdam stock exchange, but a date has not yet been set. Ziggo, currently owned by private equity firms, is the biggest cable television firm in Holland with some three million subscribers. It was formed between 2005 and 2007 through the merger of Casema, Multikabel and […]

February 29, 2012

Aereo launches live TV streaming service

US start-up Aereo (formerly Bamboom Labs) has broken cover with its Internet-based, $12/month subscription television service, allowing consumers to view live or recorded local TV over the Internet on their HDTV, iPad, iPhone, tablet, Mac, PC, or with Internet TV solutions such as AppleTV and Roku. Aereo’s members will have access to all of the […]

February 15, 2012By Colin Mann

India sets 74% as FDI level

India is welcoming foreign investment in its digital cable TV sector, and has set a Foreign Direct Investment cap of 74 per cent for non-Indian investors. The new limit applies to DTH, IPTV, mobile TV, and digital cable distribution. The newly set cap replaces a number of other assorted investment limits within the TV sector. […]

February 13, 2012By Chris Forrester

Sky Deutschland raises cash for soccer bid

Sky Deutschland has raised €155.8 million in a share sale to load up for the auction for key rights to top-flight soccer, its main draw for subscribers. The company placed about 70.8 million new shares at €2.20 each, with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp taking up about half of the new shares to keep its stake […]

February 10, 2012

Primacom second restructuring

The owners of German cable company Primacom have been forced to inject another €20 million into the business and restructure its €300 million of debt for the second time in a year. Primacom was taken over in January 2011 by its bank lenders including ING and fund managers Alcentra Group, Tennenbaum Capital and Avenue Capital […]

February 10, 2012

HBO invests in Australia’s Quickflix

Premium television company HBO has agreed to invest A$10 million (€8.2m) for a strategic stake Australia’s leading online movie rental company Quickflix. Quickflix recently announced that it had entered into a licensing agreement with HBO for the streaming of TV series and films in Australia. Under the terms of the deal, HBO will invest A$10 […]

February 6, 2012By Colin Mann

Time Warner invests in Conviva

Conviva, a video quality optimisation and analytics solution provider, has closed a $15 Million round of funding led by Time Warner Investments, the strategic investing arm of Time Warner. Conviva says it improves over one billion streams a month and provides solutions that guarantee a high quality viewing experience that ultimately results in longer viewing […]

February 6, 2012

SeaChange squeezes out $5m costs

SeaChange International says it took action in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2012 resulting in more than $5 million of annualised cost reductions. These cost reductions come principally from headcount reductions related to streamlining operations. SeaChange CEO Raghu Rau commented, “As we realign our resources to focus on delivering on customer commitments, we have […]

February 1, 2012