Advanced Television

Business

Verimatrix names Peterka new CTO

Verimatrix has announced the appointment of Petr Peterka as its new Chief Technology Officer. Petr joins Verimatrix as his latest role in an impressive career at the forefront of the San Diego technology and global digital TV scenes. Prior to joining Verimatrix, Peterka was a member of the Technical Staff in the CTO’s office at […]

March 10, 2010

Government defeated on net piracy

The UK government has been defeated in the upper parliamentary chamber the House of Lords over measures to tackle Internet piracy. Ministers had been seeking powers to amend copyright law and impose conditions or fees where infringements were taking place. But opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats succeeded in removing the measures from the Digital Economy […]

March 5, 2010

Ofcom: Net neutrality will be regulated (somehow)

Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, has said that net neutrality will come under regulatory scrutiny this year. He said the scale of deployment of next-generation broadband networks would depend on greater clarity on this issue. The battle lines have already been drawn: The BBC and BT clashed last year over the bandwidth consumed by […]

March 4, 2010

ITV returns to profit

Archie Norman, the new chairman of ITV, has said that developing its own content would be crucial to the future of the commercial broadcaster, as full-year figures showed the company had returned to profit. Figures for the year to December 31st showed ITV turned to a pre-tax profit of £25 million (E27.5m) after a loss […]

March 4, 2010

Carter joins Alcatel Lucent

Lord Stephen Carter, who resigned from the UK government last summer after delivering his Digital Britain report and white paper, is joining Alcatel, Lucent, the Franco-American global telecoms supplier. His new job sees him become the company’s director of marketing, strategy and communications. He will be relocating from London to headquarters in Paris. The company’s […]

March 4, 2010

Berlusconi cuts pay-TV ad time – Sky Italia hurts

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has approved lower advertising ceilings for pay TV that News Corp's Italian unit says will curtail its growth and that of other networks on Rupert Murdoch's satellite platform. New regulations will gradually limit the maximum amount of advertising per hour of pay television programming, to 12 per cent in […]

March 3, 2010

Pace sales up 50%, acquires Bewan

UK STB manufacturer Pace has reported revenues increased 52 per cent to £1.133 billion (E1.248bn) in the year to end-December 2009, up from £745.5 million the previous year. Profit before tax was up 405 per cent to £69.9 million. Neil Gaydon, CEO, said: ‘In 2009 Pace delivered exceptional growth and record results and is now […]

March 3, 2010

EC green-lights UK Orange, T-Mobile merger

The European Commission has granted clearance for the proposed merger of the UK businesses of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. The new joint venture company is expected to generate estimated synergies with a value in excess of E4 billion. The new business will have pro forma 2009 revenues of approximately E8.5 billion and EBITDA of […]

March 3, 2010

EchoStar to acquire Satmex

EchoStar Satellite Services and Satelites Mexicanos have confirmed EchoStar will acquire an ownership interest in Satmex. Satmex is Mexico’s leading satellite operator and delivers video, audio and data services to the Americas. MVS Comunicaciones, one of the largest media and telecommunications companies in Mexico and EchoStar’s partner in the Mexican direct-to-home TV service Dish Mexico, […]

March 2, 2010

Vivendi makes massive US law suit provision

Europe’s largest entertainment group Vivendi posted better-than-expected sales and operating profit for 2009, boosted by a buoyant performance at its games and telecoms divisions. But the owner of Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest record company that competes with EMI and Sony, said net profit was hit by a surprise provision for possible damages in […]

March 2, 2010