Advanced Television

Business

Virgin strategy head out

Virgin Media's head of strategy is the latest executive to leave the group amid a wider restructuring. Ernie Cormier, its managing director of strategy, would leave in the new year. Steve Stewart, the group's head of customer care, will leave at about the same time. The future of Jacques Kerrest, the group's finance head, also […]

November 30, 2007

FCC now limiting cable's size

Coming off a setback on its attempt to trigger tighter regulation, the head of the Federal Communications Commission has moved quickly to propose the FCC adopt a rule that would prevent Comcast, the nation's biggest cable company, from becoming larger. Officials said that Kevin Martin notified other commissioners this week of the agenda for the […]

November 30, 2007

Root out at Disco

Discovery and Science Channel president and general manager Jane Root is out at the company, Discovery Communications president and CEO David Zaslav confirmed. She is being let her out of her contract effective immediately to return to her native United Kingdom, and Discovery veteran John Ford — who rejoined the company in September after years […]

November 30, 2007

TiVo narrows loss

Digital video recorder maker TiVo has reported a narrower quarterly loss as its revenue and subscriptions increased, and it issued a forecast that was more optimistic than estimates. The net loss was $8.24 million, for its fiscal third quarter compared with a loss of $11.1 million, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $75.5 million from […]

November 30, 2007

Spotzer E10m

Spotzer Media Group, provider of multi-media video advertising campaigns, announced the closing of a E10 million financing led by Sierra Ventures of Menlo Park, California. European Directories, operator of leading yellow page publishers in nine countries, also invested. Spotzer will primarily use the new capital to extend its innovative rich media advertising services into the […]

November 29, 2007

FCC cable regulation stumbles

Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has backed down, for now, from his effort to expand regulatory control over the cable industry after failing to secure backing from fellow regulators. The FCC had planned to vote on a report that found companies such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable had reached a […]

November 29, 2007

FCC chief hunts votes on cable

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is reportedly struggling to find enough support from agency commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly. The five-member commission is set to vote today on a report, proposed by Kevin Martin that would give the commission expanded powers over the cable industry after making a formal finding […]

November 27, 2007

France disconnecting pirates

The French government plans to cut off Internet access for constant offenders of download piracy. The penalty is part of a range of measures to deal with the unauthorised copying of music and video online proposed by the French Ministry of Culture including watermarking content, tracking surfers' activities, and creating a registry of those accused […]

November 27, 2007

Setanta raises football finances

Setanta Sports has raised an extra E130 million to finance its assault on BSkyB’s dominance of football coverage. The funding has come from a share issue to existing backers – including Doughty Hanson and Balderton Capital, the private equity firms, and Goldman Sachs – and will be used to bid for rights acquisitions such as […]

November 27, 2007

FCC OKs broadband for airplanes

The Federal Communications Commission has granted ViaSat blanket authority for domestic operation of up to 1,000 earth stations aboard commercial aircraft. The agency said the earth stations will provide Aeronautical Mobile Satellite Service using standard Ku-band frequency ranges to link with leased transponders on the AMC-6 satellite. According to FCC documents, the ViaSat aircraft earth […]

November 27, 2007