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DT, Cellnex Dutch tower business merger

In a further move consolidating ownership of the European tower sector, with 5G rollouts picking up speed, Deutsche Telekom and wireless telecommunications infrastructure specialist Cellnex Telecom have signed an agreement to merge their respective Dutch mobile communications infrastructure companies into Cellnex Netherlands BV (Cellnex NL). Both companies will also become anchor investors in the newly […]

January 21, 2021By Colin Mann

HBO Max names LatAm leadership team

WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T, has announced that Luis Duran will join the company in February as General Manager for HBO Max Latin America. He will report to Johannes Larcher, Head of HBO Max International, and will be responsible for the rollout and management of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer product HBO Max in the Latin America region, […]

January 21, 2021

Netflix: “Still room for growth”

Netflix’s 200+ million subscribers, and with seemingly no worries over its future financing, delivered a strong message to both its pay-TV rivals as well as Europe’s important broadcasters. Netflix, in reporting its Q4 results said its net paid subs addition (8.5 million vs 6 million guidance) was impressive. Total paid streaming subscribers crossed 200 million […]

January 21, 2021

Cinedigm acquires Fandor

Cinedigm has acquired Fandor, the global independent film subscription streaming service with a collection of independent films, documentaries, and international features in the market. Fandor has a catalogue of over 4,600 film titles from more than 400 global and diverse partner film companies. Fandor’s acclaimed film offerings range from high-quality studio classics to festival favourites […]

January 21, 2021

Netflix tops 200m subs

Describing 2020 as “an incredibly difficult year with extraordinary loss for so many families,” Netflix’s Q4 results show that with 8.5 million paid net additions in the quarter, it crossed the 200 million ‘paid memberships’ mark for the first time. “For the full year, we added a record 37 million paid memberships, achieved $25 billion […]

January 20, 2021

Report: ‘US digital divide closing’

The Federal Communications Commission has released its annual Broadband Deployment Report, which it says shows that significant progress has been made to bridge the digital divide. For example, the gap between urban and rural Americans with access to 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband service has been nearly halved, falling from 30 percentage points at the end […]

January 20, 2021

Report: Pandemic fuels shift to brand-funded TV content

Global media intelligence consultancy, K7 Media, has released a report surrounding the rapidly evolving area of brand-funded programming. Titled Brand Funded Programming: Why it Matters Now, the report shines a light on the way in which the pandemic has swiftly accelerated a change in attitudes, making brand funded content a necessity for many cash-strapped broadcasters. […]

January 20, 2021

NEXTGEN TV broadcasters welcome FCC roll-out boost

The Pearl TV group of US broadcast companies has welcomed the decision by the Federal Communications Commission to give broadcasters more flexibility when using a Distributed Television System (DTS) for NEXTGEN TV broadcasts using hybrid broadcast and broadband standard ATSC 3.0. Public and commercial broadcasters had sought the refinement of Commission rules, in order to […]

January 20, 2021

Russia threatens Starlink and OneWeb users

Reports out of Moscow state that Russia’s lower house of parliament (Duma) has legislated penalties for any citizen using Elon Musk’s Starlink or the UK/India-backed OneWeb low Earth orbiting satellite systems. Neither company currently has users in Russia. Russia is reportedly working on ‘Sphere’ (Сфера, in Russian), its own mega-constellation of satellites. But the probable […]

January 20, 2021

Sweden: 5G auction opens and closes

Sweden’s auction of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band for the development of 5G has opened and closed after just one day. Sweden’s regulator closed the auction after four rounds of bidding, and the end-result has been described as being “benign” for the telcos involved. The average bidding price was a mere €0.06 per MHz […]

January 20, 2021By Chris Forrester