Viasat rides out downturn
October 28, 2009 by Julian Clover
Viasat’s pay-TV operations in the Baltic Republics and Ukraine are holding their own despite the severe economic crisis in both markets while the Nordic market is continuing to hold its head above water as the local economies emerge from recession. Read the Story »
The Future of Online Media Distribution
October 28, 2009 by Julian Clover
The challenges of monetising online media content were grappled with at the Screen Digest Future of Online Media Distribution in London earlier this month. Read the Story »
Italy – the war of words continues
October 27, 2009 by Julian Clover
Just last week, tensions between News Corp’s Sky Italia on the one hand and the state broadcaster RAI and Berlusconi’s Mediaset on the other ran higher when Sky Italia announced a technical solution to the loss of a number of channels from its DTH platform. Read the Story »
German digital terrestrial enters new phase
October 27, 2009 by Robert Briel
Although Germany was one of the first European countries to start the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting, the process has been full of hurdles. The main concern seems to be the high costs of the transmitter networks and hence the difficulty in finding the right business models for private broadcasters. However, this year has seen two developments that might solve the problem. Read the Story »
HD growth pushes Sky ARPU
October 25, 2009 by Julian Clover
Sky’s HD services helped the broadcaster add an additional £39 (€43.1) per subscriber over the last 12 months. The ARPU (Average revenue per user) reached £469, including around £23 attributable to broadband and telephony, as Sky+ HD put on another 287,000 net additions to reach 1.6 million households. Read the Story »
DTH in CEE: the saga continues
October 14, 2009 by Chris Dziadul
The extraordinary developments currently taking place in CEE’s satellite TV marketplace show little sign of coming to an end. Read the Story »
EBU searching for broadband commonality
October 14, 2009 by Julian Clover
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is working on measures to unite the various broadband delivery mechanisms emerging in Europe. A meeting of the Geneva-based association’s technical committee, acknowledging the work already completed, agreed a set of measures for Hybrid Broadcast Broadband (HBB) services and devices. Read the Story »
Proposal to harmonise 3D profiles
October 14, 2009 by Julian Clover
A proposal to bring in line the various systems being developed for 3D broadcasting has been proposed by the EBU’s David Wood through his chairmanship of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) committee Working Party 6C, which is charged with investigating whether there could be common standards for 3D television. Read the Story »
Tough times for Hungarian cable
October 14, 2009 by Julian Clover
Hungary’s cable industry, like many others in the CEE region, is finding life increasingly hard in the current economic crisis. Read the Story »
Spain: Mediaset emerges as potential Digital+ buyer
October 14, 2009 by Julian Clover
The Berlusconi owned Mediaset has been named by the Italian press as a potential suitor for the Spanish direct-to-home satellite platform Mediaset, with Telefónica on board as a local partner. Under the proposal, denied by Mediaset itself, the free-to-air terrestrial channel Cuatro becomes part of the equation for the first time. Read the Story »
