Advanced Television

DTT/DSO

India claims 55% digitisation achieved

Just hours after local operators complained bitterly about extra taxes being levied on imported set-top boxes, India’s government says that its March 31st target date for digitising the nation’s 38 largest cities is well on track. India’s Information & Broadcasting Ministry says that more than 55 per cent of homes in those cities have now […]

March 4, 2013By Chris Forrester

Meltdown at the UK’s YouView

Things were already bad at YouView, the UK’s struggling on-demand TV service, but there was complete meltdown on February 28th when the operation’s Chairman, Lord Alan Sugar (who fronts the UK’s version of The Apprentice reality TV show) and the owner of Channel 5, Richard Desmond reportedly came to near fisticuffs during a regular board […]

March 3, 2013

Your TV wins Blackpool and Preston

Ofcom has handed out the last licence to complete the first phase to launch a new generation of  local TV services in the UK, awarding the Preston franchise to the YourTV group, which beat rival bidder Metro8 Preston. The award of the 12 year licence completes the bidding process for the first round of 19 […]

March 1, 2013

Freesat ‘bets the house’ on HTML5

Senior managers at UK free-to-air digital satellite platform Freesat have confirmed the service’s support for the HTML5 multimedia Internet standard. The move follows Freesat’s successful launch of YouTube built on HTML 5, offering a TV-optimised, visually stunning and fully interactive viewing experience. James Strickland, Chief Technology Officer, noted that previous standards such as MHEG, which […]

February 28, 2013By Colin Mann

Ghana DTT budgeted at $95m

Stage One of Ghana’s digital television deployment is already underway and the west African nation plans to cover 66 per cent of its countryside by December 31st 2014. However, new numbers from unofficial sources say the cost to Ghana’s taxpayers will be about $95 million. That bill will cover the building out of 52 transmission […]

February 26, 2013By Chris Forrester

Spain fails to allocate the digital dividend

The Spanish Administration will fail to meet its self-imposed deadline of Jannuary 2014 to complete the allocation of the so-called digital dividend to telco operators for 4G (LTE) services. The process will take until the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015 as the government is unable to comply with the timetable, which was […]

February 25, 2013By David Del Valle in Madrid

Vinson showcases mobile OTT solution

Dutch startup Vinson has showcased their new white-label mobile OTT TV solution for broadcasters, content aggregators and content distributors at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The solution is completely focused on swiping and comes with a disrupting business model that opens mobile TV to a whole new category of media companies. Vinson’s solution is free […]

February 25, 2013

Ofcom awards Liverpool TV licence

The award follows legislation enabling Ofcom to issue local TV licences. The channels will broadcast on a specific ‘multiplex’, a discrete amount of spectrum reserved for local TV broadcasting on DTT. Licences are awarded for a period of up to 12 years. It is hoped that some channels may be on air before the end […]

February 21, 2013

Freeview: Pay-TV is a rip-off

Freeview, the UK’s biggest digital television provider, has revealed a new marketing campaign that it says will prompt consumers to question whether they are paying more than they need to watch their favourite TV programmes.   Freeview claims its research has shown that whilst paying a seemingly small monthly fee for hundreds of TV channels […]

February 20, 2013

“Early settlement” to Eutelsat/SES dispute?

Eutelsat and Luxembourg-based SES are involved in a bitter dispute over who owns the 28.5 degrees East orbital slot. On February 8th, Eutelsat’s CEO Michel de Rosen declined to add any sort of update to the problem other than to remind analysts that the dispute was now before the International Chamber of Commerce. Two separate […]

February 11, 2013By Chris Forrester