UK subscription-free digital satellite TV service Freesat has announced what it describes as “a good start” to 2014, adding 18,000 homes, suggesting that budget-conscious consumers are switching away from expensive pay-TV packages. Freesat, which celebrates the sixth anniversary of its launch this week, is now available in 1.84 million households, and is watched by more […]
Sky Deutschland last week carried a test transmission of a Bundesliga football match in Ultra-HD. The match, between Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen, was carried on an Astra satellite on April 26th, and carried at 50 fps and using the new High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) compression algorithm. Six 4K cameras were used and another […]
Discovery Communications has reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31st 2014. David Zaslav, Discovery’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Discovery’s strong organic growth continued during the first quarter as our unparalleled global reach and sustained investment in diverse and engaging content allowed us to capitalise on the growing demand for pay-tv […]
The market was impressed by BSkyB’s May Day Q3 results, and where the broadcaster managed to defy the pundits by reversing the generally negative sentiment ahead of the results into a very positive statement of the company’s health. Indeed, investment bank Morgan Stanley, in a “good news” report to clients on May 2nd, revised their […]
Sony has confirmed it would take a $145 million write-down on its Blu-ray disc business. The fresh profit warning came just 3 months after the previous guidance. Sony’s results (for 2013-14) are issued on May 14th. Sony was a pioneer for Blu-ray technology but now says it has further revised downward its anticipated profitability reflecting […]
Com Hem, the Swedish cable operator, has published its financial and operational results for the first quarter of 2014. Anders Nilsson, CEO of Com Hem, commented: “During the quarter we saw early signs of our strategic initiatives starting to pay off. With one of Europe’s most advanced networks as a foundation we are in a […]
The past few weeks have been mostly doom and gloom as analysts predicted miserable results from UK pay-TV supplier BSkyB. The actual results were not at all bad. Net new TV subs were up 74,000 during the quarter-year to March 31st, for example, to 10.61 million. Net new HD connections were up 108,000, to 5.1 […]
Intelsat reported reduced revenues for Q1 (period to March 31st) of $628.9 million, down from $655.1 million y-o-y and not helped by falls in all of its key revenue centres. Network Services fell back 3 per cent from last year’s $298 million to $290.2 million. Media-related capacity sales also fell 1 per cent, from $223.2 […]
Dolby Labs, well-known for its noise reduction technology in use in audio-video equipment, and its Dolby Digital technology in cinemas, unveiled better than expected results on April 29th. The company had Q2 revenue of $278.60 million compared to the consensus estimate of $244.77 million. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.8 per cent on a […]
LG Electronics has announced a 319 per cent increase in first-quarter net profit compared with the same period last year. First-quarter 2014 net profit rose to KRW 92.60 billion ($86.62 million) while operating profit of KRW 504 billion marked a significant improvement from the previous quarter due to improved profitability from the LG Home Entertainment […]