Advanced Television

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Dish to pay TiVo $500m

Dish Network and its owner EchoStar have agreed to pay $500 million to TiVo in order to settle all of their patent disputes with TiVo. $300 million will be paid immediately, and a total of a further $200 million paid in six annual payments spread between next year and 2017. TiVo shares rocketed 25 per […]

May 2, 2011By Chris Forrester

Strong Q3 from Sky

BSkyB’s third quarter results show strong demand in what the satellite broadcaster called “a challenging consumer environment”. The company reported total product growth of 801,000 in the quarter, with over 10.1 million customers with 51,000 net additions in the quarter. Total HD customers were 47 per cent higher than the prior year at 3.7 million, […]

April 28, 2011

Telcos target OTT traffic

Leading European telecoms companies want to levy significant charges on Google and other online content providers through an overhaul of the regime governing how data travel over the Internet, reports the Financial Times. The telcos complain that they are contending with an explosion of data on their networks, much of which comes from US sites […]

April 27, 2011By Colin Mann

EchoStar: ‘Win some, lose some’

EchoStar and sister company Dish Network on April 20 lost the latest round of its long-running litigation with DVR-technology company TiVo. The US Court of Appeals said that EchoStar continued to infringe TiVo’s patents, and found the company in contempt. TiVo’s stock price rocketed by more than 32 per cent, and most analysts agree that […]

April 21, 2011By Chris Forrester

YouView releases final spec and confirms device partners

Open IPTV platform YouView has published its final core technical specification for launch and announced further device partners. A single technical document, detailing the core YouView interoperability specification for launch is now available on the YouView web site. The YouView Core Technical Specification references the Digital Television Group’s D-Book 72 and provides a set of […]

April 15, 2011

Sky Go gets go-ahead

Sky Deutschland has unveiled what it describes as the first truly integrated offering for TV entertainment of the future – Sky Go. Sky Go on the Web, the newest addition, extends viewing flexibility to the existing line-up of Sky Sport channels – via laptops and computers – and goes one step further. Sky Go on […]

April 8, 2011

DISH Network makes Blockbuster purchase

DISH Network Corporation has been selected as the winning bidder in the bankruptcy court auction for substantially all of the assets of movie rental store Blockbuster, Inc. DISH Network’s winning bid was valued at approximately $320 million. After certain adjustments are made at closing of the transaction, including adjustments for available cash and inventory, DISH […]

April 6, 2011By Colin Mann

Hulu Plus to reach 1m+ subs this year

Hulu’s chief executive Jason Kilar has confirmed figures first released at IP&TV World Forum stating Hulu+ will have over a million subs by year end. Kilar also reiterated that the company is on track to approach $500 million in revenue in 2011, up from $263 million in 2010. Its first-quarter revenue grew 90 per cent […]

April 5, 2011

Time Warner drops iPad channels

Time Warner Cable has bowed to pressure from rights holders and removed several channels from its app for sending linear channels from subscriber bundles to their iPad. The cable company withdrew channels including MTV and FX, after receiving complaints from Viacom, Discovery Communications and the News Corp. They claim that the iPad app is a […]

April 1, 2011

Four studios agree early pay-TV window

Four Hollywood studios have agreed to make their films available on pay-television two months after their theatrical release. Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox have agreed to release their films on a “premium video-on-demand” basis with DirecTV. The move sets up a showdown with movie theatre chains. Subscribers will have […]

April 1, 2011