US satellite pay-TV giant DirecTV (now part of AT&T) is currently testing Ultra-HD sport transmissions ahead of a formal launch of a 4K service “early in 2016”. DirecTV’s Phil Goswitz (SVP, Video & Space Communications) confirmed the plan at the recent TranSPORT conference in New York. DirecTV has been offering OTT supply of 4K material […]
The BBC Trust has formally approved proposals to move BBC Three online, and has set conditions to ensure that younger audiences continue to be well served, in its final decision on a package of proposals from the BBC. Trustees concluded that that there is clear public value in moving BBC Three online, as independent evidence […]
Global LCD TV shipments for 2015 will total 216 million sets, according to forecast by WitsView, a division of TrendForce. This year’s shipments will represent a slight annual decline, for the first time since the shipment slide in 2013. In the short term,
French sports newspaper L’Equipe is reporting that Canal Plus has lost its TV rights to air English Premier League football matches. The rights have been picked up, says the report, by multinational telco and cable operator Altice. L’Equipe says Altice’s new rights kick in from the autumn of 2016, and will run for 3 years. […]
Subscribers to Amazon Prime Instant Video are set to gain access to other on-demand services according to reports. Prime customers will have the option of adding other online subscriptions to their accounts, including established movie and TV channels, and Amazon will also sell prepackaged bundles of its own creation. The new feature could go live […]
The General Court of the European Union has ruled that the subsidies granted by the Spanish Government to DTT operators for the digital migration are illegal, rejecting all appeals from the companies and Regional Governments. The operators must pay back €260 million in state subsidies as the financial aid scheme approved by the Spanish Administration […]
Representatives of over 150 governments attending the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) have taken the decision that UHF spectrum will remain exclusively allocated to terrestrial TV services in ITU ‘Region 1’ well into the next decade. Delegates reached this conclusion after deliberations over whether the lower UHF frequency band (470-694 MHz) should be retained for […]
In a ‘battle of the billionaires’ it seems Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has the edge over Pay-Pal founder Elon Musk in the important ability to successfully land a rocket after launch. Musk, and his SpaceX company, has been trying to re-land a launched rocket for about two years. Yesterday, Jeff Bezos tweeted that his Blue Origin […]
FTTH in Spain is significantly growing with a record of 5,000 new lines a day, with 154,000 new connections in a month. A report from Spain’s markets and competition watchdog the CNMC (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia) reveals that in September there were 2.6 million FTTH connections, of which 57 per cent […]
India’s telecom regulator TRAI says that half of the nation’s DTH subscribers are inactive as at the end of June. The precise number is 49.54 per cent out of a claimed installed DTH base of 78.74 million users, spread across the 6 main DTH operators. This equates to some 39 million inactive homes (and 39.74 […]