Advanced Television

Broadband

Discovery targets Telecom Italia Media

US media company Discovery Communications is one of those interested in the sale of Telecom Italia Media. According to local media reports, the owner of the Discovery Channel and Real Time TV in Italy is one of the players in dialogue with Telecom Italia advisers Mediobanca and Citigroup. On May 9th Telecom Italia announced the […]

June 22, 2012From Branislav Pekic in Rome

China multiplay households to increase 126% by 2016

Chinese consumers are increasingly embracing the concept of bundled services – including fixed voice, broadband, television and mobile voice – which will lead to significant growth in Double, Triple, and Quad Play subscribers by 2016 according to research from Strategy Analytics.  The report, “MultiPlay Forecast 1H’12” shows the growth of MultiPlay subscribers in China, increasing […]

June 22, 2012

European Digital Agenda ‘is achievable’

The European Digital Agenda (EDA) targets are challenging but achievable according to an Analysys Mason report: ‘Policy orientations to reach the Digital Agenda.’ The report, commissioned by Telefónica and Telecom Italia, provides an overview of next-generation access (NGA) deployment and take-up in all European Union (EU) Member States, including forecasts to 2020. The report suggests […]

June 21, 2012

India: Cable TV digitalisation deferred 4 months

The intended digitalisation of cable TV services in four Indian ‘metros’ will now be extended four months beyond the scheduled July 1 introduction, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has confirmed. The decision to defer the plan for switchover from analogue to digitalised signals follows the realisation that the metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and […]

June 21, 2012By Colin Mann

BT final ISP to block Pirate Bay

BT has become the UK’s final major Internet service provider to block The Pirate Bay, following a high court order for ISPs to censor the torrent-sharing site. In April 2012, the British High Court forced six major providers to block access to the website. BT asked for more time to respond to the court order, […]

June 21, 2012

Sky’s Darcey: NOW TV may be on YouView

Mike Darcey, BSkyB’s COO, has admitted the pay-TV operator’s planned OTT service ‘Now TV’ could be carried on open IPTV platform YouView, scheduled for launch later in the summer of 2012. Although BSkyB had expressed concern that public money had been used to support a project for which he felt the market should determine a […]

June 20, 2012By Colin Mann

IPTV penetration reaches 15%

Data from TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Pay-TV Research Service show that IPTV penetration of telcos’ worldwide broadband subscribers reached 15 per cent in Q1 2012, equivalent to 67 million subscribers and 8 per cent of the world’s 812 million pay-TV subscribers. However, widely differing IPTV and pay-TV penetration rates by region point to radically different IPTV growth […]

June 20, 2012

New corporate identity for Liberty Global

International cable operator Liberty Global has revealed a refreshed corporate identity and vision, summarised by ‘Connect. Discover. Be Free’. With operations in 13 countries, Liberty Global connects 20 million households to the digital world – which it describes as “a world of quality, convenience and infinite choice”. As part of this global initiative, all corporate […]

June 19, 2012

Simulmedia, TiVo address audience fragmentation problem

Targeted television advertising specialist Simulmedia and DVR pioneer TiVo have expanded their set-top box data partnership deploying datasets better to address what is seen as TV’s growing audience fragmentation problem. Simulmedia will use TiVo’s anonymous, aggregated, second-by-second set-top-box data to expand Simulmedia’s endemic client base beyond tune-in/promotional advertisers and drive cost-effective reach across all advertiser […]

June 19, 2012

Analyst: Cable TV resisting online threat

According to Bernstein Research, US cable television providers are generally resisting the threat from online services, although the latter have added viewers and services. One factor that has helped maintain cable subscriber levels is that certain programming such as live sport, is not available online, with other shows that are online not easily streamed to […]

June 18, 2012By Colin Mann