UK based Inmarsat said it had been hit by US government budget cuts in the first quarter, causing earnings to fall short of expectations. The company, which provides communications to shipping, aircraft and remote locations worldwide, said it would respond by cutting costs, both for its US government business and across the group. Inmarsat’s US […]
Freesat, the UK’s FTA digital satellite television provider has announced strong 2012/13 results as the company celebrates its fifth anniversary. Having added around 150,000 homes in the last 12 months, Freesat lays claim to being the UK’s fastest growing established TV platform, and says it continues to outgrow pay-TV rivals. According to Freesat’s own customer […]
Despite all the talk of cord-cutting, a report from Digital TV Research states that the number of pay TV subscribers in the US will continue to increase – albeit at a slow rate. However, the Digital TV North America report states that pay TV penetration will remain flat. Simon Murray, report author, said: “Most of […]
India’s Airtel Digital TV is selling 20 percent of itself and intends to raise about $200 million in the process to fund expansion. The broadcaster is currently backed fully by telco giant Bharti. Now reports have emerged from Mumbai that US private equity investor Carlyle Group is in early talks to buy the stake. However, […]
Telco and pay-TV giant America Movil is to merge its Brazilian operations. Local director Daniel Hajj says the Mexican-owned company will consolidate its DTH, cable TV and cellular subsidiaries. America Movil owns the Embratel DTH system, Net Servicos (cable) and Claro mobile phone business, and Hajj says the operation will take between 18 and 30 […]
BSkyB’s net DTH subscriber additions are likely to be close to zero when their numbers are announced early on May 2nd: that’s the buzz among analysts. This would be the first time that the broadcaster has not shown subs progress in a quarter’s trading. One bank report suggests there might even be a fall in […]
It doesn’t seem that long since owning networks was the very unfashionable, potentially less profitable and, frankly, dead boring end of the business. Commoditisation of bandwidth provision and the obligations of neutrality both put pressure on pipe owners and many looked enviously at their content cousins. Some pipes bought content – Comcast and NBCU – […]
India’s Supreme Court has given a significant boost to the country’s DTH operators. The Court, following numerous arguments, verdicts and three appeals has finally ruled that the operators are exempt from India’s 1936 Entertainment Duty & Advertisement Tax Act which demands a 20 per cent tax on subscriptions paid to the satellite broadcasters. The tax […]
FilmOn founder Alki David has unveiled a new service which he claims allows the UK public to watch any free-to-air satellite TV channel legally, without the need for a contract or a set-top box. The service – available free via FilmOn.com – enables viewers to connect directly to a broadcaster’s satellite and digital over-the-air feeds […]
SES, Inverto, Abilis and MaxLinear have been jointly designing an essential component for cost-effective IP distribution of satellite television to the home – a low-noise block down-converter (LNB) that will incorporate eight-channel satellite-to-IP bridging technology. The IP-LNB is a prototype device that will deliver eight concurrent channels from any of the transponders of a satellite […]