Advanced Television

Broadcast

Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Malaysia drop in Netflix Speed Index

Netflix has published January data from its ISP Speed Index – a  monthly update on which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide the best primetime Netflix streaming experience. South Korea’s D LIVE had the largest speed gain in January, gaining by 0.59 Megabits per second (Mbps). This increased its average monthly speed to 2.84 Mbps, up […]

February 13, 2018

Meltdown for SES; boost for Intelsat

The world’s two largest satellite operators made very different impacts on their local stock exchanges on February 12th. SES was hammered as a result of its worrying change of CEO and CFO. While some observers and analysts welcomed the news as representing a clean sweep at the top of the company, the market voted with […]

February 13, 2018

Trump wants to zero PBS funds

President Trump has returned to promoting zero funding for public broadcasting it became clear as the President’s proposed 2019 budget was revealed. The budget cuts all but $15 million for public media in 2019 and 2020. The allocation has been $445 million per year. Reported in B&C, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger commented: “Public […]

February 13, 2018

JW Player launches Video Player Bidding with SpotX

JW Player, the online independent video platform, has announced the launch of Video Player Bidding, a header bidding solution for video with SpotX, the video advertising and monetisation platform for publishers, as its exclusive partner for 12 months. Video Player Bidding is purpose-built for digital video to greatly reduce latency and improve monetisation with just […]

February 13, 2018

Netflix talk show for Daily Show’s Wolf

Comedian Michelle Wolf, a regular contributor on The Daily Show and Late Night with Seth Myers, has landed her own weekly Netflix half hour talk show that will premiere later this year. The show, which does not have a title yet, aims to “take a break from the seriousness of late night comedy. Instead of […]

February 13, 2018By Nik Roseveare

Macquarie bid sees TDC drop MTG deal

Danish telecoms operator TDC has been approached by a buy-out group lead by Macquarie. TDC shares jumped 17 per cent on the news and it dropped its $2.5 billion (€2.04bn) bid for most of the assets of Modern Times Group (MTG) – a move that got a cool reception. TDC has been approached by a […]

February 12, 2018

iPlayer draws record numbers in 2017

BBC iPlayer recorded its best year ever in 2017. Viewers streamed 272 million programmes per month on average over the course of the year, with total requests growing to 3.3 billion – an 11 per cent increase on the previous year. The most popular show of 2017 was the first episode of natural history series […]

February 12, 2018

All change at top of SES

Karim Michel Sabbagh, currently president & CEO at satellite operator SES, and Padraig McCarthy CFO, are stepping down. Steve Collar, who is currently CEO of SES Networks, has been appointed as the next President & CEO of SES, becoming CEO Designate with immediate effect. Andrew Browne, who was until recently CFO of O3b Networks and […]

February 12, 2018By Chris Forrester

European SVoD 5-year outlook; 75% growth

The OTT subscription online VoD market in Europe should keep growing over the next five years. Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, projects the market to reach $6.8 billion (€5.55bn) in revenues in 2022, up from $3.9 billion in 2017. The main factors contributing

February 12, 2018

Confusion over MultiChoice/StarTimes in Nigeria

South African pay-TV giant MultiChoice has been given notice that their transmissions over and within Nigeria must cease next year. The notification also includes StarTimes Group, which is backed by Nigeria’s public broadcaster. All of the MultiChoice-related services are directly affected including DStv and its digital terrestrial service GOTV. The notification has come from Nigeria’s […]

February 12, 2018By Chris Forrester