Advanced Television

Broadcast

Habets to lead RTL as sole CEO

RTL Group has announced changes to its executive management team. At his own request, Guillaume de Posch will step down as Co-CEO of RTL Group, effective January 1st 2018. He will continue to serve as a non-executive member of RTL Group’s Board of Directors. Bert Habets (pictured), who has been Co-CEO of RTL Group since […]

December 13, 2017

Analyst: Net neutrality repeal is revenue risk

As expectations build for the repeal of net neutrality, business information provider IHS Markit has released a report that examines the history of the topic and explores the relevant data on competition that defines the outlook for the Internet should current protections be removed. If as expected the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its next […]

December 13, 2017

Warburg 20% stake in India’s Airtel DTH

Private equity investment house Warburg Pincus has taken a 20 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel’s DTH arm, paying $350 million, the third-largest DTH operator in India. The agreement, signed December 12th, sees the transaction take two parts. The first is to take a 15 per cent stake directly from Bharti Telemedia, the parent of […]

December 13, 2017By Chris Forrester

CASBAA calls for India broadcast policy reforms

Speaking at the India Satcom 2017 forum in New Delhi, Joe Welch, Chairman of regional Pay-TV industry association CASBAA, applauded the Indian government’s emphasis on improving the ease of doing business in the country. A great deal of attention has been paid to the power and infrastructure sectors, Welch noted, but “the key to […] […]

December 13, 2017

Fox-Disney, a family affair? Hardly

A major deal between Disney and Fox, a vague rumour just a couple of weeks ago, now seems nailed on. And, if those nails don’t hold, it is said Comcast is waiting in the wings for a similar deal. In other words minds are made up, the patriarch has spoken; the Murdoch’s are breaking up […]

December 12, 2017

Pay-TV main source of revenue for Italian TV sector

Italian pay-TV has grown by 2.7 per cent in 2017, become the main source of revenue (40 per cent of the total) for the country’s TV sector, surpassing advertising. This is the main conclusion of a report from Rome-based consultancy ITMedia Consulting called the “Television Market in Italy 2017-2019”. The report indicates that the TV […]

December 12, 2017From Branislav Pekic in Rome

Programmatic continues to grow in the UK

eMarketer’s latest forecast of programmatic ad spending indicates that, despite recent negative press, the UK remains a market leader in programmatic, and strong growth will continue over the next few years. By the end of 2017, advertisers are expected to spend an estimated £3.39 billion on programmatic trading, up 23.5 per cent from the prior […]

December 12, 2017

DVB-T2 households to reach 72% by 2022 in Europe

Dataxis research sheds light on the importance that DVB‐T2, the extension of the television standard DVB‐T, will acquire in the upcoming years. This system was devised to enable a better signal compression to broadcast digital television. It became the widespread standard of all recent DTT deployment and is currently being rolled out to replace DVB‐T […]

December 12, 2017

OCS Go boosts HBO portal and US+24

Following its exclusive content deal with US premium broadcaster HBO signed in March, Orange’s premium bouquet OCS has added further content to its HBO-branded portal on VoD service OCS Go. The Tout l’univers HBO section makes thousands of hours of HBO movies and TV series available on a permanent basis. Titles include cult series such as The […]

December 12, 2017From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris

Portugal pay-TV subs up 3.2%

Portugal ended the third quarter of 2017 with 3.8 million pay-TV subscribers, representing an increase of 33,000 on the previous quarter and of 116,000 year-on-year (+3.2 per cent). Data from the National Communications Authority (Anacom) shows that the growth was mostly due to fibre technology (FTTH/B), whose number of subscribers grew 27.3 per cent on […]

December 12, 2017From Branislav Pekic in Rome