SkyPerfect/JSat has agreed to invest in would-be broadband operator LeoSat. LeoSat is proposing a fleet of up to 108 Low Earth Orbiting satellites which will use laser-beam optical link technology to provide what is claimed to be the fastest and most secure data network available anywhere – on Earth or in space. SkyPerfect/JSat Corp (SJC) […]
Findings from analyst firm The Diffusion Group suggest that more than half of Cord Cutters cancelled their legacy pay-TV service in the two calendar years of 2015 and 2016. It says that remarkably, one-third of Cord Cutters cancelled service in 2016 alone. According to Michael Greeson, Co-Founder and Principal at The Diffusion Group (TDG), the […]
UK’s BT is set to cut 4,000 jobs following a “challenging” year that has seen its chief executive stripped of his annual bonus amid a 19 per cent fall in profits to £2.4 billion (€2.8bn). The group’s outgoing finance director, Tony Chanmugam, was also stripped of bonuses. The moves follow BT’s accounting scandal in Italy […]
Anne Bulford, Deputy Director-General of the BBC, has reiterated Director-General Tony Hall’s assertion that the BBC needs to reinvent itself for the online, content everywhere era, with a reinvention of catch-up service iPlayer part of such changes. Delivering a Keynote Speech at the DTG Summit in London, Bulford suggested that delegates understand the forces that […]
The migration from satellite to IPTV has seen Telefónica’s pay-TV business report a 1.7 per cent decline in the number of global subscribers to 8.2 million in the first quarter of the year. In Spain, the fall has been even greater, with a decline of 3 per cent ending the quarter with 3.616 million subscribers, […]
European broadcaster RTL Group has announced its quarterly results for the period ended March 31st 2017. Group revenue was down 1.9 per cent to €1,405 million (Q1/2016: €1,432 million), solely due to the absence of American Idol on the US network Fox in 2017 which more than compensated higher revenue from Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, Groupe […]
The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the country’s public broadcaster, is shutting down. The Knesset decided to close down the IBA on grounds that it was too bureaucratic and expensive. The government has long also criticised the broadcaster as too liberal. For now, the TV channels broadcast a holding template, while the radio stations broadcast non-stop […]
comScore has introduced a new syndicated service called comScore OTT Intelligence that measures US household viewing of OTT content on television screens. The data is gathered through comScore’s Total Home Panel, which now incorporates about 12,500 households with 150,000 digital devices. With OTT viewing growing—and traditional pay-TV subscribers shrinking—it is becoming increasingly important for TV […]
According to the findings of The Changing TV Experience: 2017, from The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), most US adults (56 per cent) own a streaming-enabled TV, a 56 per cent rise from just two years ago, a fundamental shift in the way that Americans watch television. Almost all Americans (92 per cent) own
Last year in June Greece slapped a special tax on pay-TV subscriptions. In essence the tax placed an extra 10 per cent on the existing combined subscription fee plus the VAT already in place. The much-criticised levy (although every tax in Greece gets widespread criticism) has seemingly put a complete halt on pay-TV growth in […]