Advanced Television

Broadcast

KPN TV passes 1m

The Netherland’s KPN revealed it had 1.197 million TV customers for its IPTV and DTT services at the end of 2010,  up 22 per cent year-on-year. The numbers were unveiled with financial results posting fourth quarter revenues of €3.371 billion, up 0.5 per cent, and EBITDA of €1.359 billion, up 4 per cent. Revenue for […]

January 26, 2011

Netflix: We are content’s friend

Netflix is the content business’s friend. That was the message from the company’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos, speaking at NATPE. He characterised Netflix’s relationship with studios as “very strong,” and Sarandos acknowledged there is “a lot of anxiety” about the dramatic shifts in customer demand for more on-demand viewing and the question of how […]

January 26, 2011

Al Jazeera Sport nets World Cup rights

Football’s governing body FIFA has confirmed the extension of its broadcast rights agreement with Al Jazeera Sport for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia and the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar. The agreement is the first to be signed in FIFA’s media rights distribution process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, which it […]

January 26, 2011By Colin Mann

New boss for NHK Japan

A new president appointed at Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. Masayuki Matsumoto succeeded Shigeo Fukuchi, whose three-year term has now ended. Matsumoto referred to the impending digital switch-over, scheduled for July, in his opening address, saying: “As an organisation supported by viewers receiving fee, we must always stand firmly by the principle of public broadcaster and […]

January 26, 2011By Chris Forrester

Pragmatus sues MSOs over VOD patents

A patent holding company called Pragmatus is suing six of the largest MSOs for infringing two patents that describe storage-retrieval-playback systems that sufficiently generic they can describe any VOD system. Named in the suit are Bright House Networks, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable, along with various other associated organisations […]

January 26, 2011

Thailand endorses pay-TV

CASBAA’s Thailand in View forum concluded with an endorsement of the power of pay-TV by H.E. Abhisit Vejjajiva, Prime Minister of Thailand. The Prime Minister championed regulatory change to support the growth of the cable and satellite broadcast industry as a constructive and ethical medium in Thailand. “We were greatly encouraged to hear H.E. Abhisit […]

January 26, 2011

Azerbaijan banning sat-dishes

BBC Monitoring is reporting that the government of Azerbaijan is to ban satellite dishes in this country. “A lot of channels broadcast in Azerbaijan via satellite will be banned and after a switch to digital broadcasting satellite dishes will be dismantled by force,” Information and Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov said. Transition to digital broadcasting is […]

January 26, 2011By Chris Forrester

News Corp: ‘Ofcom report is tainted’

In a rebuttal of Ofcom’s recommendation to Department of Culture Media Sport to refer to the Competition Commission its bid for BSkB, News Corporation has accused the regulator of producing a biased, seriously flawed and ‘tainted’ report. The Ofcom report and News Corporation’s submission to DCMS have been published today as the Secretary of State, […]

January 25, 2011

Sky Deutschland via Android

Sky Deutschland AG plans to introduce a live television application for tablet computers powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system this year, following it availability on Apple iPad.  Chief Executive Officer Brian Sullivan told a conference Sky is evaluating the timetable for a tablet app for Android and possibly other operating systems. The company’s Sky […]

January 25, 2011

W. Europe will have 750 HD stations by 2014

There’s about to be some spectacular growth in the number of HDTV channels available to European viewers says Screen Digest (SD). It says HD channel growth is continuing strongly and is now reaching a level of maturity where genres that once would have been considered niche are becoming central to the HDTV content mix. Indeed, […]

January 25, 2011