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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
Kuwait Projects Co (KIPCO) says there will not be an IPO this year for its Middle East pay TV Orbit Showtime Network. Mr Faisal al-Ayyar, Kipco’s CEO and vice-chairman, was quoted in an interview with Kuwaiti daily newspaper al-Watan, saying KIPCO would present the issue to shareholders and seek their approval prior to considering an […]
BSkyB releases its latest set of results on January 27th and analysts are forecasting further growth of some 150,000 net new customers. Numis Securities’ Paul Richards expects the pay-TV broadcaster to have moved well beyond the 10m subscriber mark achieved last November, and with HDTV now performing strongly for the company Numis expects pre-tax profits […]