Wananchi Group, a leading local triple-play telco, is to launch a satellite-based DTH pay-TV for Kenyan viewers. ‘Zuku’ will launch in May and directly challenge South Africa’s DStv. Zuku already offers up to 91 channels of cable TV to its – mostly – Nairobi subscribers. Wananchi has as its group chairman Mark Schneider, well known […]
Italy is likely to hold a tender for awarding digital TV frequencies vacated with the analogue switch-off in June. The whole procedure can be initiated only after Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development receives the green light on the draft regulations that have been submitted to the EU Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, which is expected by […]
ITV’s advertising revenue is set to fall for the first time in 18 months as it braces itself for a tough summer. The commercial broadcaster has enjoyed a continuous run of month-on-month increases in TV ad revenue stretching back to late 2009 in the recovery from the recession. However, media buying agencies forecast that this […]
Early in the evening of April 22 (at 5.37pm in French Guiana) Arianespace successfully launched YahSat Y1A and Intelsat’s ‘New Dawn’ into orbit. Ariane’s Flight 201, its 43rd successful launch in a row, went flawlessly. Both satellites will undergo in-orbit testing once they have reached their correct orbits. YahSat is the United Arab Emirates’ first […]
Following DirecTV’s announcement that it would be the first pay-TV platform to launch the Home Premiere premium video on demand service, a group of prominent movie directors, including James Cameron and Peter Jackson, have asked movie studios to reconsider their involvement in the initiative, DirecTV revealed April 19 that it would launch Home Premiere on […]
EchoStar and sister company Dish Network on April 20 lost the latest round of its long-running litigation with DVR-technology company TiVo. The US Court of Appeals said that EchoStar continued to infringe TiVo’s patents, and found the company in contempt. TiVo’s stock price rocketed by more than 32 per cent, and most analysts agree that […]
French telco Vivendi has not reopened talks to buy rival Lagardère’s 20 per cent stake in pay-TV unit Canal Plus, Vivendi chief Jean-Bernard Levy has told French newspaper Le Figaro. Vivendi, which owns 80 per cent of Canal Plus, failed in a previous attempt to buy the stake from Lagardère, which opted instead for a […]
Italy’s leading commercial broadcaster Mediaset has signed a commercial deal with Vodafone Italia, with the goal of providing bundled TV-telephone services to existing and new customers. The joint offer of services will include the sale of smart cards for the Mediaset Premium pay-TV service available on DTT, as well as ADSL broadband connections. The agreement […]
Dutch telco KPN added 58,000 subscribers for its IPTV service Interactieve TV in the first quarter of 2011, reaching a total of 360,000. KPN lost 13,000 subscribers for its DTT TV service Digitenne in the first three months of this year to bring the total to 882,000, meaning the telco had an overall TV subscriber […]
In a move designed to position it for the next stage in the Internet-driven revolution in home entertainment, supermarket chain Tesco has acquired a majority stake in video-on-demand pioneer blinkbox. blinkbox is the UK’s leading movie streaming service, offering thousands of titles streamed on the internet to 2m users each month. Their catalogue of more […]