ViaSat-1, the giant consumer broadband satellite being built for the WildBlue Ka-Band system over North America, has been damaged at the Space Systems/Loral facility. The damage occurred as the satellite was being moved within Loral’s Palo Alto facility. It had been due to be launched this spring on an ILS/Proton rocket from Kazakhstan, and this […]
The private equity owners of ProSiebenSat.1 have sold €196 million of preference shares in the German television broadcaster, highlighting a sharp recovery at the company that had been considered a potential write-off during the economic crisis. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Permira, which bought a controlling stake in ProSieben four years ago in a deal valuing […]
Orange Switzerland will launch its ‘Orange CineHome’ service on January 17th, enabling its mobile customers to access a range of films and TV shows on their television through a dedicated set-top box with broadband connection. The service will offer unlimited access to the Warner Bros TV film and TV series catalogue as well as unlimited […]
The global TV industry made a recovery in 2010, with revenues growing by 7.1 per cent to €289.2 billion after the stagnation of 2009, according to research group IDATE. According to its 21st World TV Markets report, the TV industry’s revenues grew by only 0.6 per cent in 2009 before rebounding last year. The US […]
Following the successful completion of all scheduled manoeuvres since launch, the KA-SAT satellite of Eutelsat Communications is now positioned at its definitive location in geostationary orbit at 9 degrees East. On January 8th the satellite’s payload was switched on, enabling Europe’s first High Throughput Satellite to begin a series of in-orbit tests, which will be […]
Jeremy Hunt, UK Culture Secretary, admitted that whatever decision he took on referring the News Corp BSkyB bid to the Competition Commission it was bound to be judicially challenged by the ‘losing’ side. He refused to give a timetable for his decision but said: “”This is a very, very hot potato and I’m aware of […]
The BBC Trust has concluded provisionally that on-demand BBC programmes should only be made available to TV platform operators through the BBC iPlayer, and should not be made available on a programme-by-programme basis. The BBC iPlayer should be made available in standard formats that the great majority of other TV operators can readily adopt, the […]
A new report from investment bankers Morgan Stanley says that TV advertising in Spain, which suffered badly during 2008-9, will again grow this year by about 10 per cent and achieve Europe’s strongest momentum. Elsewhere in Europe TV advertising will remain stagnant in France (around zero growth), an improving 2-5 per cent in the UK, […]
ITV can look forward to relief from its most onerous regulation after Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, said changes in government responsibility gave him power to reform or abolish it. After telling a London audience that he was unsympathetic to contract rights renewal – a limit on how much ITV can charge advertisers for its […]
Argentina’s DTT system has added four new digital channels, including one in HD, to the nine already in place. The new channels are: Tateti, Video Éxito, Argentina HD and Suri TV. Tateti is a new children’s channel, Video Éxito is a music channel, Argentina HD is a tourism channel and Suri TV is a channel […]