Advanced Television

Broadcast

Sky expands leading movie download service

Sky is to significantly increase the range of movies available for customers to download after agreeing terms with Paramount and Warner Bros. The agreements mean that Sky Anytime on PC will be the first online download service to offer the latest movies from all six major movie studios.

December 24, 2007

Sogecable acquires rights to Euro 2008

From David Del Valle in Madrid Sogecable has acquired the exclusive rights to broadcast the Euro 2008 football tournament in Spain. The pay-TV group will broadcast all 31 matches on its digital DTH platform Digital Plus, with all games featuring the Spanish national team being available on its free-to-air channel Cuatro, with a nation wide […]

December 24, 2007

Prisa bids for Sogecable

From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish media group Prisa, owner of newspaper El Pais, has launched a bid for the rest of Sogecable, Spain’s largest pay-TV group, that it does not already own, valuing the pay-TV operator, owner of Digital DTH platform Digital Plus and premium channel Canal Plus, at E3.8 billion. Prisa […]

December 21, 2007

Italy's 1.500 digital TV channels earn E2.5 billion

From Branislav Pekic in Rome There were nearly 1.500 digital TV channels available in Italy and in 2006 they earned E2.5 billion, according to the New TV Observatory of the School of Management of Milan's Polytechnic. The Observatory divided the channels into three categories, on the basis of the six platforms currently available (DTT, IPTV, […]

December 21, 2007

Edgeware powers Telia Stofa's Zaptor

Edgeware has revealed that Danish cable TV operator Telia Stofa is using the Orbit 2x server system to deliver the on-demand functionality of their new Zaptor service. Edgeware's distributed server solution enables Telia Stofa to integrate on-demand capabilities into their existing network, in a scalable and future proof architecture. The Zaptor service will offer video […]

December 20, 2007

Ofcom digital progress report

According to Ofcom figures, Freeview achieved near-record sales of 2.4 million digital television receivers in the third quarter of 2007. The media regulator’s quarterly digital TV progress report, for the three months to the end of September, showed that 361,700 households that had been analogue-only went digital during the period. This was down from 944,200 […]

December 20, 2007

Vivendi in Canal Plus for long haul

The chief executive of Vivendi has dismissed renewed talk on that his group may sell pay-TV unit Canal Plus. The statement followed speculation that the French media giant might exit Canal Plus in order to buy telecom operator Neuf Cegetel and so avoid possible competition issues. Vivendi has a 56 per cent stake in mobile […]

December 20, 2007

Scott to Digital UK

Former Channel 4 managing director David Scott has been appointed chief executive of analogue TV switchover body Digital UK. Scott will take up the post, which puts him in overall charge of the switchover programme, when current director Ford Ennals leaves in February 2008. Scott was a member of the original management team which launched […]

December 20, 2007

Telefónica launches Terra TV

From David Del Valle in Madrid The Spanish telco company is launching Terra TV, a free-of-charge VoD service through the Internet, financed by ad revenues, that will allow users to watch TV programmes, specific Internet-adapted content (similar to MySpace TV’s minisodes) and share content with others. Running at 1Mbps speed, the service is aimed at […]

December 20, 2007

Oz digital switch by 2013

Australia's Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy minister Stephen Conroy has ordered that free-to-air television be broadcast only in a digital signal in all major cities by 2009 with a final switch-over across the nation by 2013. The Howard government before the 2004 election had proposed a date of 2008 for the switch Conroy said moving […]

December 20, 2007