From Branislav Pekic in Rome In order to boost the transition to digital terrestrial, Italy's Communications Ministry passed a new decree linked to the 2008 Budget. It establishes that the last analogue TV set in Italy will be sold in June 2009, although manufacturers will have to stop supplying analogue TV sets to distributers by […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s dominant telco Telefonica is making a full-frontal assault on the pay-TV market in the last quarter of the year. The company is launching an enhanced version of its IPTV service Imagenio, with the addition of new channels -planning to reach 200 by year end-, including a HDTV service, […]
America's DirecTV and EchoStar are likely to see their customer growth fall significantly over the next five years, a new report from Pike Fischer suggests. The DTH providers, which together have more than 30 million subscribers, may be relying too heavily on their partnerships with telephone companies to gain new customers according to the report […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome From November 10, Italy's leading national broadcasters RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media will extend their digital transmissions to the entire island of Sardinia. DTT tests were launched in March in Cagliari which saw each of the three broadcasters transmitting one of their channels (Rai Due, Rete4 and Qoob) exclusively […]
Sky has announced details of its plans to offer broadband, telephone and digital terrestrial television services under a new brand to customers across the UK. It says the new business will operate under the Picnic brand and will offer customers a variety of flexible options to combine the services that they want. Sky claims key […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s largest cable company ONO is the market leader in terms of audience ratings in the Spanish pay-TV market. The company pulled in an average share of 7.4 per cent in September, well ahead of Digital Plus, with 4.06 per cent, or Imagenio and other pay-TV operators, with 5.17 […]
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will lift television's share of the global advertising market to record levels next year, despite the medium losing market share in North America and parts of Europe, reports the global media buying and planning group ZenithOptimedia. According to Zenith's World Advertising Expenditure Forecast, worldwide television advertising spending in 2008 will […]
Polish cable operator Multimedia Polska has launched the first VOD service in the country. The service is initially available in the cities of Gdynia, Kalisz, Lublin, Lódz, Olsztyn and Torun, which together account for around 90 per cent, or 450,000 homes, of its subscriber base. The library currently consists of 600 titles, though the total […]
Chellomedia, the European content division of Liberty Global, and HIT Entertainment, independent children's entertainment producer and rights owner, have confirmed a joint venture to launch an international pre-school TV channel. At the same time, Chellomedia has separately acquired JimJam, the leading pre-school channel, which is currently available in Italy on the Sky Italia platform. Together, […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The booming IPTV market is boosting the growth of the pay-TV in Spain. Over the last year, pay-TV captured 275,000 new clients up to a total of 3.5 million pay-TV subscribers in the country, with a penetration rate of 22.3 per cent, according to the latest report produced by […]