Advanced Television

Pay TV

Brazil’s Oi hits 1m quad-play subs

Brazilian telco Oi says that it has now enrolled more than 1 million quad-play subscribers to its ‘Oi Total’ bundle of fixed line, cellular, broadband and pay-TV service. Bernardo Winik, Oi’s retail director, told newspaper Globo that the company’s target was to reach 2 million quad-play subs by the end of this year. Oi Total […]

February 21, 2017By Chris Forrester

Sky and Mediaset in “advanced talks”

Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore is reporting that Sky and Mediaset are in “advanced talks” over the sale of Mediaset’s Premium pay-TV business. The news prompted a flash report from equity analysts at Exane/BNP-Paribas, reminding investors that over the past five years much the same story has run. Nevertheless, the bank also says it is […]

February 17, 2017By Chris Forrester

Premier League piracy crackdown

Three suppliers of pre-loaded IPTV boxes that facilitate mass piracy of Premier League football broadcasts have been ordered to pay a total of £267,000 (€311,230) by the Courts for infringing copyright. The three sellers of pre-loaded IPTV boxes ordered to pay costs are: Football for Pubs Limited (based in Liverpool) was ordered by the High […]

February 17, 2017By Colin Mann

DISH confirms 4K Planet Earth II

Following advanced-television.com’s report that US pay-TV operator DirecTV is to broadcast a range of programming in 4K, satellite platform DISH TV has confirmed it is to deliver live natural history series, Planet Earth II in the format. The series will simulcast on BBC America, AMC and SundanceTV on February 18th with subsequent episodes airing on BBCA […]

February 14, 2017

OSN slashes ‘basic’ tier to $20

There was a time when Orbit, now part of the OSN pay-TV broadcaster, charged $5000 – and this is not a typo – for its premium TV content, such was the rarity of high-quality programming in the Gulf states. Now, under new CEO Martin Stewart (appointed in June 2016) the basic access price for OSN […]

February 14, 2017By Chris Forrester

4K Fox Sports for DirecTV

The number of 4K broadcasts on DirecTV continues to grow. A couple of weeks ago, NBC Sports started broadcasting 4K football matches from England’s Premier League. NBC Sports will continue to cover English football for the rest of this season in Ultra-HD with additional coverage of La Liga and other key sporting fixtures. Pay-TV broadcaster DirecTV […]

February 13, 2017By Chris Forrester

HD+ Germany subs top 2m

HD+, the soft-encrypted suite of HD channels carried by SES in Germany, has topped 2 million users at the end of last year. As of December 31st 2016, the satellite TV offer counted some 2,111,862 subscribers, 15 per cent more than in 2015 (December 31st 2015: 1,840,800). In addition to paying customers, there are currently […]

February 13, 2017By Chris Forrester

Belgium: Orange launches LOVE package

Orange Belgium has launched its ‘LOVE’ package to support its convergent positioning. LOVE allows Orange customers to access what is essential to them by offering them flexible combinations of mobile, internet and TV. This convergent umbrella with the message “all you need is LOVE” offers customers the flexibility choose the number of SIM cards and […]

February 13, 2017

MPs demand Murdoch ‘fit and proper’ test

Ofcom is facing calls from a cross-party group of MPs to launch an immediate review of whether James Murdoch meets the “fit and proper” test to hold a UK broadcasting licence. Murdoch is CEO of 21st Century Fox, which has made a £11.7 billion (€13.7bn) bid for full control of Sky UK. Organised by the […]

February 10, 2017

EU agrees content portability

With Andrus Ansip, EC Vice-President in charge of the Digital Single Market, describing it as “a new important step” in breaking down barriers in the Digital Single Market, Europeans will soon be able fully to use their online subscriptions to films, sports events, e-books, video games or music services when travelling within the EU, following […]

February 8, 2017By Colin Mann