US public interest bodies Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, with the help of the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School, have filed an amicus [friend of court] brief in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that OTT platform FilmOn qualifies for the cable statutory licence. This allows […]
Pay-TV viewing in Spain already represents 20 per cent of all TV consumption with Spaniards increasingly watching TV, including FTA channels, through pay-TV platforms. A report from the consultancy firm Barlovento Comunicación reveals that the wide plethora of pay-TV platforms (Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, cable companies) and pay streaming services are driving the growth and increasing […]
Despite the subscriber count increasing by less than one million, Eastern European pay TV revenues will increase by 9.9 per cent between 2015 and 2021 to $5.97 billion, according to the sixth edition of the Digital TV Eastern Europe Forecasts report. However, Digital TV Research estimates that pay-TV revenues rose by 27 per cent between […]
Brazil’s economic problems are again hitting the pay-TV sector. The latest data from Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) states that in February alone the number of pay-TV subscribers (satellite and cable) fell from 19.05 million to 18.96 million. The largest fall was with DTH satellite subscribers, which fell back from 11.04 million in January to […]
UK pay-TV operator Sky is selling its West London campus at Osterley in a £545 million (€680m) sale and leaseback deal. BNP-Paribas’s Real Estate division is handling the proposal, and the bank has been instructed by Sky to find a buyer with the scheme which will cover a 30-year term. Equity analysts at Exane/BNP-Paribas say […]
Bloomberg is headlining that Virgin Media’s CEO Tom Mockridge is one of the candidates in line for the CEO position at Telecom Italia, replacing Marco Patuano. Mockridge has run Virgin Media since June 2013 and this appointment followed a period running Sky Italia as its chief executive. Indeed, his position at Sky Italia came about […]
Ofcom has revealed the number of complaints against the largest telecoms and pay-TV providers in the quarter October 2015 to December 2015. This is Ofcom’s twentieth quarterly report. BT generated the highest volume of pay-TV complaints per 100,000 subscribers in Q4 2015. Complaints about BT mainly related to issues around fault, service, or provision; issues […]
Ahead of the National Association of Broadcasters Show 2016 kicking off on April 16th, Gavin Mann, Accenture’s Global Broadcasting Industry Lead, has identified the big trends to look out for at the show. Stories to watch out for: 1. Super Platforms Spawn a Billion New Live Broadcasters – The super platform giants, like Amazon, Apple, […]
UHD is part of every broadcaster conversation but is it ready for the market – there are plenty of TVs being sold but what about standards, content capture, workflow and transmission? Chris Forrester chaired a discussion with senior representatives from BT Sport, Harmonic, Harmonic, Snell Advanced Media and Sony. [bitsontherun xioz1Mru-hLYU43gg]
2016 will be a key inflection point for the rollout of Ultra HD via satellite, according to NSR’s UltraHD via Satellite, 3rd Edition report. NSR forecasts over 785 Ultra HD channels by 2025, and satellite capacity required to carry bandwidth intensive Ultra HD channels will drive an added $280 million in annual leasing revenues. The […]