Advanced Television

Pay TV

Analyst: Cord-cutting evidence confused

Analyst firm MoffettNathanson’s comprehensive quarterly report on the US cable and satellite pay-TV sector, admits that on the surface “all is calm” insofar as subscriptions are up (by 101,000) during Q4/2014 but reminds readers that this always happens in the traditional pre-holiday Q4, so look at the trailing year and the actual number falls by […]

February 26, 2015By Chris Forrester

Telefónica plots pay-TV dominance

Spanish telco Telefónica aims to lead the Spanish-speaking pay-TV sector with a potential market of 600 million clients combined in Spain and Latin America, according to company president Cesar Alierta, who argued that it was the only company capable of facing the dominance of the US and UK in the TV content world. “The pay-TV […]

February 26, 2015From David Del Valle in Madrid

France: Virgin Mobile launches quadplay offering

French MVNO Virgin Mobile has launched its first quadruple play offer, which combines SFR’s triple play ADSL box with a 20GHz 4G mobile service. Following its acquisition at the end of 2014, Virgin Mobile is already benefiting from Numericable-SFR’s fixed and mobile networks, as well as capitalising on the innovations of the SFR box. Virgin […]

February 26, 2015By Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris

Portugal’s MEO dumps 8 HD channels

Portugal Telecom-backed MEO pay-TV operation is dropping eight HDTV channels from its DTH offering. The eight channels that will longer be available to MEO subscribers are Fine Living, Food Network, Clubbing TV, Nautical Channel, Localvisao TV, MUTV, Barca TV and TPA. MEO transmits on the Hispasat satellite, and has more than 1 million subscribers across […]

February 26, 2015By Chris Forrester

Frontier, TiVo team for OTA and OTT

US triple-play operator Frontier Communications – which focuses on rural areas and small and medium-sized towns and cities – is to market and deploy co-branded versions of advanced television specialist TiVo’s suite of whole-home products and services, including an industry-first deployment of the TiVo Roamio DVR with over-the-air (OTA) support as part of its video […]

February 26, 2015

Survey: Telefónica TV lags in LatAm

Telecommunications company Telefónica remains Latin America’s fifth largest pay TV group, according to new research from Dataxis. As of Q3 2014, the Spanish company ranked behind America Móvil, DirecTV Latin America, Televisa and Clarín. As of Q3 2014 Telefónica had

February 24, 2015

DISH sheds 63,000 pay-TV subs in Q4

US satellite TV provider DISH Network has reported a rise in its earnings for the fourth quarter. Net income attributable to the company came in at $409.9 million up from $288 million in the same period a year ago. DISH Network revenue climbed 4 per cent to $3.68 billion. For the full year, the company […]

February 24, 2015

Murdoch denies Discovery merger talks

21st Century Fox has denied as “categorically untrue” a story that appeared in the Australian Financial Review saying that senior executives from 21st Century Fox and Discovery Communications had met to discuss a tie-up that could create a $100 billion movie, entertainment and sports giant. Rupert Murdoch of Fox and John Malone, a major shareholder […]

February 23, 2015By Chris Forrester

Orange to extend LTE in Spain

French telco Orange, is to invest €400 million in the deployment of its LTE network over the next three years, €100 million in 2015 making a total of €1.5 billion since the start of its operations in 2006. The company aims to take LTE services to 85 per cent of the population in 1,300 cities […]

February 23, 2015From David Del Valle in Madrid

Aston condemns Canal+ ‘lies’

Digital pay-TV technology specialist Aston has issued a hard-hitting condemnation of pay-TV operator Canal+’s behaviour, accusing it of “lies, misleading statements and deceptions” in relation to its response to a court decision ordering the reversal of the termination of the Canal Ready label contract linking the two companies. According to Aston, Canal+ recently sent some […]

February 20, 2015By Colin Mann