Formula 1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has warned Grand Prix teams that it would be “suicidal” for them if the sport moved to News Corporation’s subscription channels as part of a takeover deal. According to Ecclestone, who holds the sport’s commercial rights, teams would lose huge sponsorship interest if coverage was no longer on mass […]
Growing sales of Internet-enabled or connected TVs will help push video service providers to move more quickly to develop offerings that combine elements of conventional pay-TV with over-the-top (OTT) Internet video in an effort to maintain service revenues, but the migration path to hybrid video is uncertain at this point, according to the latest report […]
India’s giant Hathway Cable & Datacom is to launch its HDTV bouquet this June in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. IT will roll out to other cities and regions shortly thereafter, said the company. Subscribers will need a new cable receiver box which will contain NDS encryption and Middleware. K. Jayaraman, MD & CEO, Hathway […]
Sky has hired BBC executive Anne Mensah as the new head of drama for its Sky entertainment channels. Mensah, BBC head of independent drama commissioning, replaces Elaine Pyke, who was promoted to director of programmes for Sky Atlantic earlier this month. She will oversee drama commissioning for Sky1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts and Sky Movies. […]
Spanish cable operator Ono’s first-quarter revenues fell 2.2 per cent to €364 million with a net income dropping to €9 million, down almost 45.1 per cent from €17 in March 2010. First-quarter EBITDA amounted to €179 million, representing a 1.9 per cent increase over the same period last year, as a result of its costs-cut […]
DirecTV, the largest US DTH provider, has reported first-quarter profit that saw net income climb 21 per cent to $674 million, up from $558 million a year. DirecTV added a record net 427,000 subscribers in Latin America, compared with 221,000 a year earlier. Across all markets, it added 611,000 customers. DirecTV has exceeded analyst estimates […]
Brazil’s National Telecoms Agency says the nation’s Q1 pay-TV numbers grew by a net 650,000, of which 243,000 signed up in March. Most of these new pay-TV viewers were captured by DTH satellite (548,000 for DTH, 121,000 for cable). There was a loss of some 19,000 from MMDS systems. Satellite now has a 48.2 per […]
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings fears that getting too large will start “an Armageddon” with cable networks. Hastings talked about Netflix’s “niche” philosophy of staying “not too big, not too small” — in a discussion at the Wired Business Conference in New York City. “We’ve consistently said getting into current season TV or newer movies would […]
France Telecom Orange’s first quarter revenues dipped slightly from a year earlier and intensifying competition in its home market also eroded its operating margins. But its European pay TV subscribers grew significantly in the 12 months to March 2011, adding 967,000 customers to reach a total of 4.4 million. In France, the telco reported 3.711 […]
Wananchi Group, a leading local triple-play telco, is to launch a satellite-based DTH pay-TV for Kenyan viewers. ‘Zuku’ will launch in May and directly challenge South Africa’s DStv. Zuku already offers up to 91 channels of cable TV to its – mostly – Nairobi subscribers. Wananchi has as its group chairman Mark Schneider, well known […]