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Digital TV Europe July/August 2010
Global Wrap
DVD rental firm Netflix is launching subscription video-on- demand in Canada. The compa- ny will charge a monthly fee that will allow subscribers to stream their favorite TV shows and a raft of movies. A one-year free-to-air 3D TV trial has start- ed in Singapore. The trial is being coordinated by regulator the MDA and highlights include a 3D broadcast of the country’s National Day Parade. Separately, Singaporean authorities have censured IPTV service Mio after a 12-hour outage left viewers with blank screens for 12 hours. Indian authorities have approved media company Zee’s restructure, which will see ETC Networks absorbed into the main Zee corporate entity. ETC’s two music channels, ETC Music and ETC Punjabi, will become part of Zee Entertainment while its educational activities will be spun off into a new entity. MTV Networks International has struck a number of branded block deals in Latin America. The Viacom-owned international broadcaster inked a deal with Venezuelan broadcaster Venevision and Nicaraguan net- work Telenica to launch Nickelodeon branded blocks in the country. It will air series including Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePantsand Penguins of Madagascar. Disney Channels Southeast Asia is the latest big-name channel operator to join the Asia TV Advertising Coalition. ATAC, formed by members of Asian pay TV industry group Casbaa, now comprises eight members. Its stated aims are to generate new advertising rev- enue streams for pay-TV chan- nels across 15 Asian TV mar- kets.
Lithuania
DSL > Teo grows TV base Telco Teo’s television customer base increased by about a third in the year to June, to 114,100. Teo’s broadband customer base increased by 7.6% to 326,900, while the number of phone lines connected stood at 703,100. Teo said it had allocated LTL51m (€14.6m) for investment in the first six months of the year, mostly to develop a fibre-optic access network.
Norway
SAT > Canal Digital results Revenues from Telenor’s Canal Digital pay-TV platform were up NOK62m (€7.7m) year-on-year to NOK1.7bn during the second quar- ter as a result of higher sales of additional services for cable and increased prices for DTH. EBITDA was up NOK53m to NOK243m. This was partly offset by a loss of
15,000 DTH subscribers during the quarter, giving it a total of 1.04 million subs at the end of June. Cable TV numbers were down 8,000 to 713,000. Cable TV internet access subscribers increased by 5,000 during the quarter to 262,000. Telenor’s transmission and encryption activities contributed revenues of NOK592m, up NOK15m. EBITDA was up NOK3m to NOK317m. Telenor’s broadcast division post- ed total revenues of NOK2.182bn for the second quarter, up from NOK2.084bn a year earlier.
Portugal
CAB > Zon fibre success Zon Multimédia has signed up 100,000 customers to its fibre- based broadband service, and 700,000 subscribers to its fixed- line telephony service. The figures mean that Zon has a 60% share of the high-speed access market in Portugal. The company’s fibre network passes about 2.8 million
homes, offering broadband speeds of 50Mbps and above.
CAB > Cabovisão improves Portugal's cable market continues to be "extremely competitive" but is stabilising, according to Louis Audet, CEO of Cogeco, the Canadian cable operator that owns Cabovisão. The perform- ance of the Portuguese cable operator improved in the third quarter of Cogeco’s 2010 year with the addition of 27,680 RGUs, giving it a total of 808,176 at the end of May. The number of basic cable service customers grew by 498 compared to a loss of 11,394 customers in the comparable period of the prior year. The num- ber of digital TV customers was up 16,779 quarter-on-quarter to 147,835. Cogeco said the growth was down to retention strategies implemented last year. Cabovisão revenues reached US$43.6m (€34.4m), down 24.2% year-on- year. Cogeco reported total third quarter revenues of US$319.3m, up 4.5% year-on-year.
Mediaset to appeal EC’s Italian DTT ruling Mockridge:
By Stewart Clarke >
Mediaset has said it will appeal a European Commission ruling that Sky Italia can enter the con- test for new digital terrestrial channel slots in Italy.
In allowing Sky to move for
DTT spectrum the EC has lifted a condition imposed in 2003 when News Corp engineered the merger of pay-TV operator Stream with rival Telepiù. Sky will only be allowed to bid for one channel, which must be operated on a free-to-air basis for five years. The Commission said that it agreed to lift the earlier restriction on Sky because of sig- nificant changes in the Italian TV market in the last few years.
Sky is now free to enter the beauty contest for DTT spec- trum that is being organised by the country’s communications regulator Agcom. It will award five channel slots in all. Sky welcomed the ruling. “We are obviously very happy with today’s decision. The Commission has confirmed the Italian TV market has under- gone significant changes in the last few years, driven also by Sky
very happy about the decision.
Italia’s constant commitment to bringing new competition, inno- vation and choice to a market historically dominated by two incumbents,” said Sky CEO Tom Mockridge. “If Sky Italia is successful in its DTT bid, the Italian consumer stands to gain once again, as do potential advertisers.” However, Mediaset said it was
“disconcerted” by the EU ruling and that it allowed a monopoly pay-TV provider to compete for scarce DTT capacity. “We believe that the conditions established by the Commission in
2003...remain entirely valid, as, indeed, the market test carried out among all the Italian opera- tors has demonstrated,” it said.
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