News > digest
Digita TV Europe September/October 2010
DSL > VimpelCom plan Russian telco VimpelCom has won permission to operate a fixed-line network in the Chelyabinsk region in central Russia. The company plans to expand its fixed-line activities in a number of regions by the end of the year, most recently launching in Udmurtia. VimpelCom broad- band access director Alexei Krainov was recently reported as saying the company planned to launch IPTV in seven cities in Russia by the end of this year. It currently offers IPTV in Moscow and St Petersburg.
Slovenia
CAB > Telemach EPL service Slovenian cable operator Telemach has launched a new channel providing HD coverage of English Premier League football. HD Premier League is the sev- enth HD channel offered by Telemach, joining Eurosport HD and Eurosport 2 HD, Fashion Channel HD, Discovery HD and National Geographic HD.
Spain
CAB > Ono takes Nitro Spanish cable operator Ono is to carry commercial broadcaster Antena 3’s new male-oriented channel Nitro as part of its TV Esencial package. Nitro will air new drama series including the latest seasons of 24and Southlandas well as shows such as X-Files, Boston Legaland Law & Order. It will also air a range of movies including Collateral, Transporter 3and Pitch Black.
DTT > Canal+ on terrestrial Spanish pay-TV operator Sogecable is launching a version of its Canal Plus channel on Spain’s digital terrestrial TV net- work. The Canal Plus Two channel
will offer the same content as the regular Canal Plus premium chan- nel on DTH minus the sporting events. Prisa-owned Sogecable will charge €15 a month for the channel. Consumers will need a DTT set-top with the relevant con- ditional access module to access the channel. Canal Plus will offer it on a standalone basis to those who already have the appropriate set-top, or with a conditional access module and card for those who do not.
Sweden
SAT > Viasat exclusive Modern Times Group-owned Viasat Broadcasting has struck an exclusive licensing agreement with NBC Universal for exclusive pay-TV rights in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland to current
and upcoming feature films for its thematic premium movie chan- nels within the TV1000 family. The deal includes rights to movies such as It’s Complicated, Robin Hood, The Wolfman, Green Zone and Get Him to the Greek. The films will be available via Viasat’s seven thematic TV100 channels, TV1000, TV1000 Drama, TV1000 Action, TV1000 Nordic, TV1000 Classic, TV1000 Family and TV1000 HD, and also via its sub- scription video-on-demand serv- ice. Separately, Viasat has inked a movie deal with Swedish-based movie studio Svensk Filmindustri. The agreement gives Viasat exclusive pay-TV rights to SF’s movies across its premium movie channels in Scandinavia. The deal, which kicks in this year, will allow Viasat to show 12 SF movies a year. As well as being broadcast on the various linear
TV1000 channels operated by Viasat, the agreement allows the broadcaster to make them avail- able, exclusively, in its subscrip- tion video-on-demand service. Viasat recently inked a similar agreement for movies with NBC’s NBC Universal International Television Distribution.
CAB > Com Hem on the up Swedish cable operator Com Hem saw its revenues increase and subscriber numbers rise as it posted its second quarter finan- cial results. The cabler saw rev- enues rise by 5% to SEK1.08bn (€115m) and also saw the number of digital television subscriptions increase by 7,700 to 599,700. The company continued to invest in new services in the second quar- ter of the year as well as infra- structure and also took measures to improve its customer service.
Virgin Media takes Canvas complaint to Ofcom Berkett:
By Stuart Thomson >
UK cable operator Virgin Media and hybrid broadband/digital- terrestrial TV service provider IP Vision have separately moved to block the BBC-led Project Canvas joint venture by lodging a complaint that it is anti-com- petitive with regulator Ofcom. Virgin Media, whose CEO
Neil Berkett has previously expressed his oppostion to Canvas, has also called on the Office of Fair Trading (which has already cleared the venture) to intervene on the grounds that Canvas’s partners have broken their promise to create a set of open standards on which to base the connected TV on-demand service. The cable operator’s case hinges on its allegation that the Canvas partners – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva – are proposing to create
Canvas is anti-compet- itive.
involved will have “a consider- able incentive to favour [the plat- form] over other TV services”. Eddie Abrams, CEO of IP
a closed proprietary platform that will determine the “look and fee” of the service. The operator has cited recent comments by TalkTalk chairman Charles Dunstone that the ISP would not invest further in its own IPTV service but would rely on the Canvas platform as evidence that the partners had no incen- tive to compete with each other. The cable operator alleges that
Canvas will “stifle future innova- tion as well as eliminate existing consumer choice for home entertainment” because the “well-resourced companies”
Vision, which delivers Freeview digital-terrestrial channels com- bined with the broadband-deliv- ered Fetch TV service, including video-on-demand service as well as BSkyB’s Sky Player and the BBC’s iPlayer catch-up service to TVs using set-top boxes supplied by Netgem, said that he was con- cerned that Canvas would restrict competition and innova- tion through setting require- ments for the user interface and branding that privileged the services of the Canvas partners, thus crowding out third-party services and applications. Ofcom will have two months to take a decision on whether to proceed with a full investigation under the terms of the Competition Act.
Visit us at
www.digitaltveurope.net 10
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80