Modern Times Group (MTG), the international entertainment broadcasting group, has confirmed that the Swedish Radio and TV Authority has awarded Viasat Broadcasting two new channel broadcast licenses in the Swedish digital terrestrial network and renewed Viasat's existing four licenses. Premium channels 'Viasat Sport 1' and 'TV1000' will join Viasat's TV3, TV6, TV8 and ZTV free-to-air channels in the DTT and [...]
Online video portal YouTube has released YouTube Insight, a free software tool allowing users who upload videos to see a breakdown of viewing figures, including chronological and demographic audience trends.
Private Media Group has launched its content for Video-on-Demand on the Neuf Cegetel IPTV platform in France as part of Neuf's Triple-Play offer. Neuf VOD will provide access to hundreds of titles from Private's extensive proprietary movie library.
Satellite companies gained a victory when the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow them to phase in a requirement that they carry all HD signals in any market where they carry any after the February 2009 switch to digital TV by all full-power TV stations. The commission also ruled that DirecTV's and Dish Network’s requirement to carry all TV stations [...]
The US-India Business Council (USIBC) has released a study showing huge job and revenue losses to the Indian economy as a result of piracy in India's burgeoning entertainment industry. The study – prepared for USIBC by Ernst & Young India, shows as much as Rs.16,000 (E253m) are lost each year due to piracy. As many as 800,000 direct jobs are [...]
Australia’s Macquarie Group and private equity house MBK Partners have completed a $2 billion joint acquisition of South Korea’s number 2 cable TV operator C&M. The deal made the unlisted company the first Korean cable TV operator owned by private equity funds. The country’s adoption of digital and broadband TV services raise hopes for further revenue growth.
AT&T is launching mobile television services in May with MediaFLO from Qualcomm. AT&T, the biggest US mobile service, said it would offer MediaFLO to users of the Vu phone from LG and the Access from Samsung and plans two exclusive channels. It did not reveal service pricing. AT&T’s service arrives about a year after Verizon Wireless started selling MediaFLO.
Korean telecom firms are to invest around 1.57 trillion won (E9.9bn) on IPTV services this year according to the Broadcasting and Communications Commission (BCC). KT, the country's dominant telephone and broadband Internet service provider, alone plans to spend 1.3 trillion won, and LG Dacom and Hanarotelecom respectively allotted 146.4 billion won and 122.1 billion won for the Internet TV business. [...]
The BBC and ITV have sought legal advice to determine whether the deep-linking that online TV listings site TVguide.co.uk does to their online video streaming is legal or not. TVguide.co.uk, which has some 1 million unique visitors a month doing some 8 million page impressions, offers its users direct access to unbranded content from the two broadcasters, along with others. [...]
The number of UK households with digital television on their main set has risen to 22.2 million homes according to research published by Ofcom. The Digital Television Progress Report for the fourth quarter of 2007 (October-December) also shows that multichannel television take-up has reached 87.6 per cent of households, up from 86.1 per cent in the previous quarter. The growth [...]
