After the market closed on July 23 Worldspace issued its latest text on the long history of its borrowing obligations. It is heavily in debt to four bridging note-holders. The latest news, issued via a formal filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission, is that it has pledged its European assets to the debt-holders.
Six major British ISPs are to get tough with illegal peer-to-peer music file-sharers. That’s the stick. But there’s also a carrot, whereby they’ll adopt a legitimate scheme which will allow unlimited downloads for a modest monthly fee.
Singaporean pay-TV operator Starhub reportedly plans to offer its own video-on-demand service, in part a response to the arrival of competitor mio TV, SingTel’s IPTV operation. The news comes a day after SingTel announced new on-demand deals with three US studios.
Australia’s public service broadcaster the ABC has followed the lead of its UK counterpart and introduced a free internet TV service, ABC iView, for Australian eyes only.
Commercial TV broadcasters in Europe will suffer further falls in advertising revenues, says a bank’s major report. The second-half of this year could see further falls in income as the economic downturn starts to bite.
US cable mogul John Malone, who withdrew from Germany in 2002, appears to be on the verge of making a comeback to the German market with his international media concern Liberty Global.
Luxembourg-based SES Astra’s technology subsidiary SES Astra TechCom has won the contract to deliver the Network Operations Centre for the new Vietnamese satellite system Vinasat. Astra TechCom shall deliver the NOC to Vietnam Telecom International, for its Vinasat-1 craft (pictured, left).
Poland’s TVN 24 has chosen Network Electronics’ TV-C PLUS MPEG-2 encoders to contribute approximately four hours of video per day from a remote controlled video capture site on the Polish coast.
Web video, and TV services like YouTube and the BBC’s iPlayer, are no longer confined to PC users, according to “Digital Media Devices Global Market Forecast,” just published by Strategy Analytics. A wave of recent announcements from major players such as Sony, Microsoft and Samsung confirms that internet-enabled TVs, games consoles and peripherals, such as Blu-ray Disc players, will soon deliver web-based content to millions of TV viewers around the world.
It’s been a busy week for the USA’s two satellite radio broadcasters. XM has just released core subs numbers, which are good and more or less in line with expectations. But at the same time XM is tying up loose ends on putting together some extra financing, as well as sweating on hearing whether the long-awaited merger plan between XM and Sirius will receive FCC approval.
Israeli company Amimon is reportedly in discussion with heavyweight technology companies Sony, Samsung and others to develop a system that will deliver fat HDTV signals around the home without wires.
German broadcaster Pro7-Sat1 has been under some pressure lately, with a depressed share price, heavyweight management changes and facing challenges on its forward ad bookings. When a bank’s report talks about the possibility of Pro7 “breaching its financial covenants”, everyone takes note. Not helping is a veritable stampede of senior staff saying they’re leaving.
Joost, the video-delivery-by-internet company, has linked with Hong Kong-based TOM Group to launch a service into China. The snappily named ‘joost.tom.com’ j-v has sourced programming from CCTV, BTV Media, China Record Corp, CAV Warner and Huayi Brothers, amounting to some 16,000 hours of material.
