PVR originators TiVo took a rare hit on July 1, when arch-rivals EchoStar/Dish won an officially-sanctioned delay to a Court order to start paying TiVo a royalty for its DVR ‘time warp’ technology.
With Spain's national public broadcaster Televisión Española (TVE) due shortly to have its advertising removed, now the national private TV networks want the same situation for the regional public broadcasters.
Asia Broadcast Satellite is buying KoreaSat-2. KoreaSat-2 was launched in January 2006 and thus has a few years left of operational life. ABS will then move the satellite to its 75 deg East location, and rename it ABS-1A.
Malaysia’s Measat Satellite Systems said its recently-launched Measat-3a satellite has been successfully moved to the 91.4 degrees east orbital slot, in preparation for in-orbit testing.
Zee TV achieved the Number 1 position last week in India. Normally this sort of story wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows, but Zee’s achievement meant that it dislodged the usual occupant Star Plus off its long-held perch. But there’s also a new Viacom-backed channel in the lists, and it is giving Zee and Star more than a few headaches.
The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has unveiled the first details of this year’s talk-fest, due to be held in Hong Kong in November. Major markets India and China will provide an in-depth focus.
Ondas Media is the company looking to deliver Sirius-type satellite pay-radio to European drivers. It has already signed up Renault, BMW and Nissan to install its radios. It had hoped to tap into Solaris Mobile to deliver initial services to some European countries. Yesterday we reported that Solaris Mobile has technical problems.
Spain’s broadcasters and manufacturers are almost ready with the technical specifications for the compatibility of future pay-DTT boxes, according to the industrial association ASIMELEC.
Germany’s largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has expressed interest in acquiring parts of Orion Cable’s network should the financially troubled company need to sell off its assets.
The association of German cable operators, ANGA, has criticised pay-TV operator Premiere’s decision to offer its soccer Bundesliga coverage on cable networks only in connection with basic package Sky Welt from its relaunch as Sky on July 4 and not as a stand-alone product.
Australia is one step closer to a national broadband network, with the government yesterday calling for tenders to construct, operate and maintain the backbone links in six regional areas.
Australia’s new DAB+ digital radio platform received a boost yesterday with the launch of public broadcaster the ABC’s suite of digital stations, and a free-to-air TV ad campaign which is sure to boost awareness of the new platform.
LCD and Plasma TV sets still rule the retail sector, while rear-projection units have all but disappeared even in North America, says this quarter’s EBU Technical Report. A study by BBC R&D’s Richard Salmon suggests that it is now cash that is stifling development of ‘next generation’ TV sets.
Saudi Arabia is one of the worst transgressors in the Middle East for media and TV piracy, says a new study from Inform Telecoms*. The country has “widespread pirate distribution of pay TV via both cable and DTH.”
Dubai has confirmed it is considering mounting a full bid for the 2020 Olympic Games, as part of its Dubai 2020 scheme to also win status as a World Expo city during the same year.
Solaris Mobile, the Eutelsat/SES Astra joint-venture to deliver DVB-H and pay-radio over Europe, has significant technical problems. The project has already made an insurance claim saying that the Harris-designed giant transmission antenna is not performing to specification.