Inside Digital TV articles from July 2001

Inside Digital TV archives from July 2001

DTT GETS BOOST FROM NEW ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... UK DTT operator ITV Digital's fortunes could be transformed by the introduction of a new type of digital TV set-top box dubbed the 'antenna diversity receiver', writes Barry Flynn. An antenna diversity receiver consists of a conventional...

BSKYB PVR: A SNIP AT GBP450?(British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... BSkyB Digital's upcoming Sky+ advanced set-top box incorporating a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) will be priced at GBP450 (E742), writes Chris Forrester. Senior BSkyB staffers told Salomon Smith Barney analysts at a breakfast briefing in...

TELENOR BUYS OUT CANAL+ FROM CANAL DIGITAL.(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Goran Sellgren, Stockholm One of Scandinavia's biggest-ever media deals was unveiled on July 10, when Norwegian Telenor announced it was terminating its four-year partnership with French pay-TV operator Canal+ by acquiring Canal's 50 per...

SWEDEN RUSHES NEW DTT CHANNELS.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... The recent decision by Sweden's Modern Times Group (MTG) to withdraw all its five Viasat channels from the ailing Swedish DTT project has galvanised regulators. A bill to create another two new multiplexes has been rushed through the...

FINNISH DTT COUNTDOWN BEGINS.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... The countdown for the DTT launch in Finland has begun, and details about the platform are finally starting to emerge. The transmitter rollout will be fast: by the official launch date on August 27, every Finn interested in DTT who is able...

TELECOM ITALIA SELLS STREAM STAKE TO NEWS CORP.(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Branislav Pekic, Rome News Corp has gained full ownership of Italian pay-TV service Stream by acquiring the remaining 50 per cent stake from Telecom Italia, paving the way for Stream's announced merger with Vivendi Universal's Tele+. ...

RAIWAY TO INVEST L180 BILLION IN DTT.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... RAI network operator RaiWay is planning to invest L180 billion (E93 million) in the development of digital terrestrial in Italy to transform the company into a global carrier. RaiWay operates 2,300 transmission sites which are used for...

PORTUGAL DTT DECISION SET FOR AUGUST.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Nuno Cintra Torres, Lisbon The Portuguese government will announce whose won its DTT licence on August 6. By the time the deadline for applications closed on June 12, only two bidders, Oni Plataformas and SGC, had presented proposals...

NEW DTT OPERATORS AWAIT COMMON STB.(digital terrestrial television, set top box)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... David del Valle, Madrid Spain's new national free-to-air DTT operators, Net TV and Veo TV, are likely to delay their launch - previously scheduled for later this year - until there is a common set-top-box in the market. By law, they...

PBI MEDIA ACQUIRES BCE.(Broadband Communications Europe )(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... PBI Media, publisher of Inside Digital, has purchased the BCE - Broadband Communications Europe from Trades Exhibitions Ltd. The show, which takes place at the National Hall Olympia, London between October 16 to 18, 2001, brings together key...

BSKYB AND LADBROKES BETTING JV.(British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC joint venture)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... BSkyB has formed a 50:50 joint venture with UK bookmakers Ladbrokes to develop and operate a fixed odds and pools betting business linked to Sky's digital channels, which will operate under the Ladbrokes brand for fixed odds betting, and...

COMMERCIAL TV FOR AUSTRIA.(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... The Austrian parliament has passed a law that will allow commercial broadcasters to use terrestrial frequencies for the first time. The first national terrestrial licence, as well as regional licences for the cities of Vienna, Linz and...

CELL SELLS.(Cell Interactive TV sale)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Swedish Cell Network is selling its interactive TV subsidiary, Cell Interactive TV, to London-based digital media and entertainment specialists Sparkidea Consulting as part of a refining process in the group's the core activity to improve...

COMMUNICOPIA WINS NHS DIRECT TV.(Communicopia Productions)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Barry Flynn, Editor Interactive TV production company Communicopia Productions has won a GBP1.3 million (E2.14 million) contract from the Department of Health to produce the pilot of NHS Direct TV - the interactive TV version of the NHS...

INTERACTIVE TV LEARNING SERVICE TO EXPAND.(AHM)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Branislav Peckic, Rome Media group AHM recently presented a new interactive TV service dedicated to vocational training and consulting, which combines video, Internet and telephony. CID (Comunicazione Interattiva a Distanza), as it is...

ADSL BACK ON BSKYB'S AGENDA.(digital subscriber line modem part of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC plan)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Barry Flynn suggests that BSkyB's ADSL set-top box plans could find a natural home... within BT When BSkyB released details of its new PVR set-top box , we were surprised to see that it didn't include an integrated ADSL modem. But with...

POSITIVE PACE RESULTS.(Pace Micro Technology)(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Pace Micro Technology has reported an extremely positive set of annual results to June 2, 2001, showing jumps in turnover, which climbed 39 per cent to GBP523.6 million (E869.2 million) from GBP377.6 million in 2000, and EBITDA, up an...

AVICAM CONCERNED OVER TENDERS.(Brief Article)
July 13, 2001... Avicam, the French association of cabled and multimedia towns, has expressed misgivings about the CSA's draft call for tenders for DTT frequencies. Avicam points out that the draft proposal does not deal with local TV, leaving the issue to be...

BRIEFLY...(Spanish Telecommunications Market Commission)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 13, 2001... * SDS has resolved the financial problems with the Stream pay-TV platform that were reported in the previous issue of Inside Digital TV. The managers of the company set up by the Lazio, Parma, Fiorentina and Roma football clubs recently held a...

Sky+ PVR unveiled - with 'quad-LNB'.
July 27, 2001... In September 1999, at the IBC exhibition in Amsterdam, NDS's CEO, Dr Abe Peled, said that "digital storage is in my opinion the sleeper technology of digital TV." Finally, the sleeper has awoken, writes Barry Flynn - and we now know the...

More problems for RTE's DTT plans.
July 27, 2001... Hugh Oram, Dublin The Irish government's decision to grant only IR GBP14.50 [E18.41] of the IR GBP50 (E63.49) licence fee increase RTE wanted may force the Irish broadcaster to further postpone or even cancel its DTT plans. As part...

CSA issues French DTT tender.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... Sotires Eleftheriou, Paris As expected, French TV regulator le Conseil Superieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) issued a call for applicants for commercial DTT licences on July 24. A total of six multiplexes will be available (seven in Paris),...

Italy publishes DTT rules.
July 27, 2001... Branislav Pekic, Milan On July 11, Italy's communications authority published the draft regulations for digital TV and radio broadcasting on its website. These should have been released by June 20, but the authority decided to postpone...

Sky touts cheap second box deal.(BSkyB )(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... Barry Flynn, Editor BSkyB delivered an operating profit of GBP92.8 million (E150.7 million) (after goodwill and exceptional items) on revenues of GBP2,306 million (E3,745.2 million) in the year ended 30 June, 2001 - although its...

ITV Digital sales growth continues decline.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... Barry Flynn, Editor Despite ITV Digital's comment that its latest quarterly subscriber results demonstrate that it is "on target for breakeven", the reality is that its sales growth continues to decline. On Inside Digital TV's...

Mediaset buys frequencies for DTT.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... David del Valle, Madrid Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset has started buying terrestrial TV frequencies which will be used to launch DTT trials. RTI, which is responsible for all the TV activities of the Mediaset group, has...

Sogecable crosses 2m sub threshold.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 27, 2001... Branislav Pekic, Milan Spain's leading pay-TV group, Sogecable, owner of digital DTH platform Canal Satelite Digital (CSD) and premium channel Canal+ Espana, ended the first six months of 2001 with 2,025,000 subscriptions, 100,000 more...

New law could change Spain's TV ecology.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... David del Valle, Madrid The Spanish government plans to reorganise the TV sector by rationalising its 'chaotic' TV legislation in the wake of the introduction of DTT. The centre-right administration would accordingly create a new...

Vivendi's applies smoke and mirrors to Canal+.
July 27, 2001... Barry Flynn mourns the dearth of detailed information about Canal+'s digital performance now that it is under the Vivendi Universal umbrella For anyone interested in the development of digital TV in Europe, access to accurate information...

NTL Broadcast distributes ITV DTH.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... NTL Broadcast has won a contract, worth around GBP40 million (E64.9 million), to uplink the 16 ITV franchises to three transponders on SES' Astra 2D satellite, which ITV leased earlier this year, for ITV's inaugural distribution via DTH. NTL...

Via Digital Gets films.(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... Digital satellite platform, Via Digital, has acquired 54 Spanish cinema films this year, including Afrodita, A mi madre le gustan las mujeres, Antigua Vida Mia and Clara y Elena. The company also revealed that it had been enjoying considerable...

Briefly...(multiple brief articles)(Brief Article)
July 27, 2001... * On July 19, RaiSat launched its first interactive TV service applied to a thematic channel - in this case the Gambero Rosso Channel, which is dedicated to Italian cuisine and broadcast via the Tele+ digital platform. It will be available to...