Inside Digital TV articles from May 2002

Inside Digital TV archives from May 2002

Pace Continues To Find Potholes In Its Path.(Pace Micro Technology)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor Pace Micro Technology's second trading statement in just over six weeks (which Inside Digital TV managed to squeeze into the last issue as it went to press) continues to underline the difficulties the STB...

Liberty Sets Sights On UK-Based Cable Provider NTL.(Liberty Media)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor Could it be second time lucky for Liberty Media? Having seen its attempts to enter the German cable market run afoul of the German regulator, the US company has now fixed its sights squarely on beleaguered UK...

Thomson Multimedia, Vivendi Join Forces.
May 1, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor Thomson Multimedia (TMM) has joined forces with Vivendi to create a global strategic partnership in the area of digital media. The agreement will initially run for three years. The two companies are aiming to...

Cable Dominates Dutch Digital Landscape.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Chris Dziadul Contributing Editor The Netherlands began 2002 as one of the most cabled countries in Europe, with up to 95 per cent of its 6.5 million television homes connected and the remainder receiving services either terrestrially (2...

Putting A Price Tag On 'Used' Spectrum.(ITV Digital's multiplexes)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... What would ITV Digital's multiplexes be worth if offered for sale? Barry Flynn has been listening to the views of delegates and speakers gathered in London this week for the IBC conference on UK Digital TV. Last Friday, UK regulator the...

Briefs.(Tele Greenland; Quiero TV; Konkurransetillsynet; Sogecable; BBC; News Corp.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... * Tele Greenland is poised to roll out a digital terrestrial TV (DTT) service based on the DVB standard to 12 communities on the west coast of Greenland. Distribution will consist of a program package of two to five channels covering all...

Liberty Picks Up OpenTV.(Liberty Media Corp )(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... In a move that completely wrong-footed those predicting a takeover by Microsoft, programming giant Liberty Media Corp has acquired a controlling ownership interest in middleware provider OpenTV from South Africa-based subscription pay-TV and...

KirchPayTV Slips Into Insolvency.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor KirchPayTV, the parent company of Premiere World, the German pay-TV operator, has filed for insolvency in Germany. The news comes as little surprise given that KirchPayTV has been haemorrhaging cash at an alarming...

C+ G2 Box An ARPU Play.(Brief Article)
May 15, 2002... Barry Flynn Editor French pay-TV operator Canal+ has conceded that the opportunities for continued growth of its subscriber base in France are limited, and that the game now is mainly about increasing Average Revenue per Unit (ARPU). ...

Italian Pay-TV Merger On The Brink.(Tele+ Digitale and Stream)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Chris Dziadul London Italy's antitrust commission (Agcom) this week imposed strict conditions on the proposed merger of the pay-TV operations Stream and Tele+ Digitale, ruling that any new contracts with Italian football clubs to broadcast...

Three Become One.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor After months of speculation, the Spanish pay-TV market seems to be taking the shape many had expected. First, Quiero TV has collapsed and is looking to close as soon as possible. Second, on May 8, not long...

iSeeTV Bids To Ensure Survival.(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Barry Flynn Editor Key executives from Media Logic, the UK company that originated the ground-breaking iSeeTV technology currently available to UK MSO Telewest's cable subscribers in Birmingham, were in Reykjavik last week attempting to...

Flextech Sees Benefits Of Interactive Ads.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Chris Dziadul Contributing Editor Interactive ad sales are proving to be something of a money-spinner for Telewest's pay-TV channel operator Flextech and its clients. Although only introduced in May 2001, they helped the content division...

Irish Users Embrace Digital TV Revolution.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... Chris Dziadul Contributing Editor Ireland today finds itself in the throes of a digital TV revolution, with the take-up rate of services, believed to be around 20 per cent, already the third highest in Europe. Moreover, should industry...

OpenTV At Liberty.(Brief Article)
May 15, 2002... Liberty Media's acquisition of voting control of OpenTV marks a seismic shift in the interactive TV debate, argues Barry Flynn. Once upon a time, there were two competing models of interactive TV: the European one and the US one. The...

Briefly.(various briefs)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
May 15, 2002... * UK digital satellite operator BSkyB has posted its lowest-ever number of quarterly subscriber additions, with 171,000 new subs for the quarter ended March 31, 2002. This puts its total DTH base at 5.9 million. The results represent a...

Microsoft TV Ditches NDS For Thin-Client Strategy.(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... Microsoft has dropped News Corp technology unit NDS as the provider of future versions of its low-end middleware, writes Barry Flynn. Mark Le Goy, European marketing director for Microsoft TV, told Inside Digital TV at last week's Mediacast...

TPS Prepares New Advertising Initiative.(La Television Par Satellite)(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 29, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor TPS (La Television Par Satellite), the number two French satellite operator, is facing a busy month in terms of its interactive operations. It is set to launch a plan to provide new opportunities for advertisers...

SCM Announces CAM Advances.(conditional access modules by SCM Microsystems)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 29, 2002... Barry Flynn Editor SCM Microsystems, the German manufacturer which specialises in the manufacture of conditional access modules (CAMs) using the DVB common interface, says it is now able to integrate different interactive middlewares into...

Pace Goes Modular With Dual Decoder.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
May 29, 2002... Barry Flynn Editor Pace unveiled a clutch of set-top box innovations at Mediacast, including what it claims to be the world's first twin decoder "Gateway" range, a modular approach for would-be triple-play operators, and a low-end digital...

2005: Key Date For European DTT.(Digital Terrestrial Television)(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... Chris Dziadul Contributing Editor A report published earlier this month by the EBU's Strategic Information Service (SIS) predicts that by 2005 almost all countries in Western Europe will have launched DTT services. At the same time, it...

Searching For The Answer To Interactivity.(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor The future of interactive TV came under the microscope at the PricewaterhouseCoopers European Media & Entertainment summit last week. A debate among key industry figures suggested that the industry has yet to find...

Omne Continues Hunt For Financial Saviour.(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... Mark Holmes Senior Editor The plight of the UK's third cable player, Omne Communications, is still up in the air. The operator, which went into administration in early May, is desperately seeking new investors in order to continue its...

Denmark Tries To Keep Pace With Nordic Rivals.(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
May 29, 2002... Chris Dziadul Contributing Editor Denmark lags behind its Nordic neighbours in certain aspects of the digital revolution, with take-up of services relatively low and DTT as yet to make an appearance. Given the uncertainties of the...

UK DTT Coverage Uncovered.(digital terrestrial television)(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... Barry Flynn delves back into what he wrote about UK DTT coverage at the time of its launch in 1998 In recent weeks, it has become the received wisdom that the original invitations to apply for multiplexes B, C and D - now being...

Briefly.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)
May 29, 2002... * Philips Consumer Electronics has revealed that it is delaying the introduction of MHP-compliant set-top boxes into the German market until the autumn. The Dutch manufacturer said at IBC in Amsterdam last year that it intended to launch the...