Satellite news 20.12.07
News
Three more HD channels for CanalSat
Canal Satellite Numérique will offer three more HD channels during 2008. The news was broken during a special online chat session on the TPS website with Thierry Chamouton (director client relations at CanalSat) and Amaury Lelong (director of the TPS/CanalSat migration project). The online session with subscribers was intended to give more information about the migration process of TPS subscribers, who now watch Hot Bird, to CanalSat, which uses Astra. TPS subscribers will lose a number of channels after shut down of the Hot Bird platform, including the M6 music channels Rock and Pop, Baby TV, the travel channel Odyssée and probably Fun TV. The Meteo Express interactive weather forecasts will also not be available. The reason is the lack of transponder capacity on the 19 degrees East Astra position. TPS subscribers have also learned that subscriptions outside of France will not be allowed and that smart card only subscribers and SMATV homes will migrate during Q2 2008.
Christmas campaign for BBC iPlayer
The BBC has given details of the promotional campaign that will be used to back the iPlayer catch-up TV service. As was previously reported in Broadband TV News, the iPlayer will officially launch on Christmas Day, although the revamped player went live last week. The revamped application is now capable of streaming content to Mac and Linux machines as well as providing downloads to PCs running Windows. The first spots will feature BBC personalities David Attenborough, Jo Whiley and Jeremy Clarkson and clips from popular programmes including Clarkson's Top Gear. The ads have been made by Red Bee Media from a creative developed by RKCR/Y&R. The strapline is 'BBC iPlayer. Making the unmissable, unmissable'.
Sky waits for Competition call
BSkyB is preparing to reduce its controversial stake in commercial broadcaster ITV to around 10%. On Friday the Competition Commission sent its report to business secretary John Hutton with a recommendation that Sky dispose of part of its stake. It will be a costly move for the satellite broadcaster that has positioned itself as a "supportive shareholder" in the commercial network. When BSkyB acquired its 17.9% stake in November the holding cost it £940 million, but a continued slide in the value of ITV's shares leaves its asset valued at around £593m. BSkyB could reduce its losses by placing the holding in a trust and disposing of it over time. ITV's other shareholders would be grateful for such a move, as it would prevent further falls in the share price. Mr Hutton has four weeks to give his verdict on the Competition Commission report, though a decision before Christmas is possible.
Freeview driving UK digital growth
Freeview has again been the driver in the UK digital market recording its second-ever largest quarterly increase. According to Ofcom's third quarter Digital Television Progress Report the number of UK households with multichannel television on the main set is now 21.7 million homes, taking multichannel television into 86.1% of households, an increase of 1.1 percentage points. The DTT platform recorded 2.4 million purchases with the crucial second sets figure increasing by 1.3 million on the quarter. The total number of second TV sets converted now stands at 12 million and has risen by 50% over the last year.
Canal Digital Sweden doubles IPTV base
Canal Digital has increased the number of Swedish households that can receive its packages by 150% following a new distribution agreement with Svenska Fibernät. The deal with the communications provider brings the IPTV footprint to 500,000 households. It is an expansion of the Svenska Fibernät TV service for subscribers that will now be able to receive a package of channels that mirrors Canal Digital's DTH satellite service. Subscribers will be able to access the Basic, Family and Canal+ Total packages and three on demand offers from CMore Select, Film2Home and SF Anytime. Canal Digital already has a number of other IPTV agreements in place that are sold to consumers through local agents.
HOT beats YES to HD launch
Israeli cablenet HOT is to launch its HD service on Wednesday (December 19), just four days ahead of its DTH rival YES. Details of the two platform offers are still emerging, but YES is expected to launch with an initial package of four or five channels compared to the two available on YES. The two channels are National Geographic and VOOM. The HOT package is being priced at a monthly NIS55 (€9.53) and a NIS99 installation fee. YES will offer its HD service for NIS39 per month, but with a three-year contract for which there is a NIS1,000 penalty in event that the customer terminates the contract ahead of time. The installation fee is NIS 139.
Premiere HD debuts on Unitymedia cable
On January 1, 2008, Premiere HD will make its debut on the Unitymedia cable networks, being the first HD channel on the cable net. The second HD channel from Premiere, Discovery HD, is set for launch later next year at an as yet undefined date. As of this moment, Premiere claims 90,000 HD subscribers. The pay-TV operator claims it broadcasts 17,000 hours in HD every year. Premiere HD offers a mix of movies in HD, as well as occasional live sports.
Philips to sell STB division to Pace
Philips has announced the sale of its Set-Top Boxes and Connectivity Solutions businesses, currently part of its Home Networks business unit within the Consumer Electronics division, to UK-based technology provider Pace Micro Technology. The announcement followed the earlier suspension of trade in Pace shares on the stock market. Philips agreed in principle to divest the STB and CS businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares, after which Philips will become a 23% shareholder in the combined business, representing a market value of around €90 million calculated with the closing price of Pace shares on December 18. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008 and is subject to approvals from Pace shareholders, the relevant regulatory authorities and Philips' workers council. Generating estimated revenues of €425 million in 2007, the STB and CS businesses together employ approximately 335 people, predominantly based in France, who would transfer to Pace as part of the transaction. The remainder of Home Networks, Home Communications, which includes Internet Telephony and Home Telephony (DECT), will become part of the Peripherals & Accessories unit within Philips' Consumer Lifestyle sector.
Integan wants to postpone sale to Telenet
The management team of the Belgian cable operator Integan has said it wants to postpone the sale of Interkabel's TV activities to Telenet. Last month, Telenet and Interkabel announced a contract between the two companies to hand over all television activities to Telenet. However, the deal was subject to approval from all four operators participating in the Interkabel venture; Integan, Interelektra, PBE and WVEN. Three of the companies seem to agree, but Integan, which is owned by 14 municipalities including the city of Antwerp, now has doubts about the agreement. Earlier this year, Integan installed a committee of specialists to advise the 14 shareholders about the future of the network. The company now wants to first await the advice from the committee before selling the TV services on the network. One of the possible scenarios could be that the cities will also look to sell the networks themselves, not just the rights to deliver services over them.
German DTT now reaches 68 million
According to the transmitter company T-Systems, German DTT will reach 68 million people, or about 85% of the population, by the year-end. Next year, the figure will rise to 90% of the population. In the last 12 months T-Systems has installed 78 transmitters on 26 different sites; next year a further 22 sites will be taken into service. The company estimates some 9 million DTT receivers are now in German homes, including set-top boxes, integrated DTVs, mobile DTT receivers and USB DVB-T sticks. The last major operation this year took place in the state of Saarland, where DTT came on the air on December 13.
News
Three more HD channels for CanalSat
Canal Satellite Numérique will offer three more HD channels during 2008. The news was broken during a special online chat session on the TPS website with Thierry Chamouton (director client relations at CanalSat) and Amaury Lelong (director of the TPS/CanalSat migration project). The online session with subscribers was intended to give more information about the migration process of TPS subscribers, who now watch Hot Bird, to CanalSat, which uses Astra. TPS subscribers will lose a number of channels after shut down of the Hot Bird platform, including the M6 music channels Rock and Pop, Baby TV, the travel channel Odyssée and probably Fun TV. The Meteo Express interactive weather forecasts will also not be available. The reason is the lack of transponder capacity on the 19 degrees East Astra position. TPS subscribers have also learned that subscriptions outside of France will not be allowed and that smart card only subscribers and SMATV homes will migrate during Q2 2008.
Christmas campaign for BBC iPlayer
The BBC has given details of the promotional campaign that will be used to back the iPlayer catch-up TV service. As was previously reported in Broadband TV News, the iPlayer will officially launch on Christmas Day, although the revamped player went live last week. The revamped application is now capable of streaming content to Mac and Linux machines as well as providing downloads to PCs running Windows. The first spots will feature BBC personalities David Attenborough, Jo Whiley and Jeremy Clarkson and clips from popular programmes including Clarkson's Top Gear. The ads have been made by Red Bee Media from a creative developed by RKCR/Y&R. The strapline is 'BBC iPlayer. Making the unmissable, unmissable'.
Sky waits for Competition call
BSkyB is preparing to reduce its controversial stake in commercial broadcaster ITV to around 10%. On Friday the Competition Commission sent its report to business secretary John Hutton with a recommendation that Sky dispose of part of its stake. It will be a costly move for the satellite broadcaster that has positioned itself as a "supportive shareholder" in the commercial network. When BSkyB acquired its 17.9% stake in November the holding cost it £940 million, but a continued slide in the value of ITV's shares leaves its asset valued at around £593m. BSkyB could reduce its losses by placing the holding in a trust and disposing of it over time. ITV's other shareholders would be grateful for such a move, as it would prevent further falls in the share price. Mr Hutton has four weeks to give his verdict on the Competition Commission report, though a decision before Christmas is possible.
Freeview driving UK digital growth
Freeview has again been the driver in the UK digital market recording its second-ever largest quarterly increase. According to Ofcom's third quarter Digital Television Progress Report the number of UK households with multichannel television on the main set is now 21.7 million homes, taking multichannel television into 86.1% of households, an increase of 1.1 percentage points. The DTT platform recorded 2.4 million purchases with the crucial second sets figure increasing by 1.3 million on the quarter. The total number of second TV sets converted now stands at 12 million and has risen by 50% over the last year.
Canal Digital Sweden doubles IPTV base
Canal Digital has increased the number of Swedish households that can receive its packages by 150% following a new distribution agreement with Svenska Fibernät. The deal with the communications provider brings the IPTV footprint to 500,000 households. It is an expansion of the Svenska Fibernät TV service for subscribers that will now be able to receive a package of channels that mirrors Canal Digital's DTH satellite service. Subscribers will be able to access the Basic, Family and Canal+ Total packages and three on demand offers from CMore Select, Film2Home and SF Anytime. Canal Digital already has a number of other IPTV agreements in place that are sold to consumers through local agents.
HOT beats YES to HD launch
Israeli cablenet HOT is to launch its HD service on Wednesday (December 19), just four days ahead of its DTH rival YES. Details of the two platform offers are still emerging, but YES is expected to launch with an initial package of four or five channels compared to the two available on YES. The two channels are National Geographic and VOOM. The HOT package is being priced at a monthly NIS55 (€9.53) and a NIS99 installation fee. YES will offer its HD service for NIS39 per month, but with a three-year contract for which there is a NIS1,000 penalty in event that the customer terminates the contract ahead of time. The installation fee is NIS 139.
Premiere HD debuts on Unitymedia cable
On January 1, 2008, Premiere HD will make its debut on the Unitymedia cable networks, being the first HD channel on the cable net. The second HD channel from Premiere, Discovery HD, is set for launch later next year at an as yet undefined date. As of this moment, Premiere claims 90,000 HD subscribers. The pay-TV operator claims it broadcasts 17,000 hours in HD every year. Premiere HD offers a mix of movies in HD, as well as occasional live sports.
Philips to sell STB division to Pace
Philips has announced the sale of its Set-Top Boxes and Connectivity Solutions businesses, currently part of its Home Networks business unit within the Consumer Electronics division, to UK-based technology provider Pace Micro Technology. The announcement followed the earlier suspension of trade in Pace shares on the stock market. Philips agreed in principle to divest the STB and CS businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares, after which Philips will become a 23% shareholder in the combined business, representing a market value of around €90 million calculated with the closing price of Pace shares on December 18. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008 and is subject to approvals from Pace shareholders, the relevant regulatory authorities and Philips' workers council. Generating estimated revenues of €425 million in 2007, the STB and CS businesses together employ approximately 335 people, predominantly based in France, who would transfer to Pace as part of the transaction. The remainder of Home Networks, Home Communications, which includes Internet Telephony and Home Telephony (DECT), will become part of the Peripherals & Accessories unit within Philips' Consumer Lifestyle sector.
Integan wants to postpone sale to Telenet
The management team of the Belgian cable operator Integan has said it wants to postpone the sale of Interkabel's TV activities to Telenet. Last month, Telenet and Interkabel announced a contract between the two companies to hand over all television activities to Telenet. However, the deal was subject to approval from all four operators participating in the Interkabel venture; Integan, Interelektra, PBE and WVEN. Three of the companies seem to agree, but Integan, which is owned by 14 municipalities including the city of Antwerp, now has doubts about the agreement. Earlier this year, Integan installed a committee of specialists to advise the 14 shareholders about the future of the network. The company now wants to first await the advice from the committee before selling the TV services on the network. One of the possible scenarios could be that the cities will also look to sell the networks themselves, not just the rights to deliver services over them.
German DTT now reaches 68 million
According to the transmitter company T-Systems, German DTT will reach 68 million people, or about 85% of the population, by the year-end. Next year, the figure will rise to 90% of the population. In the last 12 months T-Systems has installed 78 transmitters on 26 different sites; next year a further 22 sites will be taken into service. The company estimates some 9 million DTT receivers are now in German homes, including set-top boxes, integrated DTVs, mobile DTT receivers and USB DVB-T sticks. The last major operation this year took place in the state of Saarland, where DTT came on the air on December 13.
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