News Briefs From Europe, Asia/Pacific And Latin America
By George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 12/20/2007 3:04:00 AM MT
The Calik Group is acquiring Turkey’s second largest media company ATV Sabah, which owns the entertainment TV channel ATV and the country’s most popular newspaper for about $1.1 billion.
Bertelsmann has announced that it is considering taking full control over RTL Group, Europe’s largest broadcasting company, buying the 10.2% of the group that is publicly traded.
ITV is paying about £26 million ($54 million) to acquire U.K. indie 12 Yard.
Svensk Filmindustri has acquired the feature film distribution company Sonet Film business from MTG for an undisclosed sum.
Worldwide sales of settop boxes declined by 2% in the third quarter, the Dell’Oro Group reports; strong growth in the IPTV and satellite set-top box market was not enough to offset the decline in settop sales to the cable market.
Better news comes from the International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers. It reports that broadcast equipment sales are growing at 14% a year, with European companies seeing a 17% increase in revenues.
French consumers once again have a choice of satellite TV providers, thanks to the AB Group which has launched its low-cost service which can cost as little as €4.90 ($7.00) for an entry level tier.
In France, Canal Plus has reached an agreement with the French producers association for rights to air their films on a catch-up service internet download service. The offering is currently being tested with a January 2008 launch likely.
TV5 Monde is partnering with La Banque Audiovisuelle to launch an internet download service, VODeotheque, which will over about 1,000 documentaries and programs on demand, with options to either buy or rent.
In the U.K., BT Vision’s download store is working with Hiro Media, Intel Corp. and FremantleMedia on a three month trial that will give customers a free film rental from FremantleMedia in exchange for watching targeted ads.
Also in the U.K., Microsoft is now allowing owners of its game console to purchase films via its Xbox Live Marketplace Video Store. And, Disney is creating a portal in the U.K. that will offer films, music and social network tools for young adults; additional portals are expected to follow in Europe.
Tiscali has launched an IPTV service in Milan, Rome and Cagliari in Italy, with plans to expand to five other cities by March of 2008.
Following the passage of stricter copyright laws in Russia, cable operator Akado I has announced plans to launch a legal music download service.
Major programmers continue to expand their presence in India as Turner International announced last week that it had set up a joint venture with Miditech and its parent company Alva Brothers to create a Hindi-language general entertainment channel.
EuroNews has won the European Commission’s call for bids to create an Arabic language news service; in 2008 EuroNews, which already offers news in seven languages, will add the Arabic language channel.
CNN is expanding its presence in the UAE. It has opened an office with full broadcast and production facilities in Abu Dhabi and appointed a new international correspondent and a new bureau chief.
France 24 is planning to launch an on demand mobile service in French, English and Arabic.
Pubcaster RAI, Alcatel-Lucent and mobile operator 3-Italia have announced plans for the first Italian trial of the new DVB-SH standard in Turin.
Chello Zone’s and Hit Entertainment’s pre-school channel JimJam has launched in Central Europe, where it has gotten carriage on UPC systems in about 1.4 million homes.
LUXE.TV, which bills itself as the first channel entirely focused on luxury living, has launched on Sky in the U.K., using GlobeCast for uplink services.
The Seven Network in Australia announced an exclusive licensing deal for current, library and upcoming feature films and television programming with NBC Universal International Television Distribution; in a second deal the Australian broadcasters has acquired a number of popular British series and TV programs from Granada International.
Singapore’s SingTel has announced plans to offer a line-up of popular local films on its VOD platform.
Spanish cable operator ONO has inked a VOD deal for with Warner Bros. International Television (WBITV) for new and library feature films. The Warner deal gives ONO’s VOD platform content from five of the Hollywood major studios.
Also on the program sales front WBITV has inked a major multi-year deal for films, TV series and animation titles with Turkish distributor Saran Media which will resell the product to outlets in Turkey.
Public broadcaster SRG in Switzerland has launched a HD Suisse channel that offers HD content in the country’s four official languages.
On the tech front, Italian telco Wind has decided to use Microsoft’s Mediaroom platform and Alcatel-Lucent’s products to launch a new IPTV service, InfoStrada TV.
Brazil Telecom is using UTStarcom’s RollingStream IPTV system for the telco’s new IPTV offering which has been launched in Brasilia, with plans to launch in other cities in 2008.
Kordia and TVWorks have selected Tandberg Television’s terrestrial television head-end system for the delivery of the Freeview digital terrestrial TV service in New Zealand.
Mexican operator Multimedios Redes has become is the first in Latin America to deploy C-COR's Mobile Workforce Manager and its CableEdge product to improve customer service operations.
On the tech front, Hanaro Telecom in Korea will use Alcatel-Lucent’s GPON solution to deliver such advanced broadband services as IPTV and VOD.
Irdento has inked a deal to supply 2 million smart cards to Chinese cable operator Jilin Provincial Network.
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