Featured Stories

STUDIO UNIVERSAL GETS OK

Studio Universal, the pay-TV movie channel operated by Universal Studios Networks Germany, will most probably be able to launch, as planned, on 1 September. Following the directors of the 15...

SAUDI ARABIA PREPARES FOR PIONEER

The established Middle Eastern DTH broadcasters are soon to be joined by the long-awaited MMDS service for Saudi Arabia… The long-awaited launch of a Saudi Arabian multichannel MMDS system is...

IRIDIUM INVOKES GRACE

Troubled MSS operator Iridium has invoked a 30-day grace period for the payment of $90 million in interest due on July 15 on its $1.45 billion outstanding senior notes. The...

NEWS BYTES...

Italian TV holding Mediaset has increased its stake in Spanish private channel Telecinco, from 25 to 40 per cent. The quota, worth L300 billion (Pounds 101 million), was previously held...

TRANSPONDER MONITOR

166 degrees E: PAS-8 D. TV Nacional de Chile has leased a C-Band digital stream on PAS-8 to extend its coverage to Asia and the Pacific Rim. The signal is...

PIRATES FOILED

In the first Italian crackdown on digital TV piracy, police from Genoa have broken up an illegal ring that sold as many as 500,000 cloned digital decoders and smart cards...

CLT-UFA BLOCKS MURDOCH

Media company CLT-UFA doesn’t want to sell its shares in German general interest channel Vox to Rupert Murdoch. A CLT-UFA spokeswomen said that the company was unfazed by News Corp’s...

PACE REPORTS BIG INCREASE IN DIGITAL

Pace Micro Technology reported slightly reduced turnover of Pounds 182.8 million for the year ended 29 May 1999 (compared with Pounds 184 million for 1998). Revenues from sales of digital...

CANAL SATELITE STARTS TO PULL AHEAD

Investment analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter believe Spanish pay-TV operator Sogecable is in an "excellent position" to take advantage of "one of Europe’s most attractive pay-TV markets." Sogecable, operator...

DF-1 NOTICE

Kirch Group’s digital bouquet DF-1 has given notice of termination of contracts to a number of third party channels, effective from September. Channels affected include BBC Prime. A spokeswoman said:...