Staff Writer

Norway’s Canal Digital is launching yet another service in its four Nordic territories of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The newcomer, which will launch on November 8, is Cinecinemas, managed […]

TPS has introduced a second decoder option, called Option Confort, to enable different members of the same household to watch different programmes on the TPS bouquet or to record one […]

Hackers have apparently managed to crack the encryption systems of most Europe’s major pay-TV operators, according to a report in weekly German news magazine Focus. The magazine said in a […]

Kids Europe Announces IPO Fox Kids Europe announced its Initial Public Offering the week before last. The offering is expected to close before Christmas. According to preliminary information, Fox Kids’ […]

Two regional TV channels from North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s largest state, will launch on satellite next year. Media authority LfR last week granted satellite licences to NRW 1, Privat TV and […]

Hamburg-based record company Edel Music intends to take over 16 per cent in German music channel Viva. According to chairman Michael Haentjes, Edel considers its investment in the Cologne-based channel […]

German general interest channel RTL Television can launch its planned digital thematic channels. The federal anti-concentration commission, the KEK, at its latest meeting gave the green light to the licence […]

Capital Research and Management Funds, part of The Capital Group, will become a shareholder of KirchMedia. In return for a share of 3.5 per cent, the Los Angeles-based company will […]

Pace Micro Technology’s share price rocketed last week thanks to news of its co-operation agreement with nine other technology companies to adopt a common, open standard for high speed broadband […]

Liberty Media Group has signed a letter of intent to invest $425 million in the Lockheed Martin-backed Astrolink broadband satellite project. Astrolink was formed as a joint venture between Lockheed […]

The satellite TV channel of Montenegro’s public broadcaster RTV Crna Gora has switched to a 24-hour format in clear MPEG-2. TV Montenegro will continue to broadcast in analogue five hours […]

The latest figures from Canal Plus reveal a total of 12.789 million pay TV subscribers in Europe as of September 30, an increase of 17 per cent over the previous […]

Italian pay-TV operator Stream has reported a record 120 per cent increase in subscribers to its digital platform for June. At the same time, Stream has announced that Corrado Sciolla […]

German media company Pro Sieben Group managed to increase turnover and profit during the first nine months of this year. Profit before tax climbed by DM10.3 million (Euro5.3 million) to […]

A&E’s History Channel is expected shortly to confirm three new distribution agreements for the Asian and Far East region. Whitney Goit, executive vice president, A&E TV Networks, said the three […]

An alliance made up of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Telecom Italia and German media magnate Leo Kirch may yet be the white knight that will save fledgling Italian TV network […]

Investment analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter say they expect BSkyB to achieve total digital sales of 2.4 million by the end of December. BSkyB’s net additions in the last […]

Middle East platform Orbit is said to be ending its commitment to Telecom Italia uplink division Telespazio. Altaf Alimohamed, chief executive of Star Select, which shares the Orbit platform, confirmed […]

MTV Italia is one step closer to being forced off the air following the October 6 announcement by the Italian telecommunications authority that home shopping channel H.O.T. Italia fulfills ownership […]

Alcatel Spacecom vice-president Alain Roger has signed shareholder agreements with Luis Escobar, CEO of Andesat, establishing the creation of Bolivar*Sat. This is a new joint venture for providing telecommunications, broadcasting, […]

Key: D=Digital, A=Analog 78.5 degrees E: Thaicom-2&3 D. Two Pakistani channels, PTV World and PTV Sports have launched on 3420 MHz vertical, SR 6666, FEC 3/4 in free-to-air MPEG-2. As […]

While Orbit struggles to drive subscriber numbers, new players such as Etisalat are preparing to enter the Middle Eastern multichannel broadcasting business. Interspace surveys current developments… On top of the […]

Kirch Group’s digital pay-TV operator Premiere World and MTV Networks Europe have reached a compromise, ending the conflict over the removal of MTV and VH-1 from the digital platform after […]

Germany’s satellite market will see three new entrants if the Frankfurt-based regional media authority approves new licence applications. Dogan Media International, the German sister company of the Turkish Dogan group, […]

Italian digital operator Stream is set to boost its pay-TV bouquet with the addition of several new channels in the coming months. Two new football channels aimed at fans of […]

CEO Bernard Schwartz launched the soft-rollout of Globalstar, the second GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite) operator at Telecom 99, with the message that "the other guys aren’t of […]

After two recent closures, the German-language satellite radio offering available on the Astra satellite system (19.2 degrees East) is set to gain an additional participant: Virus, the youth radio planned […]

Armand Carlier, CEO of Matra Marconi Space (MMS), has claimed the long-running problems with Matra’s solar arrays were "now sorted out; we know where the problem lies… and how to […]

Italian broadcaster Mediaset may extend its alliance with Germany’s Kirch Group to include pay-TV, according to Mediaset CEO Maurizio Carlotti. Commenting on rumours that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Canal […]

A year ago News Corp was ahead of Hughes-owned DirecTV in terms of global customers. News Corp. commanded 29.7 per cent of all satellite pay-TV subscribers, compared with DirecTV’s 26.6 […]