DirecTV

DirecTV Group will acquire Darlene Investments LLC’s share of DirecTV Latin America LLC, giving DirecTV Group full equity ownership of the Latin American satellite-TV provider, DirecTV announced Jan. 30.

DirecTV Group will pay $325 million for Darlene Investments’ 14.1 percent share of DirecTV Latin America. The agreement also ends all pending litigation against DirecTV.

DirecTV Latin America provides digital TV service to about 4 million customers in Latin America.

Separately, DirecTV Inc. has selected risk management provider Neural Technologies to assist it in reducing its risk to fraud. "Since we’ve thwarted signal thieves with air-tight access cards, we’ve seen more instances of fraud and we’re taking active steps to address these illegal activities," James Whalen, DirecTV’s vice president for signal integrity, said in a statement.

NDS

NDS, a supplier of conditional access and middleware to satellite pay-TV operators, has seen a double-digit increase in half-year revenues, the company announced. For the second half of 2006, NDS reported revenues of $329.2 million, an increase of more than 11 percent compared to the same period in 2005.

BskyB

BSkyB’s reported strong subscriber growth but an increased churn rate in the company’s second quarter, which closed Dec. 31. BSkyB closed the period with nearly 8.4 million subscribers.

During the second quarter, BSkyB reported customer additions of 432,000, the highest in six years, but net subscriber growth was just 183,000, giving BSkyB its highest churn rate since it went digital, said Nick Bell, a media equity analyst at Bear Stearns.

"In our view, this market shows a continuing trend of rising churn in what is becoming an increasingly competitive marketplace given the NTL/Telewest rebrand to Virgin Media this quarter and BT is still to fully roll out BT Vision," Bell said in a research note.

In terms of high-definition television (HDTV) and broadband, two key performance barometers for the company in 2007, BSkyB said it now has close to 185,000 HD subscribers and 260,000 broadband subscribers.

Canalsat

French direct-to-home operator Canalsat ended 2006, its final year of competition with rival TPS, with nearly 3.5 million subscribers, a net increase of 272,000 compared with 2005, parent company Vivendi announced.

The two companies combined their operations Jan. 4 and now report nearly 5 million subscribers, making the new Canalsat the second largest satellite pay-TV operator in Europe behind BSkyB.

Vivendi also reported that overall revenues of the Canal+ Group for 2006 rose nearly 8 percent to 3.6 billion euros ($4.7 billion).

TerreStar

TerreStar Networks Inc. plans to raise $450 million in funding through the sale of senior secured discount notes due in 2015, TerreStar announced Jan. 29.

TerreStar, a majority-owned subsidiary of Motient Corp., intends to use about $72 million of its net proceeds from the offering to repay debt due to Motient, with the remainder reserved for working capital and general corporate purposes, including the buildout of TerreStar’s integrated satellite and terrestrial network.

Motient will use cash on hand and the money from TerreStar to repay its senior notes due in 2007.

See World Satellites

See World Satellites Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of FTS Group Inc., expects to post an increase of 35 percent to 38 percent in year-over-year top line sales for the month of January, FTS announced Feb. 1.

"Our satellite television business is off to a great start for 2007," Scott Gallagher, CEO of FTS, an acquisition and development company operating in the wireless, technology and Internet space, said in a statement. "The industry as it relates to our market continues to grow at a very strong clip. The recent launch of new high-definition channels in our core market and new product offerings from Dish Networks such as Mobile Dish in car satellite service have all had a positive impact on our underlying business."

Global Satellite Broadcasting

Global Satellite Broadcasting Corp. was asked by Paragon International Placements Ltd. Jan. 29 to delay its listing in the United States.

The request was made "to allow us to wrap up the details of several corporate acquisitions we have negotiated for GSBC," Chris Cangi, a senior partner at Paragon, said in a statement. "The paperwork is being finalized and we want to have everything in place before the launch. We apologize to GSBC shareholders but we believe these acquisitions will have a dynamic effect on the listing, as the market will clearly see how the company will roll out it business across the globe."

Ronald Flynn, founder of GSBC, said the delay would not otherwise affect his company’s first shareholders meeting, slated for Feb. 10 in Bangkok. "I understand the importance of the request. It is important that shareholders understand we only want the best for GSBC and its family of companies."