The Slovakian telecommunications and TV operator Towercom has contracted a further transponder at the Astra orbital position 23.5 degrees East. Towercom, until recently known as TRI R, owns and operates the Skylink TV platform in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, will use the additional capacity for different local channels for DTH reception including HD.
News Corp bTV sale approaches
September 29, 2008 02.11 Europe/London By
News Corp has selected a new company to advise it on the sale of the Bulgarian national commercial station bTV.
Freesat releases first figures
September 29, 2008 00.01 Europe/London By
The Freesat free-to-air satellite platform has notched up 100,000 sales in the first five months following its launch. Freesat has also announced that its personal video recorder (PVR) product will be known as Freesat+. Manufacturer Humax is scheduled to launch the first units in November.
200,000 homes for Premiere Star
September 28, 2008 18.40 Europe/London By
The German pay-TV bouquet Premiere Star has reached 200,000 homes, according to MD Wolfram Winter, speaking to the German trade publication Digital Insider. The company also reports figures in the black.
Channels.com lets viewers find web videos
September 28, 2008 18.38 Europe/London By
Channels.com said it launched “the web’s first free service for discovering and subscribing to video feeds” calling itself a video feed “aggregator”, helping users stay up-to-date with the new videos that are released each day by thousands of web sites.
Eredivise Live scores 200,000 subs
September 28, 2008 07.07 Europe/London By
The Dutch live football channel Eredivisie Live has said it has reached 200,000 subscribers three weeks after the start of the new season. The channel is jointly owned by the CV Eredivisie (which represents the Dutch clubs) and Endemol and is distributed on all platforms.
IPTV for Serbia
September 26, 2008 12.37 Europe/London By
Telekom Serbia is to launch what will be the country’s first IPTV service on October 15.
Kino Polska eyes HD launch
September 26, 2008 12.21 Europe/London By
The Polish film channel Kino Polska is to become available in HD next year.
Cablenets warned on carriage charges
September 26, 2008 11.44 Europe/London By
CTAM EUROSUMMIT ’08 – BERLIN. Cable operators have been warned that programmers may look elsewhere if they are unable to reach agreements on their carriage.
Record HD package for Toya
September 26, 2008 11.34 Europe/London By
The Polish MSO Toya will start offering its subscribers a package containing 11 HD channels on October 1.
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Digital TV Eastern Europe NEW REPORT by Simon Murray of Digital TV Research. 2012 is a watershed year for Eastern Europe as the number of digital homes for 15 forecast countries will exceed the analogue total for the first time. This electronically-delivered,150-page report comes in three parts, a PDF file and two Excel workbooks. Countries covered include Russia and Ukraine.