TVN has unveiled a huge expansion plan for Mango Media, the teleshopping company it acquired for €13 million earlier this month. Local sources indicate that the Polish broadcaster expects to hire at least 100 additional staff at Mango Media and see its income rise from a current PLN24 million (€6.32 million) a year to PLN200 [...]

The board of directors at Magyar Telekom has proposed further integration within the company. If given the go ahead, it would see the business activities of T-Online Hungary that include ADSL, cable Internet, IPTV and VoIP services merged into those of the incumbent telco’s T-Com wireline services. Those remaining in T-Online – the content and [...]

Chris Dziadul examines Telenor’s plans for Central and Eastern Europe. Telenor Satellite Broadcasting (TSB) is not a company that readily comes to mind in Central and Eastern Europe, which is already served by several other leading satellite service providers including Eutelsat, SES-Astra and Spacecom’s Amos. However, it already has a long-established presence in the region [...]

The ITU has announced the cancellation of its forthcoming ITU Telecom Europe 2007 event, which was scheduled to take place in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, this December. According to the Union, the decision has been taken “in order to focus capacity and resources in upcoming ITU Telecom events, as well as a number of new [...]

Speaking to the local press, Jan Wejchert, the joint owner of the Polish media concern ITI Group, said that it could launch up to three more thematic channels for distribution on its proprietary new generation DTH platform n by the end of the year. They will be in addition to a planned new business channel [...]

Speaking at an event in Athens organised by the European Satellite Organisations Association (ESOA) and entitled 50 Years European Union: 50 Years Satellites, the Greek communications minister and OTE president hinted that Hellas Sat may soon acquire a second satellite system. Hellas Sat is 95.69% owned by the incumbent telco OTE and has clients in [...]

The documentary channel Nat Geo Wild is to launch as a localised service in Poland. According to local reports, it is currently available only in English to subscribers of UPC and Multimedia Polska. The new localised version will be on air for 18 hours daily. Also in Poland, Discovery Civilisation will become a 24-hour channel [...]

The US media entrepreneur Peter Gerwe has become a shareholder in U-Turn Media Group, a Prague and Denver-based company that supplies video content to mobile phones. Gerwe has played a leading role in Russia’s TV industry, his achievements including the creation of CTC Media, a broadcaster backed by Sweden’s Modern Times Group (MTG). His activities [...]

France Telecom has emerged as the favourite to acquire Deutsche Telekom’s Spanish Internet business Ya.com. According to local and agency reports, Ya.com could be swapped for France Telecom’s wireless business in The Netherlands. Ya.com is the fourth largest provider of broadband services in Spain after Telefónica, Orange and the MSO owner and has 400,000 subscribers. [...]