The CW previews primetime series on Yahoo

The American network The CW is to become the fourth broadcaster to showcase primetime series online at no charge. Starting this Saturday new episodes of Aliens in America and Life is Wild will be shown before the actual airing date on the network. Viewers in the United States can see the brand new episodes on [...]

Fox offers prime time freeview in iTunes

The American Fox network has chosen the Apple iTunes store to distribute new episodes of a number of prime time series for free to viewers. For a period of two weeks after the airing of episodes of Back to You, K-Ville, Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Prison Break, Bones, American Dad and Til Death, they will [...]

Nelonen in Disney VOD deal

Nelonen, also known as Channel 4 Finland, has signed a significant VOD rental agreement with Disney-ABC International Television. Viewers of Nelolen’s broadband TV service will be able to view episodes of Disney-ABC series just four days after they air in the US. Episodes of Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost and Desperate Housewives will be available [...]

Arte to start free online Catch-up service

On October 1, 2007, the paneuropean cultural channel Arte will launch its online Catch-up service called Plus 7. Viewers will be able to watch programmes online for seven days from the original broadcast date at no charge. After that date, a number of programmes will be available at a charge at the ArteVOD site, which [...]

German History and Biography Channels launch VOD

The German versions of The History Channel and Biography Channel have launched an online VOD service for their most popular channels. Programmes can be viewed for between €0.99 and €2.99 per episode for a 24 hour period or on a subscription basis of €4.99 per month. At the moment, the offer consists of 20 programmes; [...]

3 ups Swedish mobile broadband

The mobile operator 3 has turbocharged its Swedish mobile broadband network to offer downlink speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.4Mbps. Along with its network supplier Ericsson, it will also continue to extend network coverage and upgrade to higher HSPA speeds throughout 2007. Peder Ramel, 3 Scandinavia’s CEO, expressed his satisfaction with [...]

Dutch pubcasters faced with large podcast bills

Dutch public broadcasters NPS, NOS, KRO and VPRO have received large copyright bills for podcasts that may contain music from the Dutch Association of Record Companies (NVPI) through the rights agency SENA. A number of podcasts have been or are now being taken off-line. Broadcaster KRO said it has received a bill of over €10,000, while [...]

SPTI inks Polish VOD deal

Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) has signed a VOD agreement with Poland’s ITI Neovision. It will allow the latter’s DTH platform n to offer a range of SPTI blockbuster movies on its new nVOD service, which made its debut in September 7. n is one of three DTH platforms in Poland and currently has in [...]

Canal Digitaal prepares for push-VOD

IBC 2007 – AMSTERDAM. During a press briefing at IBC, Canal Digitaal’s COO Kees Färber said the company plans to introduce push-VOD services sometime next year. The move is part of the plan to develop the Astra 3 position at 23.5 degrees East into a second DTH slot for the Dutch and Flemish markets. (See [...]

Multimedia prepares VOD launch

The Polish MSO Multimedia Polska will roll out its VOD service this month, according to the company’s president Andrzej Rogowski. Speaking to the local press, he added that he expects the service to have “several tens of thousands” of subscribers by the end of the year. Rogowski also said that Multimedia Polska plans to become [...]