The new free-to-air channels that made their debut on the French DTT network (TNT) all said they were winners during the November round of viewing figures published by Mediametrie. The country’s biggest commercial broadcaster, TF1, is paying the price: for the first time in history, its audience share dropped below 30%, to 28.9%. W9, part [...]
Integan wants to postpone sale to Telenet
December 16, 2007 21.32 Europe/London By
The management team of the Belgian cable operator Integan has said it wants to postpone the sale of Interkabel’s TV activities to Telenet. Last month, Telenet and Interkabel announced a contract between the two companies to hand over all television activities to Telenet. However, the deal was subject to approval from all four operators participating [...]
Dutch talk station in EuroNews channel share
December 16, 2007 13.32 Europe/London By
The Dutch all talk TV channel Het Gesprek has signed a distribution agreement with EuroNews to share an analogue channel across all major Dutch cablenets. Het Gesprek will be available for nine hours a day between 16.00 and 01.00 hours, with Euronews filling the additional time. The new contract gives EuroNews access to two networks [...]
Showtime Arabia adds more channels
December 16, 2007 12.26 Europe/London By
Showtime Arabia, a pay-TV network in the Middle East & North Africa, has announced the addition of a number of new channels for 2008. From January 1, the line-up will be augmented with Nat Geo Wild, the children’s channel Kidsco, the Style Channel and Arabic shows and movies on the new Showshasha Extra network. Showtime [...]
Axel Springer calls off Polsat deal
December 14, 2007 12.30 Europe/London By
Axel Springer has pulled out of a deal to buy a 25.1% stake in the Polish national commercial broadcaster Polsat. Its decision follows reports earlier this week that Zygmunt Solorz-Zak, Polsat’s owner, was seeking a stake in Axel Springer’s extensive print interests in Poland, and even the German company itself, as part of any agreement. [...]
Canal Digital Sweden doubles IPTV base
December 14, 2007 12.30 Europe/London By
Canal Digital has increased the number of Swedish households that can receive its packages by 150% following a new distribution agreement with Svenska Fibernät. The deal with the communications provider brings the IPTV footprint to 500,000 households. It is an expansion of the Svenska Fibernät TV service for subscribers that will now be able to [...]
TVN sets its sights high
December 14, 2007 12.29 Europe/London By
Poland’s TVN plans to be the sixth leading broadcaster in Europe in the next 5-10 years, according to its VP Karen Burgess. Speaking in an interview with the local press, she added that it would begin expanding beyond Poland next year to neighbouring countries, focusing as much on their TV as Internet markets. At present, [...]
Finnish explore YLE smart card
December 14, 2007 12.20 Europe/London By
Finland’s ministry of justice is to examine the possibility of encrypting DTT transmissions from the public broadcaster YLE and issuing smart cards only to those that have paid the television licence fee. The method, which could be introduced as soon as 2010, would help shore up YLE finances, which have fallen in the wake of [...]
Kanal 2 maintains lead in Estonia
December 14, 2007 12.19 Europe/London By
According to data produced by TNS Emor, the most watched channel in Estonia last month was Kanal 2. Its claimed an audience share of 23.7% among viewers aged 4+, compared with 24.8% in November 2006, with the next most popular service being MTG-backed TV3 with 18.1% (18.0%). The public broadcaster ETV was in third place [...]
Further expansion of Numericable fibre-optic net
December 14, 2007 12.09 Europe/London By
Numericable has announced it has further extended its fibre-optic network to the regions of Grenoble, Nimes and Perpignan. The French cablenet began the deployment of the technology in 2005 and has subsequently connected almost two million households. Since September 2007 Numericable has been offering its subscribers speeds of 100 Mbps alongside HD services and video [...]
