German cable operators ish and iesy have introduced three foreign language bouquets. Launched on Friday (March 23) the bouquets are for Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian viewers. The Serb package is called Pink consists of Pink Extra, Pink Plus and Pink Radio and costs €15.90 a month. The Croatian offer is called Tividi Croatia and contains […]
Greek IPTV market takes off, Vivodi launches service
Vivodi Telecom has said its ‘cable TV by Vivodi’ service is now up and running. Using a MEDIAstream platform supplied by MCOM, a leading Greek company in television technology over IP networks, it offers both live TV and VOD services via an ADSL2+ network. Vivodi also claims the network to be the largest privately owned […]
US court: no network-DVR for Cablevision
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that Cablevision will not be allowed to roll out a network-based DVR. The decision comes as blow to operators who have wanted to deploy such services rather than have DVRs in the home. “We are disappointed by the judge’s decision and continue […]
Dutch launch for Comedy Central
Viacom’s Comedy Central will launch in The Netherlands on April 30. The channel will broadcast in the evenings only in a channel share with the Dutch version of Nickelodeon and will be available on cable, satellite, DTT and IPTV. Following Germany and Poland this is the third localised version of Comedy Central in Continental Europe. […]
Last Tango for Luxembourg’s T.TV
Luxembourg broadcaster T.TV (Tango TV) has closed and the station and its assets have been put up for sale. Broadcasts at the Tele2 venture ceased last Friday (March 16) amid reports that the company had racked up losses of €18 million. The entertainment channel launched in February 2002 as a competitor to the national broadcaster […]
Multimedia/TPSA ink deal
The Polish MSO Multimedia Polska is reported to have signed a fixed line telephony interconnection agreement with the country’s incumbent telco TPSA. It will come into effect on July 1 and be valid indefinitely. Multimedia Polska is Poland’s third largest cable operator, claiming 575,000 subscribers as of the end of last year.
Austria’s RTR to subsidise set-top boxes
The Austrian media regulator RTR is to spend €5 million on subsidising 66,666 boxes at €60 each to encourage the transition to digital broadcasting. Currently, subscribers of 25 operators serving 440,000 of the country’s 1.2 million cable households are able to switch to digital. The cable boxes in question cost around €125 without a subsidy, […]
Telenet posts 800,000 broadband subs
Telenet, the Flemish cable operator controlled by Liberty Global, now has 800,000 broadband Internet subscribers. This represents a penetration rate of 30%, or the same figure as for cable homes in the territory as a whole. The 800,000 subscribers include 43,700 that were formerly served by UPC Belgium, which Telenet took control of at the […]
Israeli VOD launch for Hallmark
Hallmark Channel is to introduce a video on demand service on the HOT cable network in Israel. Commencing in April, subscribers will be able to choose from a library that includes mini-series Alice in Wonderland, Larry Mcmurtry’s – Dead Man’s Walk and A Girl Thing; series McLeod’s Daughters and movies Hound of the Baskervilles, Nowhere […]
US CableLabs plans hybrid boxes
US CableLabs, the cable television industry’s technology development consortium, announced that it is working on hybrid cable boxes, which will receive both off-air digital broadcasts as well as tune in to digital cable. Such hybrid boxes would help solve a major problem for US cablers, who are faced with carriage bills from broadcasters. By combining […]