Satellite News

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Kudelski launches OpenTV takeover bid

By Julian Clover | February 27, 2009 | 09:27 UK

The Kudelski Group is looking to cement its relationship with OpenTV through a $127 million (€99.63m) bid for the outstanding shares in the company.

The Swiss conditional access provider has held voting control of the San Francisco middleware and advertising solutions company since November 2006. Sales teams have already begun to work in tandem and Kudelski says the transaction would provide for better integration of solutions and services to customers. “Efforts to improve efficiencies and service delivery are vital to both the Kudelski Group and OpenTV in today’s economic environment,” the company said in a statement.

The $1.35 per share cash offer is based on a 35% premium on OpenTV’s closing share price on February 26. Kudelski will fund the purchase through third party debt.

It is anticipated that OpenTV will now form a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the proposal. Kudelski has stressed that while it wants to reach a definitive agreement as soon as possible it has no intention of disposing of its controlling stake should the bid be unsuccessful.

Announcing its 2008 financials, Kudeslski said some of the Group’s largest accounts had now moved to its new model, representing some 25 million smart cards, and having a strong effect on the 2008 results. One company to have adopted the new model is the US DTH operator EchoStar, where although the model contributed positively to revenues, it did have a negative effect on Group 2008 margins.

Kudelski reported a Group operating profit of CHF18.5 million, as revenues grew by 20.4% in constant currency to CHF1 billion.

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Cyfrowy Polsat with a new contract with Eutelsat

* 2009-02-28 11:58:32 / Janusz Sulisz
* Last update: 2009-02-28 19:30:39
* Source: Cyfrowy Polsat / tvpolsat.info

26 February 2009 year, the Board Polsat Digital has signed a multi-year agreement with satellite operator Eutelsat. It is the subject of hiring a satellite transponder capacity on the Hot Bird 9 (13 ° E). The value of the contract is denominated in euros and in the duration of a contract, converted to USD at the rate 4.5678 PLN for 1 euro published by the National Bank of Poland on 27 February 2009, will amount to 124 million €.


Terms and Conditions do not differ from market standards used for these types of agreements. The agreement was regarded as significant, therefore, that its value exceeds 10 percent. revenue for the last four quarters of turnover.

Cyfrowy Polsat currently manages the following transponders on the satellite Hot Bird 9 (13 ° E):

Hot Bird 8 (13 ° E) tp. 74 (12.188 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)
Hot Bird 8 (13 ° E) tp. 78 (12.265 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC = 3 / 4)
Bird 8 Hot (13 º E) tp. 79 (12.284 GHz, pol. H, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)
6 Hot Bird (13 º E) tp. 132 (11.158 GHz, pol. V, SR: 27500, FEC: 3 / 4)

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Arabsat plans a new satellite every year

By Robert Briel | March 1, 2009 | 11:53 UK


Arabsat announced it plans to launch a new satellite every year until 2012. The operator will announce plans with its next two planned satellites, the Badr-7 and Badr-5C during next week’s Cabsat 2009 in Dubai.
Eng. Khalid Balkheyour, Arabsat President and CEO, stated in a statement that “Arabsat will declares its new satellites Badr – 7 & 5 C which their contracts have been signed earlier this month as a step in Arabsat future plans that calls for launching a satellites every year till 2012. It’s also a good chance for Arabsat to cope up with the latest updates in the market of Satellites and Telecommunications and explore the new investments opportunities in the Middle East market. Arabsat will give a presentation, in cooperation with the ASBU, about the joint project of Menos.”
Arabsat operates a fleet opf satellites at the 26 Degree East and 30.5 Degree East positions. Badr-5 is a Eurostar-3000 model with 56 active transponders in Ku-band and Ka-band, Badr-5 will primarily provide full in-orbit back-up capacity both for Badr-4 and Badr-6 at its 26° East position. Badr-7 is also a Eurostar E3000 model, equipped with 36 active transponders in Ku-band aabd will also be placed at the at 26° East.

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Conditional access specialist Nagra Kudelski is mounting a take-over bid for middleware company Open TV. Kudelski already has voting control, but not economic control.
Andre Kudeslki, CEO at Nagra, says his company is offering minority shareholders a total of US$127m (€99.6m) for their shares, an impressive premium of some 35% over Open TV’s Feb 26 closing price.

Open TV’s Board will now consider the bid, but most observers expect it to be approved.

© Rapid TV News 2009

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The shareholders of troubled German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere have approved a planned capital increase of €412 million. At an extraordinary general meeting in Munich, 99.6% of the stockholders present gave the green light.
The capital increase is expected to be completed in the second quarter. “The approval of the capital increase gives us the opportunity to transform Premiere into a viable and successful company,” said CEO Mark Williams. “Following the recapitalization, we will be able to make the necessary investments in programming, sales and marketing, customer service and technology to achieve the required level of subscriber growth.”

With a re-launch supported by a large-scale marketing campaign Premiere expects to boost subscription sales in the third quarter, hoping to reach the financial profit zone in 2011.

© Rapid TV News 2009

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Setanta and ITV stall FA payments

Cash-strapped Setanta and ITV are seeking to renegotiate the payment terms of their £425 million (E474m) rights deals with the UK Football Association for coverage of FA Cup and England international football matches.

According to reports, Setanta has delayed making a payment of £10 million on its £150 million contract while ITV has met its payments so far, but is attempting to adjust the schedule so that less money is paid out in the opening years of its £275 million deal.

The two broadcasters signed the four-year deal for the rights to the matches in 2007, now Setanta is reportedly trying to renegotiate the terms of its deal. Last month it came off badly in the bidding for the rights to Premier League games, losing one of its two packages to BSkyB.

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GlobeCast launches African DTH platform

GlobeCast’s African DTH platform has successfully started transmissions on SES Astra’s Astra 4A (Sirius 4) satellite. African broadcaster VoxAfrica is one of the first channels to sign up for the new platform. It is the first Ku-band DTH platform with coverage over sub-Saharan Africa, providing broadcasters with the opportunity to reach households across the continent.

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Romania gets E!

Comcast International Media Group (CIMG) has further expanded its presence in Southeastern Europe with the signing of a channel deal for the E! International Network on Romtelecom's Dolce platform in Romania.

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Roll out of the high-definition version of Sony Picture Entertainment’s AXN, AXN HD, has started in Korea, following a deal between SPE Networks Asia (SPENA), transmission services provider Globecast and satellite operator Measat.
GlobeCast will pick up the AXN HD channel feed from SPENA’s facilities in Singapore directly to GlobeCast’s Parkview Square facility. GlobeCast will then deliver the signal via its RIBU fibre network to GlobeCast’s Hong Kong teleport for uplink to MEASAT-3’s platform and transmission to the Korean audience, initially via MPEG-4/DVB-S and subsequently moving to MPEG-4/DVB-S2.

AXN has been in operation in Korea since 2005, having first launched on the SkyLife DTH platform in July 2005. It then debuted on Korea Telecom’s (KT’s) IPTV service, MegaTV, in November 2008 along with the official launch of IPTV services nationwide.

AXN Korea is the first among all channels and feeds at SPENA to be migrated to HD. The brand new AXN HD channel in Korea will continue to be available via SkyLife which currently has upwards of 2.3 million subscribers, as part of its HD package; as well as on MegaTV, which has a subscriber base of 800,000 including VOD and linear service subscribers as of January 2009.

GlobeCast’s recent HD deals with MEASAT include The History Channel HD and National Geographic Channel HD.

© Rapid TV News 2009

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German technical service provider Media Broadcast will in future transmit films to Kitag Group cinemas in Switzerland via its digital satellite network.


The agreement includes establishment and service provision for the reception facilities in 28 cinemas in Bern, Basel, St Gallen, Lucerne and Abtwil. “Thanks to the most modern technology we will soon be able to receive not only 3D blockbusters of the big major studios via satellite, but also 2D and 3D live events from alternative content segments,” said Kitag’s managing director Philippe Täschler.

Media Broadcast is able to feed the digital film material from rights dealers directly to central servers in cinemas through its pan-European Digital Cinema Distribution Network. The subsidiary of French TDF group recently connected the Hollywood Megaplex cinema group in Austria to its satellite network.

© Rapid TV News 2009

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Presenting its 2008 results and posting a strong growth in earnings (EBITDA) in 2009, Vivendi Group, announced slightly upward revenues at Canal+ Group. Total revenues were €4.55 bn, up 4.4% compared to 2007 while pay-TV operations in France increased 2.8%.


Growth, while small, was driven by increased subs to Canal+ and CanalSat. At the end of last year, the pay-TV offer totalled 10.6 million subs of which half is attributable to Canal+ and half to CanalSat. Canal+ subscriptions remained strong, comparable to those reported in 2007 with roughly 600,000 new individual subs in mainland France. In 2008, Canal+ converted around 350, 000 analogue subscribers to its digital offer and transferred nearly one million TPS subs to the CanalSat platform.

The churn rate on both Canal+ and CanalSat was 14.7%.

Canal+ Group’s other revenues grew significantly, up 13.8% to €701 million due mainly to international operations. Canal+ Poland recorded portfolio growth exceeding 310,000 new subs to 1.4 million.

Commenting on those results, CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said Vivendi SA could be interested in new pay-TV acquisitions but has not found the appropriate target. But he refused to express himself about an interest in Spanish platform Digital+, being sold by owner Prisa.

Vivendi’s total revenues reached €25.3 bn, up 17.2% with an adjusted net income of €2.7 bn, up 8.4%.

© Rapid TV News 2009

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Poland steps up DTT trails

By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:32 UK

The Polish transmission company TP Emitel will start undertaking enhanced DTT trails in Kraków and environs from this Friday (March 6).

According to the company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the incumbent telco TPSA, it will be employing a stronger transmitter than previously, located in the Kraków/Krzemionki region, to distribute the public channels TVP1, TVP2, TVP Info, TVP Sport and TVP HD.

Poland has been undertaking DTT trials for several years and is expected to finally launch a full service this autumn.

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History expands Romanian carriage

By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:55 UK

History has increased its presence in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by launching on UPC in Romania.

The 24-hour channel, which is being broadcast in English with full Romanian translation, already operates in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Montenegro.

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TVN 24 tops Polish thematic chart

By Chris Dziadul | March 4, 2009 | 09:14 UK

News-based TVN 24 remains by far the most popular thematic channel in Poland.

Data produced by TNS OBOP for Wirtualne Media shows that the service claimed an audience share of 3.17% among viewers aged 4+ in February, as opposed to 2.94% a year earlier.

Disney Channel was in second place (0.98%), followed by AXN and Mini Mini (each with 0.8%), Jetix (0.73%) and Eurosport (0.69%).

TVN 24 was also the most watched thematic channel in the 16-49, with a share of 1.61%. It was followed by AXN (1.19%), Discovery and Disney Channel (0.91% each) and HBO (0.88%).

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ITV Local to close

By Julian Clover | March 4, 2009 | 08:59 UK

ITV is to close its broadband delivered news and information service ITV Local. Instead the network will concentrate on its video on demand content including ITV.com.

ITV Local was launched in early 2007 after a year-long trial in the South East region. Its closure comes after the BBC Trust rejected separate plans for a local online video service that keeps the market in the hands of the increasing number of local newspapers building online video content.

Earlier this month ITV reduced its local output to nine regions following permission from the regulator Ofcom, saving the broadcaster £40 million in 2009. ITV is planning total cost savings of £155m in 2009, rising to £175m in 2010 and £245m in 2011. Drama production is being scaled back and the Leeds studios, responsible for the production of Heartbeat and The Royal are to close.

The broadcaster confirmed it would sell the online school reunion site Friends Reunited and that it was considering the options for the SDN terrestrial multiplex operator.