Category: Software

MUMBAI: The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (Casbaa) has re-elected Marcel Fenez, global leader – entertainment & media practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers, for a two-year term as chairman.

The decision was taken by during the annual general meeting elections to the Casbaa chairmanship, the Casbaa board of directors and the Casbaa council of governors for 2010/2011.
 
Meanwhile, elected for two-year terms to the Casbaa council of governors are Bag Network MD & chairman Anurradha Prasad, Espn Star Sports MD Manu Sawhney, Tata Sky MD and CEO Vikram Kaushik, IMCL (Incablenet and Indigital) MD Ravi Mansukhani, Measat COO Paul Brown-Kenyon, Multi Channels Asia MD Gregg Creevey, SAT-GE president & CEO Andrew Jordan, TM Net CEO Jeremy Kung,
GroupM Asia Pacific CEO Mark Patterson, HK Cable TV CFO William Kwan, TV5Monde MD Asia Alexandre Muller and Viaccess Director of Asia Christopher Hoare.

Retaining seats on the Casbaa council of governors 2010 are Cisco director of operations – video and cable solutions group Peter Papaioannou, Comcast International Media Group MD Asia Christine Fellowes, Euronews director worldwide distribution Jill Grinda, Eurosport Asia MD Arjan Hoekstra, iMediaHouse/Focus Media chairman and CEO PJ Wong, Mabuhay Satellite president & CEO Garie Pimentel, Minter Ellison partner Nigel Francis and StarHub head content Kathleen Syron.  
 
While Robert Gilby, Disney-ABC International Television (Asia Pacific) SVP and MD has newly joined the Casbaa board of directors, the members who have retained their board seats include AsiaSat CEO Peter Jackson, ITV Global Entertainment regional director James Ross, Sony Pictures Television EVP, Asia Pacific networks Todd Miller, TrueVisions executive vice chairman Sompan Charumilinda and Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific SVP & GM Ian Carroll.

Tom Keaveny, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific EVP and MD, on the other hand, has stepped down from the Casbaa board for 2010.

MUMBAI: The BBC‘s repeated reinvention of itself through different media has enabled it to remain relevant over eight decades, reveals BBC Vision director Jana Benett.

New technology has transformed services provided to viewers over the last five years. Currently, the BBC iPlayer is establishing itself as a viewing portal and attracts 600,000 visitors a day. The site attracts more than ten million people a week.
 
The remarks were made by Benett at the London School of Economics. She explained that four thousand people work in her division, many of them programme makers, located in four production bases all over the country.

One of the reasons it‘s called Vision and not simply television is that it includes multimedia commissioning and production, that is designed to give audiences great programme content whether they are watching on a TV or any other screen.

Remarked Benett, “Just over a third of the licence fee comes to BBC Vision. In return, people in this country get a multimedia powerhouse that‘s unique in the world. We commissioned around 20,000 hours of programmes last year, and invested an estimated ?1.1 billion in this country‘s creative industries.

“Our channels and services are performing extremely well at the moment: appreciation scores are high, audiences are buoyant and programmes are winning scores of awards.”

MUMBAI: Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom have signed an agreement to merge their UK operations, T-Mobile and Orange respectively, into a 50:50 joint venture company.

This binding agreement confirms the terms of the transaction announced on 8 September last year.
 
The agreement is subject to the approval of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom and the board of directors of France Telecom.

Completion of the merger is conditional upon approval by relevant authorities and remains expected in the first half of 2010 as previously indicated.

Says Deutsche Telekom CFO Timotheus Höttges, “This joint venture is based on the full commitment of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to a long term partnership.

“The negotiations were conducted in a fair manner by both sides and I am certain that this spirit of professionalism and partnership will shape the future of our joint venture. It will set new standards as the number one in the UK mobile market.” 
 
Avers Orange deputy CEO in charge of Group Finance and Information Systems Gervais Pellissier, “The relative terms of the transaction as announced on 8 September were fully confirmed. I would like to stress the excellent cooperation between the teams of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom that enabled us to deliver on the timing and process objectives which we set out in September.

“This is an important step towards our objective of establishing an excellent platform to deliver operational synergies and offer innovative and high quality services to our customers.”

MUMBAI: 9XM, the hybrid music and entertainment channel created for the UK market, will cease operations by the end of the year.

Faced with financial woes, INX Media had earlier in August stopped running its two separate channels – Hindi general entertainment channel 9X and music channel 9XM.
 
“We are exiting the UK business for some time, and will re-launch the channel after 6-8 months,” INX Media group director – distribution Arun Mohan tells Indiantelevision.com.

The hybrid channel, which is available at EPG 829 on Sky Digital and EPG 513 on Freesat, will be closed within two months.

“We have started the closure process and it may take one or two months,” Mohan explains. 
 
Indian broadcasters are finding the going tough in global markets due to global slowdown and a clutter of Hindi entertainment channels. “Even market leader Zee‘s growth is under pressure in UK and the US,” says a media analyst.

MUMBAI: Times Group’s entire video library of premium content will now be available for mobile users in India.

Times Audience Network (TAN), the Group’s digital video arm, has formed a strategic partnership with Vuclip, a real-time transcoding technology provider.
 
With the tie-up, users can access premium English news content on their mobile devices from Times Now, business news from ET Now, entertainment news from Zoom and music videos from Times Music, amongst other content partners, through Vuclip’s proprietary mobile video platform.

Says Times Internet Ltd CEO Rishi Khiani, “The way the product has been designed is to bring the same sense of urgency to news delivery as we have on-air. Vuclip allows users across mobile operators and devices to have access in near real-time to the latest news, entertainment and gossip from TAN‘s premium content partners.”  
 
Adds Vuclip CEO Nikhil Jakatdar, “We are thrilled to be working with TAN to power its mobile video content library and make it available to mobile phone users throughout India.”

Mobile video for the group channels – Times Now, ET Now and Zoom – can also be accessed on www.v.timesnow.tv; www.v.etnow.tv and www.v.zoomtv.in.

Mobile video for other TAN partners, including Balaji, iStream, Lehren, Desimad and Desihits, can be found on www.official.vuclip.com.

MUMBAI: Scripps Networks Interactive, which has identified international expansion as one of its key growth strategies, will launch Food Network in Asia on 1 January 2010.
 
The new Food Network channel, which will be programmed and versioned for specific countries, will be distributed through Measat Satellite Systems and Ascent Media. The ad-supported service will be available in high definition (HD).

Scripps Networks International president international development division Greg Moyer says, “Given the success of the Food Network brand in the United States, it’s natural to bring this genre to Asia where food is such an important part of culture and tradition.

“Food Network is an obvious and logical choice for international distribution given its universal appeal and brand power. Our objective is to aggregate an engaged and growing audience of passionate ‘foodies’ across the globe.”

Plans for the Asian version of the Food Network include original programming from the regions it will reach, as well as relevant shows that were produced for US audiences. 
 
Scripps Networks Interactive is the majority and controlling owner of the Food Network in the US.

Last month, Scripps announced its first channel carriage outside North America: a joint venture with Chello Zone to launch Food Network in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Looking to further capitalise on a growing appetite for food TV, the company recently announced plans to launch the Cooking Channel in the US in third quarter next year. The 24-hour network will cater to avid food lovers by offering food information and instructional cooking programming.

MUMBAI: Gospel Music Channel (GMC) is set to launch GMC HD on 27 November, the day after Thanksgiving.
 
Said GMC founder and president Charles Humbard, “Like sports, no other genre of programming benefits as much from the High Definition experience as music. We have been aggressively producing original content and acquiring programming in high-def for quite some time in preparation for GMC HD. Affiliates and viewers have been asking for GMC in high definition and the right time has come to provide it. We expect to announce affiliation agreements in time for the launch.” 
 
GMC‘s HD launch will occur with the world HD premiere of Facing the Giants at 8 pm followed by the exclusive world premiere of a new original concert, featuring Switchfoot (10.30 pm). 
 

MUMBAI: In a bid to lure and retain its subscribers, Star Hub and mioTV have announced new sports promotions after it was decided to move Barclays Premier League action from StarHub to IPTV service mioTV next year.

StarHub lost the rights of English Premier League (EPL) to mioTV in the bidding war as well as carriage of the ESPN Star Sports (ESS) channels that are also moving to SingTel‘s IPTV service. 
 
StarHub is planning a new 24-hour sports channel that will be available for free to its entire cable TV base from January 2010. From July 2010, meanwhile, the platform will deliver Eurosportnews, which is presently offered as part of StarHub‘s Sports Group as a basic service to all subscribers.

Comments StarHub‘s VP of home solutions Ong Bee Lian, “With the addition of the two sports channels to our complimentary lineup, StarHub TV customers can enjoy as many as 26 channels at entry level. This works out to less than a dollar per month for each channel.”

Meanwhile, the cable platform is dropping the price of its Sports Group package by more than 50 per cent in July, ahead of the new EPL season.  
 
From July 2010, the Sports Group will comprise Football Channel, SuperSports, SuperSports Plus, Sports HD, Goal TV 1, Goal TV 2, Golf Channel, Eurosport, La Liga on-demand and WWE on demand.

SingTel‘s mioTV is already looking to attract fans of EPL with new early bird specials. For a limited period, customers who sign up for either the Barclays Premier League 2010/11 season or Barclays Premier League 2010/11 with ESPN Star Sports Channels on a 12-month subscription basis will receive the Football Frenzy Pack (worth S$15.90 per month) for free till 31 July.

This includes UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches, live and on demand, over TV, mobile phone and online, as well as the Italian Serie A matches.
The promotional offer also includes a 30-day preview of all mio TV programmes (excluding movies and video-on-demand content), free installation, a high-definition set-top box and an ADSL2+ modem. Customers who sign up for the sports pack will also gain access to ESPN Star Sports channels-ESPN, Star Sports and ESPNews as and when they become available.

MUMBAI: A proposal for the BBC to form an online federation giving access to public service broadcasters‘ content via iPlayer through a combination of commercial and public service elements has been rejected by the BBC Trust.
 
The Trust reiterated its support for the principle of sharing the iPlayer more widely, but said the BBC would need to find simpler ways of achieving this.

The rejected proposal involved a federation between the public service broadcasters (PSBs) to provide access via the iPlayer to their on-demand video content, combining commercial and public service components.

The Trust concluded that this was not the best way to share the BBC iPlayer or to deliver increased public value to licence fee payers. However, the Trust said that it was open to alternative proposals for sharing iPlayer technology on a simpler basis to others beyond the BBC.

Said BBC Trustee and Chair of the Trust‘s Strategic Approvals Committee Diane Coyle, “The iPlayer is a success and we believe that access to its technology could be useful to other broadcasters. The Trust supports the BBC‘s aim of sharing the benefits of the iPlayer.

“When assessing the proposals submitted by the BBC Executive, the Trust weighed up a number of factors which included their strategic significance, their impact on other BBC activities, the potential competitive impact and their overall value to licence fee payers.

“We concluded that the open iPlayer plans in their proposed form, combining both commercial and public service elements, were too complicated. We were not convinced that there was enough potential value to licence fee payers in the public service part of the proposal, and we have therefore rejected the BBC Executive‘s proposals for an open iPlayer federation. 
 
“We will look again at future public service models for the online delivery of programming as part of the strategic review now in progress. In the meantime, the Trust is open to considering an alternative proposal for the licensing of the iPlayer technology to third parties if that can be done on a simple, fair and commercial basis.”

The BBC Executive submitted detailed proposals to the Trust‘s Strategic Approvals Committee on 29 September on use of the iPlayer technology by third parties. These are collectively known as the ‘open iPlayer‘ proposals and comprise a number of distinct elements including:

MUMBAI: A proposal for the BBC to form an online federation giving access to public service broadcasters‘ content via iPlayer through a combination of commercial and public service elements has been rejected by the BBC Trust.
 
The Trust reiterated its support for the principle of sharing the iPlayer more widely, but said the BBC would need to find simpler ways of achieving this.

The rejected proposal involved a federation between the public service broadcasters (PSBs) to provide access via the iPlayer to their on-demand video content, combining commercial and public service components.

The Trust concluded that this was not the best way to share the BBC iPlayer or to deliver increased public value to licence fee payers. However, the Trust said that it was open to alternative proposals for sharing iPlayer technology on a simpler basis to others beyond the BBC.

Said BBC Trustee and Chair of the Trust‘s Strategic Approvals Committee Diane Coyle, “The iPlayer is a success and we believe that access to its technology could be useful to other broadcasters. The Trust supports the BBC‘s aim of sharing the benefits of the iPlayer.

“When assessing the proposals submitted by the BBC Executive, the Trust weighed up a number of factors which included their strategic significance, their impact on other BBC activities, the potential competitive impact and their overall value to licence fee payers.

“We concluded that the open iPlayer plans in their proposed form, combining both commercial and public service elements, were too complicated. We were not convinced that there was enough potential value to licence fee payers in the public service part of the proposal, and we have therefore rejected the BBC Executive‘s proposals for an open iPlayer federation. 
 
“We will look again at future public service models for the online delivery of programming as part of the strategic review now in progress. In the meantime, the Trust is open to considering an alternative proposal for the licensing of the iPlayer technology to third parties if that can be done on a simple, fair and commercial basis.”

The BBC Executive submitted detailed proposals to the Trust‘s Strategic Approvals Committee on 29 September on use of the iPlayer technology by third parties. These are collectively known as the ‘open iPlayer‘ proposals and comprise a number of distinct elements including: