Category: Software

MUMBAI: XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. until now rivals in the US satellite radio industry, have agreed to combine in a deal.

The shareholders of both companies will own approximately 50 per cent of the combined company. However, Sirius will be giving a substantial premium of $4.57 billion of its stock to XM shareholders.

Sirius chief executive Mel Karmazin will lead the combined company, and XM‘s CEO Hugh Panero will stay on only until the deal is closed. XM chairman Gary Parsons will continue in that role.

The deal announced on 19 February faces substantial regulatory hurdles in Washington, including a Federal Communications Commission provision that specifically forbids the two companies from combining. Analysts note, however, that the FCC could change the rule or allow an exception to it.

The merger would also have to meet antitrust approval from the Department of Justice. The companies are expected to argue that they compete not only with each other but also with traditional radio and a growing base of digital audio sources such as iPods, mobile phones and non-satellite digital radio.

Investors and analysts have been speculating about this deal for months, and are hoping that the cost savings that would result would make up for softening retail demand for satellite radio units. Both services offer dozens of channels of talk and commercial-free music for monthly fees of about $13.

XM radio receivers can‘t receive signals from Sirius, and vice versa. But Karmazin and Parsons said in an interview that the companies are working on developing a receiver that could receive both signals. In the meantime, they said, assuming the deal goes through, the companies would make other arrangements to bring programming that‘s currently exclusive to one provider to listeners of the other, such as getting Major League Baseball games – currently only available on XM – to Sirius listeners.

“We will be taking every effort to find the best possible programming combination,” Parsons said. While it‘s too early to say what the deal will mean for subscription prices, the merger could bring down the cost of providing service, but at the same time give the company more pricing power as the only U.S. satellite radio provider.

Neither XM nor Sirius have turned a profit yet due to heavy spending on programming lineups and subscriber bases. Both stocks declined more than 40 percent last year on concerns about their continued growth in subscribers.The combined company would have had about $1.5 billion in revenues in 2006 and about 14 million subscribers, they said. The companies said they would work together to decide on a new name and also to determine where it would be based. XM is based in Washington, while Sirius is based in New York.

The new company‘s board will have 12 members, including Parsons, Karmazin, four independent directors named by each company, and one representative each from General Motors Corp. and Honda Motor Co. A group representing radio companies, the National Association of Broadcasters, put out a statement Monday urging federal regulators to block the satellite radio deal.

MUMBAI: A survey of 22,000 European mobile users commissioned by Tellabs has revealed that a high percentage of early adopters of mobile TV and video services are snubbing a second helping. The research, conducted by M:Metrics in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain, brought up an interesting issue: on average, former users of mobile TV and video outnumber current users by more than 19%. Users cited price, quality and reliability issues as the main reasons why they do not come back for more.

“At 3GSM we will be treated to a feast of new mobile TV launches with millions of dollars being spent on developing, marketing and distributing mobile TV services. But if services fall short of user expectations on quality and reliability, it could be money wasted,” said Pat Dolan, Tellabs vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “So while we share our industry‘s enthusiasm for mobile TV, the detailed results of this survey provide important food for thought for the global operator community, who want to address network backhaul issues to improve mobile TV and video services.”

Forty-five percent of European mobile video and TV users cited pricing issues as a factor causing them to switch off the services. And nearly a quarter (24%) of users who tried mobile video and TV stopped using the services due to concerns about service quality and reliability.

The split between perception and reality was most pronounced in the United Kingdom. Only 6% of those who had never used mobile video and TV cited quality and reliability as reasons not to try such services, but 29% of users had stopped using services because of quality and reliability.

“Pricing has already been highlighted as a stumbling block for recurrent use of mobile video and TV services, but we were surprised by just how much value users place on quality and reliability,” said Paul Goode, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Once the basic requirements of quality and reliability are good enough, the focus will rightly shift to issues of programming, brands and marketing in addition to price. This research highlights the need to address quality and reliability so the industry can retain viewers, which is a key part of growing audience numbers.”

NEW DELHI: Many cable households are unhappy with repeated signal failure and Trai is now faced with the issue of what to do about enforcing Quality of Service provisions, sources tell indiantelevision.com.

One of the major confusions in the market in the national Capital is what are the cable operators doing about the billing of chosen channels.

At the moment, the operators are giving all the channels that can be shown in India, and they have been telling the subscribers, those who have filled up the forms indicating their choice, that at the end of the month, they would be charged for what they have indicated in the forms.

“The COs have told us that the programming for each STB is taking time, but they would charge each household what the latter has opted for,” the official said.

He said also that the COs are watching the scenario. “They feel that in a month or two, subscribers might want to drop some channels and want others, or just want more channels than they have opted for now. So then, they would have to do the programming all over again.”

The official felt that the COs want the situation to stabilise before they get into programming for “watch what you pay for”.

However, in many cases, the COs have registered the subscribers and taken the advance charges at the beginning, when they gave the STBs but have so far not returned for collecting the advance fees for February.

“This means subscribers would suddenly be faced with having to pay for two months if the COs do not take the fees for February now,” said an official, agreeing that all this is causing more confusion than is good for the ongoing Cas rollout to regain the traction it has lost quite a bit of recently.

One MSO is not showing contact numbers in the appropriate window when the signal goes off, and still signal loss is quite a regular phenomenon and, though less than in the beginning, there is a lot of pixelisation of images.

The MSOs have so far not raised the issue of QoS being enforced, for reasons best known to them. But they are aware that this is one of the reasons for not just slowdown of Cas rollout, but in many cases, people wanting to return the boxes and settle for just the FTAs.

In a report last week, indiantelevision,com had reported the worries amongst MSOs on these issues, and their informing Trai that broadcasters and they themselves need to do attractive packaging and ensure QoS, but nothing seems to have materialised so far.

MUMBAI: CNN International has made its first ever global television broadcast from a mobile phone, live from the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. As part of CNN‘s coverage from the conference, CNN went live to millions worldwide via the 3G network shortly after 7pm Hong Kong time, Monday February 12.

The ‘live via phone‘ ninety second piece was broadcast by CNN International correspondent Jim Boulden for the daily news show, ‘Business International‘ and opened CNN‘s coverage from 3GSM trade show.

Tony Maddox senior vice president of news operations for CNN International said: “This new development underlines CNN‘s clear commitment to developing 3G technology in news gathering. By adopting emerging technologies, CNN continues to lead the way in reporting from the field. 3G technology is enabling our correspondents to deliver packages and live broadcasts both quickly and easily from wherever they are in the world. This is an important demonstration of how we are evolving our newsgathering abilities using the latest technologies.”

Working with mobile technology partner Ericsson, CNN has invested in digital newsgathering which enables its global correspondents to add 3G phones to their reporting tools. The technology has already been tested through live reports on CNN‘s broadband service, CNN Pipeline, but this is the first time the news network has used mobile devices for live television.

NEW DELHI: With the annual budget coming up, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) is lobbying for a 10-year tax holiday for the animation, gaming and VFX industries.

Ficci says the sector, which holds tremendous promise, is suffering because the present government policy is to subsidise foreign productions in India, whereas Indian companies are burdened with a slew of taxes.

Ficci has raised an important cultural point that insiders say might sit well with I&B minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been talking of Indian values rather loudly of late. Ficci feels that due the tax burden, Indian animation companies are not able to produce Indian content and hence an entire generation of Indian children are growing up on a staple of foreign superheroes.

The industry body has also proposed the removal of CVD duty for a period of 10 years. The high-end machines used for the production attracts an import duty, Ficci says, adding that at present the duty structure is high: basic duty of 12.5 per cent, CVD of 16.32 per cent, special CVD of 4 per cent.

After including educational cess, the overall duty comes out to be 36.8 per cent, it explained.

The provision for Service Tax is financially hitting Indian animation studios extremely hard, Ficci has said in its budget wishlist.

“Most of these studios are those that are developing a large amount of original content. Those studios that are export oriented and are thus under STPI are not exposed to the Service Tax at all, whereas the ones that are making or planning to make any Intellectual Property (original Indian content) in India for any client or broadcaster have to pay a service tax of 12.2% (this is going to be @ 12% in the new financial year, as per the latest budget),” says the Ficci paper that indiantelevision.com accessed.

“We all have seen a rapid boom in the software industry, thanks to their exemption from the service tax. There is a big potential for Indian animation studios to grow manifold from where they are right now, the major success of the animation sector will be in creating the original Indian content and distributing it globally,” says the paper.

It argues that if the country can make special efforts and can exempt animation industry from paying service tax, it would really contribute to a great extent towards promoting the industry and also the traditional and creative artists.

Explaining the issues in the sector, the Ficci note despairs that the animation as an industry in India is covered under STPI, but STPI predominantly holds good for a BPO nature of work, where outsourcing is the main module and most of the studios which are getting benefited from STPI have to make sure of an export commitment of more than 85 per cent.

As a result, it holds, many Indian studios wanting to produce original content based intellectual property and use art and talent from India to produce animation stories do not get any such benefits.

As creating original content in India attracts custom duty and also the freshly levied sales tax (VAT) on off the shelf software, sales tax of 12.2% (which might increase further) and further also the income tax component, the Ficci paper has held.

Together, these act as a major deterrent against studios producing and creating original content with an Indian heritage base or any other indigenous original content creation within the shores of the country.

Currently, there is just no encouragement of developing original Indian content to be put forth to the entire world in the form of animation.

This is leading to more and more studios working on foreign content and is leading to a severe lack of animated Indian stories in our domestic television schedules. In fact in the current scenario there is not one television channel that is exclusively dedicated to the kids showing original Indian content.

“Hence,” Ficci argues, “our next generations of kids are growing up on a staple diet of foreign superheroes and legends while their exposure to Indian history, culture and heritage is being restricted to school textbooks. Storybooks and comics are being quickly replaced by television content and specially animated television content.

Ficci has also demanded that the tariff barrier on gaming consoles be reduced, as it is acting as a hindrance to developing such consoles in India and putting the related software sector in a tight spot.

The paper has argued that the entire tariff of approximately 36.74 per cent is passed through to the customers, translating to high prices for such consoles, which affect affordability and therefore access.

High tariffs, it says, also lead to the growth of a grey market in products, which for the gaming consoles market in the country stands at 300,000 units, and leads to a loss of revenue to the government.

Ficci feels the growth of the grey market also limits the government‘s ability to ensure high quality and safe experience for customers that desire this exciting entertainment device.

Pricing and affordability are key aspects that can enable the development of the gaming consoles market in India. Rationalization of the tariff structures will therefore mean a more affordable pricing structure that will enable greater market access for such consoles.

“A recent study conducted by a market research agency, estimates that by lowering the CVD alone, which currently stands at 16.32 per cent, will result in projected import of gaming consoles to the tune of 400,000 units in the next five years,” the paper says.

Ficci quotes a Nasscomm study and says: “According to Nasscomm, a game that would cost around $3 million to $6 million to develop in the United States can be produced for only $500,000 to $3 million in India.

“In fact 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the revenues from a blockbuster console-based game, which often match those of a blockbuster Hollywood movie, amounting to $250 million or upwards, is the developers cost,” it adds .

In addition to this competitive edge of development cost arbitrage, Indian software developers also have the potential to tap into the potentially diverse domestic market for gaming and develop customized games in vernacular languages, thereby broadening the scope of the Indian gaming market.

Though the Nasscomm study acknowledges that currently the gaming market in India is undeveloped, it projects a potential growth with a CAGR of 78 per cent, amounting to $ 300 million by 2009 . It also projects that the current employment scenario in India in this sector can grow from approximately 600 people employed in the gaming industry in 2005 to approximately 2,000 professionals in 2007.

MUMBAI: Hong Kong communications firm PCCW has announced that its broadband platform now TV has won the media rights to broadcast Italy‘s soccer event – the Serie A Championship – in the 2007/2008, 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 seasons.

Serie A is contested by 20 clubs in a round-robin competition format and comprises a total of 380 matches per season. Under the package acquired from Media Partners & Silva /Dentsu which jointly distribute serie A media rights in Asia, now TV has the television, broadband, IPTV and mobile TV rights for not less than 130 live matches, including most home games featuring major Italian teams such as AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Roma.

All Serie A matches available on now TV will be included as further enhancements to the Mega Sports Pack offered for $218 per month on a 12-month term plan. Customers subscribing to the Mega Sports Pack before 30 April, 2007 will be able to enjoy an early bird offer of $178 per month (mini-pack price), with five months‘ free viewing if they sign for 18 months.

The Mega Sports Pack includes not only soccer championships, such as Uefa Champions League, English FA Cup and Serie A, but also other top sporting events like the 2007 FIVB World Grand Prix, 2007 FIVB World Cup and
IAAF Grand Prix Athletics 2007

Now TV currently serves an installed customer base of more than 700,000 and offers a choice of more than 120 channels including HBO, Star Movies, ESPN and Star Sports.

MUMBAI: Last week UK pay TV service provider Sky had announced that it proposes to launch a new service on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform.

Following a series of requests for clarity on the regulatory process regarding the proposed launch, UK media regulatory body Ofcom confirms that it will consult on any such proposals.

Sky’s announcement noted that the launch of the new service will be subject to approval by Ofcom including the necessary variations to licences held by Sky and National Grid Wireless, which provides Sky with DTT transmission and multiplexing services.

When Ofcom receives a request for approval of the necessary variations, the issues that would require consultation are likely to include:

– Firstly, the impact on consumers of Sky‘s proposal to use MPEG4 compression technology via new set-top boxes, in order to increase the amount of content which can be carried. Ofcom would need to assess:

– The potential benefit of a rapid migration from the current compression standard MPEG2, to MPEG4 which will ultimately increase the number of channels available on digital terrestrial television.

– The potential detriment associated with a reduction in the number of channels received by existing set-top boxes or digital televisions; The risk that existing set-top boxes or digital televisions might be incompatible with multiplexes broadcast using a combination of MPEG2 and MPEG4 coding;

– The overall effect on consumer confidence in the digital switchover process.

– Whether any variation to the channel line-up might unacceptably diminish the appeal of the channels to a variety of tastes and interests and whether a reduction in the current range of free-to-air channels would be compensated for by the proposed introduction of the new pay television channels.

– Finally, the effect of any change to existing licence conditions and / or the need to include any new licence conditions to ensure fair and effective competition for the benefit of consumers.

The content of the consultation and its timing will be announced once a request for an approval has been received. Ofcom’s normal consultation period is 10 weeks.

MUMBAI: US pay TV service provider DirecTV and researcgh firm Nielsen have entered into an agreement to test the development of information.

This will enable them to understand the daily viewing behaviors, trends and characteristics of customers who use DirecTV‘s interactive television services.

In developing its new metrics for measuring interactive usage, Nielsen will use aggregated and anonymous clickstream data from a new television measurement panel of 300,000 DIRECTV interactive customers. Information from the test could lead to an enhanced consumer experience and the creation of more valuable interactive opportunities for advertisers.

DirecTV adds that it respects the privacy of its customers. Unless customers provide consent through an opt-in process, DirecTV only provides viewing data on an aggregated and anonymous basis.

DirecTV Entertainment executive VP Eric Shanks says, “As the DirecTV interactive TV space continues to rapidly evolve, we need to develop a complete and accurate understanding of how our customers use these services. Through our test with Nielsen we hope to develop the usage information our programming and advertising partners need to take full advantage of our interactive platform and reach their target audiences in a truly unique way.”

The agreement is the first of its kind to be announced since the creation of Nielsen DigitalPlus, a new service created by Nielsen to help clients better understand information opportunities available through consumer interaction via digital set top boxes.

Nielsen senior VP Scott L Brown says, “This agreement with DirecTV is an exciting new opportunity to gain valuable insight into how new technology is influencing the behavior of interactive satellite subscribers. The television industry is at the very beginning of understanding the uses and applications of expanding digital services. Nielsen is using our full resources to help clients create valuable new uses for their digital information.”

BANGALORE: The blackout of Tamil channels by the cable TV trade in Karnataka continues following the Cauvery water verdict.

At the time of writing, a section of the cable operators was planning to voice their grievance to the authorities. The Karnataka State Cable Operators Association had planned a rally from Anil Kumble circle on MG road to the Governor’s residence on 20 February to hand over a memorandum against the verdict with the expectation of support from all the bodies involved in the cable TV distribution chain, including MSOs.

A cable operator said that he expected participation from cable ops from the surrounding rural areas of Bangalore and from the interiors of Karnataka.

Sources from the various associations representing cable operators and broadband service providers say that the black out of the Tamil cable channels was a voluntary decision, later reinforced by ‘requests from Kannada activists’ groups.

A faction of the cable TV trade said that they were willing to restart the broadcast of Tamil channels saying that “it is the verdict that we are against, not the language, and we have given the longest support to the agitation against the verdict, but now we are willing to restart the Tamil feed.”

Certain sources reveal that the trade is apparently becoming nervous about any backlash from vested parties and is considering asking for police protection should they go for the latter option. A meeting is expected to be held on 19 or 20 February to decide on the course of action.

The Cauvery Tribunal verdict has already had its first victim in the form of union minister of state for information and broadcasting M H Ambareesh who put in his resignation from both the union ministry as well as Parliament in protest against it.

MUMBAI: Western Europe and North America continue to lead the digital satellite pay-TV market in subscribers and revenue.

However the fastest growth over the next several years will come from other areas, especially Asia, reports market research firm In-Stat.

Key satellite market trends include consolidation in established markets, interactivity, HD, launches, and bundling, the high-tech market research firm says.

In-Stat analyst Michael Inouye says, “Most DTH platform launches in 2006 occurred in the less mature markets, including India and Eastern Europe. As DTH pay-TV platforms in many American and European countries have been in operation for a number of years, their subscriber growth has slowed. Total net new subscribers are growing each year, but only by single digit percentages.”

Rsearch by In-Stat found the following:

– Total DTH pay-TV subscribers are expected to reach over 117 million in 2010.

– Global DTH-TV revenues will exceed $88 billion by 2010.

– Consolidation occurred in 2006 with service providers like TPS and CanalSatellite and conditional access providers (Irdeto/ Cryptoworks).