Category: News Broadcasting

  • Optibase provides SmartVideo to Verizon & Cingular cell users in US

    Optibase provides SmartVideo to Verizon & Cingular cell users in US

    MUMBAI: A provider of advanced digital video high-end solutions, Optibase Ltd has announced that its IPTV streaming platforms are enabling SmartVideo to provide full motion TV to Verizon and Cingular mobile subscribers in the United States. SmartVideo is a provider of management and delivery solutions of content to mobile and cellular devices.

    Georgia-based SmartVideo is using the Optibase MGW 5100 TV streaming platform to encode and transmit live video received from satellite provider Crawford Communications over a dedicated network to SmartVideo’s facilities.

    At SmartVideo, the video is decoded using Optibase’s MGW 200 decoders and transmitted using SmartVideo’s proprietary technology to cell phones and other smart handheld devices. The content offering includes news, weather, sports and children’s programming from ABC news, NBC Universal, Fox Sports, The Weather Channel and others, informs an official release.

    “We are excited about the prospects in the cellular streaming market and this opportunity to take part in an innovative broadcast service that provides high quality live television directly to mobile devices,” said Optibase Inc president Adam Schadle. “SmartVideo benefits from the combination of our encoding and decoding offerings that yield a high quality, end-to-end video streaming solution.”

    “SmartVideo has distinguished itself from other service providers by its ability to deliver high-quality, reliable interactive video, audio and graphics simultaneously,” said SmartVideo president David Ross. “The Optibase platforms provide 24×7 services ensuring our customers receive the best possible service.”

  • Govt ultimatum to channels on downlink norms

    Govt ultimatum to channels on downlink norms

    NEW DELHI: The Indian government has issued an ultimatum to all TV channels that those failing to adhere to downlink norm deadline of 10 May will not be allowed to downlink into the country.

    In a statement issued on 3 May, the government has said, “It is clarified that (television) channels for which even complete applications, with processing fees, are not received on or before May 10, 2006, shall not be permitted to be downlinked thereafter.”

    The information and broadcasting ministry has come out with clarifications on various queries on the policy guidelines for downlinking of television channels in India on its website.

    The guidelines stipulate a time of 180 days from 11 November 2005 for completion of all formalities of registration under downlinking guidelines.

    On queries relating to foreign direct investment (FDI) permitted in television ventures, the government statement states that 100 per cent FDI is permitted in the broadcasting sector, which is not under the automatic route and all such proposals will have to be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

    The government has also clarified that as on the date of submission of application for permission under downlinking guidelines, the applicant company must have requisite net worth and continue to satisfy the requirement thereafter.

    The information and broadcasting ministry had earlier stipulated different net worth of television companies as per categories, namely entertainment, news, etc, in an effort to differentiate between the serious and non-serious players.

    The downlink guidelines state that all TV channels wishing to be downlinked into the country would have to get themselves registered with a designated authority and also establish a permanent establishment, amongst some other stipulations that have been dubbed stringent by some media companies.

    For example, the government reiterated on Wednesday that an applicant company is required to provide a facility where online monitoring of content being beamed into India is possible.

    Also, the system should have the capacity to store data for 90 days, which should be available to the government at any point of time in India at a pre-designated place.

    The companies need not set up new facilities for this purpose, but could authorize any of their multi service operators (MSOs) or head end operators to provide this facility, the ministry has clarified.

    The government has shot off letters relating to various queries on downlink norms to the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, Star Group and Time Warner, according to information posted on the site of the I&B ministry.

    Earlier in March, the government had turned down a request from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation to extend the 180-day deadline for fulfilling newly-formulated downlinking norms by broadcasting companies.

    Indiantelevision.com has learnt from government sources that Star group, for instance, has applied under downlink norms for various family channels separately.

  • Business TV host Louis Rukeyser passes away

    Business TV host Louis Rukeyser passes away

    MUMBAI: Business television host Louis Rukeyser died of cancer on Tuesday. He was 73.

    Rukeyser hosted Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser on public TV from 1970 until 2002. His speciality has been the ability to convert complicated finance and economics news to simple news, which can be easily understood by ordinary viewers and investors.

    Louis Rukeyser quit Wall $treet Week and moved to CNBC in March 2002. Rukeyser’s last appearance on his CNBC show was 31 October 2003.

    Later that year, Rukeyser asked CNBC to end production of his show due to a back problem. Rukeyser also found time to publish many best-selling books and newsletters.

  • Miditech inks deal with Strix Television for 40 shows

    Miditech inks deal with Strix Television for 40 shows

    MUMBAI: Until now it was the mighty broadcaster who was going out and acquiring rights to international formats and then roping in a production house to localise the show. But now the tables seem to have turned with Miditech signing a production and licensing deal with Strix Television AB, which are the format owners of shows like Survivor amongst others.

    As per the terms of this deal, Miditech will have exclusive Indian licensing and production rights to the entire Strix format catalogue in India, which tot up to 40 odd shows.

    This deal, Miditech CEO Nikhil Alva believes, will open up new revenue streams for the production house from areas like mobile telephony, licensing and merchandising.
    “The tie up will let Miditech localise the formats – a key factor that contributes to the success of international shows in an Indian context. And a lot of the shows in Strix’s catalogue are what the next step in reality programming in the country is. It will also let us offer products in cost effective packages to broadcasters. Products that have a proven track records in many countries worldwide,” Alva added.

    However Alva refused to divulge the terms of the deal or the cost of acquiring the format rights. “We have taken over their catalog of shows to localize in India. There is a financial arrangement between us but it is a complicated one, which involves down payment, license fees, etc and I won’t be able to divulge any numbers,” he said.

    Some of the shows that Strix has are Ruth 66, Paradise Lost, Floor Filler, 24th, The Farm, The Bar, Expedition Robinson, Casino, Backtrack, Kerrys Getting Married, The Control Commission, Insider, Solidarity, Club Goa, Harem, A Chef in the Family, Fat Resort, Tearing Down the House, No Smoking, Fame Factory, Villa medusa, 24 Hours, Class of 07, My Best Friend, Zoo Kitchen, Home Delivery, Did you get it?, I O U, Showdown, Mother & Daughter, Revenge.Com, Sybarite and Fight Club.

    Strix CEO Robert Aschberg added, “We are delighted to enter into a fruitful and long-term alliance with Miditech since we have seen demand for Strix formats increase exponentially in India over the last few months. Miditech is a perfect fit for Strix with its great ability to produce high-quality programming for the Indian audiences and we are confident that Strix’ catalogue will suit the Indian TV market splendidly.”

    The deal with Strix will also give Miditech an access to Strix’s clients in the international market. “We will be able to market our own shows that we have made here to the international market via Strix. That will increase our presence internationally. We will also be producing pilots jointly with Strix and working with each others’ ideation teams in order to bring out new formats,” Alva added.

    Some of the shows that Miditech has done recently are Indian Idol, Fame Gurukul, Deal or No Deal, Dance Dance, Playhouse Disney, MTV Bajoed! and MTV Roadies. It is also in the process of producing Galli Galli Sim Sim – the Indian version of Sesame Street for Cartoon Network and Pogo and Extreme Makeover for Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India.

  • BSkyB 3Q net up by 8 per cent to $277.5 million

    BSkyB 3Q net up by 8 per cent to $277.5 million

    MUMBAI: British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) has reported an 8 per cent increase in the third quarter net profit. The company said net profit for the three months ended 31 March rose to 151 million pounds ($277.5 million), from 140 million pounds a year ago.

    BSkyB revenue went up by 11 per cent to 1.06 billion pounds ($1.9 billion). The company also revealed a steep drop in subscriber growth ahead of the launch of new products later this year.

    The company said it recorded net subscriber growth of 40,000 in the quarter, significantly less that the 95,000 increase in “direct-to-home” customers in the first quarter of 2005. Analysts had predicted growth of 30,000 to 50,000 new subscribers.

    The broadcaster now has 8.1 million subscribers, it has a target of 10 million by 2010, and forecasts adding 600,000 in the final quarter of this year following the rollout of new products.

    BSkyB chief executive James Murdoch said, “The business is performing well and is delivering on the plan we laid out for 2006. Our focus during the quarter was to successfully implement our new customer management systems, complete the final preparations for the launch of Sky HD, and continue to ready the business for the launch of residential broadband services in the summer. Operational achievements in the quarter were outstanding. We achieved our goals, continued to grow our customer base and increased the number of products they choose to take from us.”

  • Hollywood lost $6.1 bn to piracy in 2005: study

    Hollywood lost $6.1 bn to piracy in 2005: study

    MUMBAI: Major Hollywood studios lost a whopping $6.1 billion in global wholesale revenue to piracy last year, a study put out Wednesday by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) shows.

    The haemorrage is coming not only from lost ticket sales, but from DVD sales that have been Hollywood’s money-spinner in recent years, the study reveals.

    Of the $6.1 billion in lost revenue to the studios, $1.3 billion came from piracy in the United States and $4.8 billion internationally, with nearly half of that loss occurring in Europe. About $2.4 billion was lost to bootlegging, $1.4 to illegal
    copying and $2.3 billion to Internet piracy.

    In the US, illegal copying and distribution is more of a problem while internationally, illegal downloading and bootlegging is more prevalent.
    The countries where movie piracy is occurring most prominently are China, Russia, UK, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Poland and Mexico.

    The average film copyright thief is male, between the ages of 16-24 and lives in an urban area. College students in the US, Korea and Hungary contribute the most to each country’s individual loss. The 16-24 age range represents a disproportionately high percentage of pirates, especially downloaders, across the 22 directly researched countries. It is even higher in the US, where the same age range represents 71 per cent of downloaders.

    “The findings in this study reinforce the need for a multi-pronged approach to fighting piracy,” said said MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. “As an industry, we have to continue to
    educate people about copyright laws and the consequences of breaking those laws. At the same time, we have to provide legitimate, hassle-free ways for consumers to obtain movies at a reasonable cost. In the meantime we will continue to work with governments and law enforcement around the world to ensure copyright law is prevalent and enforced.”

    The MPAA recently provided international data from the study to the Office of the US Trade Representative for use in preparing its annual report on worldwide intellectual property rights.

    MPAA had commissioned LEK Consulting LLC two years ago for this study. The study was conducted over a period of 18 months across 28 countries to estimate how much piracy is costing them.

    Unlike its previous studies, this study takes in consumer research by telephone, Internet surveys, focus groups, more consistent surveying methods and even Internet downloading to obtain more accurate estimates.

    The report states that previously the MPAA used figures based on a series of random calculations that estimated how much was lost in each country. This drastic increase is more likely the result of better measuring this time, since the piracy level for some countries was often based on random calculations in previous studies. The US currently leads with about $1.311 billion lost to piracy.

    Of the $1.311 billion in US piracy, this figure breaks down to $447 million due to illegal downloading of movies, $335 million as a result of professional bootleggers and $529 million from home piracy where consumers make copies of legitimate DVD and VHS media they purchased. This survey specifically asked consumers how many of their pirated movies they would have purchased in stores or seen in theaters if they didn’t have an unauthorized copy, giving studios a different picture of their true losses.

    The new approach reduces the estimated losses in some of the world’s most notorious pirate markets, even as it adds Internet-related losses for the first time. Despite all the hype about piracy in China, Russia and several other of the world’s most notorious pirate markets, Mexico actually turns out the 2nd worst with $483 million lost to piracy; over a 3-fold increase of $140 million in its 2004 study, which used old methods of surveying.

    China’s losses slipped to an estimated $244 million in 2005, from $280 million in 2004 under the old counting technique. Russia’s estimate declined by about $10 million.

    The study also shows that home video, not theatrical distribution, is the market that piracy hits hardest, accounting for two-thirds of the studio’s lost revenue. That is a big blow to the studios, which had been counting on the lucrative DVD market to increase their bottom lines, but in recent months have found DVD sales are slowing considerably.

    Piracy is not all a kids’ activity though. In Japan, one of Hollywood’s biggest foreign markets, 50 per cent of the overall industry’s losses are the result of piracy by people ages 25 to 39. While piracy has not affected the stock prices of the big conglomerates that own studios, that could change if investors feared DVDs would no longer generate sales at the pace they expected.
    While new data are potentially helpful in negotiating with foreign governments because they also estimate losses to local film industries, the information is also bad news for the MPAA’s antipiracy efforts. Those have ranged from public-awareness campaigns to beefing up laws to raids of illegal DVD plants.

  • BBC publishes Statements of Programme Policy

    BBC publishes Statements of Programme Policy

    MUMBAI: UK pubcaster The BBC has published its Statements of Programme Policy (SoPPs). The statements detail, service by service, how the BBC will deliver its public service remit across its portfolio over the year ahead. The priorities outlined for 2006/2007 reflect what audiences have said they want from the BBC.

    BBC DG Mark Thompson says, “The style of SoPPs has changed this year to reflect the BBC’s transition to new governance arrangements. However, we have yet again demonstrated our ongoing commitment to meeting audience needs and to delivering excellence and value across all our services.

    “We will offer diverse television, radio and new media content, as well as non-broadcast services such as the orchestras. Our efforts to provide the best in information, education, and entertainment are enhanced this year with innovative services like the Creative Archive and pilots such as BBC iPlayer [subject to approval by the Board of Governors, which will include a public value test]. For the first time this year we have a new public purpose: to help build digital Britain.

    “Without exception every BBC service now provides some digital interactivity – whether podcasts or a website – designed to encourage and include everyone, and to expose us all to the benefits of the future. It is fitting, therefore, that this year’s SoPPs are only available online. Regional, national and international network news bulletins, as well as rolling news on BBC News 2, remain integral to our programme offering and will continue to deliver precise and up-to-the-minute news and information.

    “Across our channels, programmes like Robin Hood, New Street Law and an adaptation of the novel The Line of Beauty will demonstrate our commitment to new and original drama, and several comedies from new and established UK writers will launch over the year. Successful factual output like Springwatch will return to BBC Two, while Restoration Village will expand the concept of restoration from single buildings to villages around the UK.

    “We also plan to pilot, on BBC One, a new weekday evening magazine show compiled from the nations and regions of the UK – a 21st-century version of Nationwide to complement our existing core news output.”

  • 2006 Fifa World Cup to air live on Sky and TVNZ

    2006 Fifa World Cup to air live on Sky and TVNZ

    MUMBAI: Sky Television and Television New Zealand (TVNZ) have announced the acquisition of the live broadcast rights for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, for New Zealand.

    Under the agreement with Infront Sports & Media, FIFA’s exclusive television partner for the event, Sky will provide full live coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The coverage includes every match live, daily pre-shows during match days, a daily review show as well as special lead-up programming.

    In addition to the live coverage, every Wednesday evening Sky Sport will screen BBC Worldwide’s sensational series, More Than a Game. In India, Discovery Networks has acquired the India rights to More Than a Game.

    From 7 May, the History Channel (Sky Digital Channel 53) will present The History Of Football: The Beautiful Game, a 13 episode series that looks at the early history of the game, how it has become a global cultural obsession and reflects on the careers of players who have left their lasting mark on the game. It Includes interviews with Pele and Maradona.

  • MTV Network’s fourth annual presentation addresses industry needs

    MTV Network’s fourth annual presentation addresses industry needs

    MUMBAI: At its fourth annual joint upfront presentation, MTV Networks (MTVN) presented the advertising community with a multi-platform message underscoring how the company’s brands –MTV, MTV2, Vh1, Comedy Central, CMT, Logo, Nick at Nite, Spike TV, The N and TV Land — are best positioned to feed the needs of both consumers and advertisers in the digital media age.

    The presentation, led by MTVN chairman and CEO Judy McGrath, focused on how the company’s multiple platforms, global reach and unrivalled brand strength connect to audiences worldwide offer advertisers many opportunities to reach viewers of all ages and demographics.
    Held on 2 May in New York City, the event was highlighted by exclusive musical performances and special guest appearances by some of the biggest names in entertainment.

    Among those featured were Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jerry Seinfeld, Kanye West, Jamie Foxx, Lucy Liu, Jessica Alba, Jon Stewart, Mr. T, Miss America Jennifer Berry, The Hogans, Jesse McCartney, Miranda Lambert, Carlos Mencia, Chris Kattan, Ludacris, Stephen Colbert and Sarah Silverman among others, informs an official release.

    “MTV Networks is all about developing original content specifically for every platform, for television, wireless and broadband,” said McGrath. “In a lot of ways, the technology has finally caught up with us. We are the only pure play content company with a global footprint and a multi-media playbook.”

    Through its 122 channels, more than 100 Web sites, broadband channels and mobile content spanning 171 countries and territories, MTVN continues to set the standard for creating relevant content that connects with target audiences throughout the demographic spectrum and across the digital landscape.

    MTVN’s portfolio of brands is reaching its highest audience levels ever, at a time when more than 61 per cent of its core viewers consume their entertainment content on multiple screens.

    McGrath continued, “We have the most loyal and digitally wired audiences in the world, the very consumers who are driving the digital revolution. Our portfolio of brands is enjoying record audience levels because wherever our viewers are, we know how best to connect to them with original and relevant content. Our advertisers know this, and they can count on us to reach every demographic across the trusted and influential environments we create worldwide.”

    MTV Networks president and COO Michael Wolf remarked, “If there’s one thing that has become clear in this multiplatform world, it’s that brands matter, and we know that our audiences look to MTVN as the navigator through their choices. Because we listen to them, they’ve led us to other businesses that they find relevant, which means MTVN now has even more touch points for advertisers. We know that our audiences are into user-generated content, social networking and gaming, so we’ve made strategic acquisitions like IFilm, GameTrailers, NeoPets and, just last week, XFire.”

    MTVN’s 2006 Upfront presentation also took a look at the company’s first-of-its-kind Multiplatform Engagement and Transference Study. The study was a survey providing new insight into the effectiveness of advertising and the impact of entertainment brands that live across multiple platforms.

    The study, done in partnership with OTX, focused on quantifying audience “Engagement” — defined as a deep consumer connection to a media brand’s content — and “Transference”- – the degree that consumers extend the positive feelings they have for media brands to the advertisers associated with them.

    Among the survey’s key findings were:
    * Engagement and Transference multiply when media and advertising embrace multiple platforms;
    * Regular viewers of MTV Networks are more strongly engaged with and influenced by the advertisements they see versus viewers of broadcast or other cable networks
    * The MTV Networks’ brand family offers the strongest Transference of positive brand feelings not only on television, but also on broadband
    and online platforms.

    “We set out to do an expansive study to find how consumers react to multiplatform media brands as content providers and advertising vehicles,” said MTVN executive VP research Colleen Fahey Rush.

    “As programmers looking to forge the strongest relationship we can with our consumers, we’ve deployed content on all platforms, on every screen.”

    Fahey Rush also said, “We know that advertisers and agencies are looking for a compass in navigating this emerging digital world. Associating themselves with the strongest brands that are creating terrific opportunities to reach consumers in a well-rounded, multiplatform way looks to be an effective strategy, as proven by this study.”

  • Endemol USA secures game show deals with ABC, NBC, Fox

    Endemol USA secures game show deals with ABC, NBC, Fox

    MUMBAI: Format owner Endemol USA has sold three game shows to ABC, Fox and NBC.

    Two of the shows, For The Rest of Your Life for ABC and Show Me The Money for Fox, are new formats from Dick de Rijk. He created Deal Or No Deal.

    1 versus 100 for NBC is from the Endemol catalogue. The shows are expected to air in the second half of this year initially in short runs of between five and 10 shows.

    Endemol USA president and CEO David Goldberg said, “There is undoubtedly a resurgence of game shows in the US and Endemol is leading the charge.”