International News 27th November

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DirecTV deal passes Justice Dept

In another indication that News Corp.'s $6.6 billion attempt to buy one-third of the nation's largest satellite TV company will win government approval, the U.S. Justice Department has told the FCC that it is prepared to approve the DirecTV deal provided that the companies take steps to ensure the independence of the merged companies' oversight committees.

Justice's antitrust division said News Corp.'s audit board should be required to be composed of U.S. citizens in order to maintain its independence and its ability to respond to homeland security interests.

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Telewest nears restructuring goal

Troubled cable company Telewest has said it is entering the final stages of its restructuring plan. Telewest has filed documents with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and said it expected the restructure to be completed in the New Year.

Under a planned £3.5bn (E5bn) debt-for-equity swap, bondholders will receive 98.5% of the UK firm. Earlier in the year, Telewest reported losses of £2.2bn as it wrote off a large sum of the value of its assets.

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Vodafone Australia goes solo for 3G

Vodafone's Australian unit, the country's third-largest mobile phone operator, is to push ahead with third-generation services without a partner to share the costs of building a network.

Grahame Maher, managing director of Vodafone's Australian operations, said a partnership for the introduction of 3G into Australia could not be agreed because of differences in launch dates of the rival operators.

Vodafone had been holding discussions with Telstra, Australia's leading telecommunications carrier, and Singapore Telecommunications's Optus arm to share the costs of building a 3G network.

It is estimated that it will cost Vodafone less than A$500m (Û305m) to upgrade its network so it can offer 3G services. Telstra and Optus control more than 80 per cent of the Australian market for mobile services while Vodafone has 18 per cent.

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History nears launch in India and New Zealand


A&E Television Networks' The History Channel is gearing up for its launches in India and New Zealand.

To be launched in India on November 30, it will be available in Hindi for two hours a day. History's distribution, marketing and programming would be handled by National Geographic India, which is part of Star India bouquet here. The channel will move to a 24-hour Hindi feed by June, 2004.

In New Zealand, Sky Television will introduce History on December 1, with an episode of its flagship series Biography featuring the life of Mahatma Gandhi. The History Channel is New Zealand's first and only channel dedicated to history 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week and is available as part of the basic start-up package to sky digital subscribers.

The History Channel is programmed for a New Zealand audience and delivered from the Australia's leading subscription television provider Foxtel network in Australia at a time to suit New Zealand viewers. SKY Television now has more than 540,000 subscribers and is in around 40% of New Zealand homes.

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Regional iAds from Softel

ITV recently launched interactive red button adverts (iAds) on the UK ITV satellite channels in partnership with Softel. This cooperation has resulted in the development of a broadcast system allowing iAds to be transmitted over the regional ITV digital satellite service.

The technology behind the project involved the import of schedule data from a variety of ITV regional automation systems and the synchronised transmission of interactive content. The interactive content scheduling system, developed by Softel, allows not only the generation of various campaigns but also has the ability to define the interactive content behind the advert and the characteristics of the campaign play-out. The interactive adverts are broadcast using Softel's MediaSphere interactive content server.



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Cable Telephony strong growth

According to In-stat, the high-tech market research firm, worldwide cable telephony subscribers are on track to top the 10 million mark by the end of 2003, and are forecasted to rise to more than 19 million in 2007. In addition to the growing number of users around the world, recent announcements marking the first U.S.-based cable telephony service deployments using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, have made this year an important one for voice services in the cable industry.

"The cable TV service bundle has played an important role in the growth of cable telephony," said Mike Paxton, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "At the same time, significant challenges remain as cable operators attempt to further scale their voice services across their networks." These challenges include allocating sufficient capital to expand the service in an atmosphere of reduced investment, and marketing cable telephony service beyond residential users to the business community.

In-Stat/MDR has also found that:

-- Europe continues to account for the lion's share of cable telephony subscribers. As of late 2003, there were approximately 5.9 million cable telephony subscribers in Europe, in comparison to 2.7 million in the United States.

-- Worldwide revenues from cable telephony service are projected to hit $3.7 billion in 2003, and rise to more than $6 billion in 2007.

-- "Voice over Broadband" VoIP-based telephony services will play a small, but important, role in North American cable telephony services. These services, offered by companies like Vonage and Net2Phone, allow smaller cable operators to provide telephony services without large infrastructure investments.

http://www.instat.com

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Sky Perfect selects Harmonic


Japan's leading digital multi-channel satellite broadcasting company Sky Perfect Communications Inc, has chosen Harmonic for upgrading of its digital head-end video infrastructure. "Sky Perfect's mid-term strategy calls for us to reach the five million subscriber mark by 2007 through the aggregation of rich entertainment and information content that addresses a wider range of our subscribers' needs and interests," said Hajime Shigemura, president of Sky Perfect Communications Inc.