Satellite news April

Satdude

Satellite news 13.04.04

News

BBC STEPS UP DIGITAL TV CAMPAIGN
The BBC on April 6 reported improved audience share
and reach for its digital TV channels among the 50% of
British homes that have access to them. Preschool
channel CBeebies had an audience share of 7.3% in
March, an improvement of 0.5 points compared with
March 2003, the BBC said. Meanwhile, the preschool
channel is improving its reach: In February, CBeebies
averaged 1.1 million digital viewers, 19% of all
digital viewers, compared with a year-earlier 918,000
(17.6%). BBC3's share since its launch in February
2003 has increased 27% among all viewers and 38% for
its target audience of 25- to 34-year-olds, compared
with last year, the pubcaster said. The corporation
also revealed that Freeview, the free-to-air digital
service that offers 30 channels for a one-off cost of
as little as £45, was now in 3.4 million households.
The BBC-backed service has leapfrogged cable to become
the second most popular method of receiving digital TV
behind S*y. The BBC said its pre-Christmas marketing
campaign had helped shift half a million Freeview
boxes in December alone.

ATTHERACES BROKE COMPETITION LAW?
The Office of Fair Trading on April 5 said racecourses
had broken competition law by collectively selling TV
rights to the doomed Attheraces channel. The consumer
watchdog said the 49 tracks acted anti-competitively
by negotiating a television deal as a group,
extracting a better price from Attheraces in the
process. The ruling follows the closure of the
Attheraces channel last month, after owners BS*yB,
Channel 4 and Arena Leisure decided they were not
making sufficiently high returns on the £307m, 10-year
agreement. Vincent Smith, the director of competition
enforcement at the OFT, said the ruling sent a warning
signal to other sports bodies considering collectively
struck media deals. The 49 racecourses and the
Racecourse Association, the trade body which brokered
the deal, will escape a fine because Attheraces asked
the OFT to examine the deal shortly after it was
signed three years ago. The ruling will, however,
further complicate attempts to rescue coverage of
horseracing, which now does not have a dedicated
television channel. Track owners have divided into
five groups to negotiate a new deal.

BBC AND CHANNEL 4 COULD FACE ANALOGUE CHARGES
BBC and Channel 4 could face bills running into the
millions to broadcast their TV channels from 2006
under radical plans to accelerate the switch to
digital television. The two broadcasters currently pay
nothing to the Treasury for the right to broadcast
their main channels - BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4 - on
the traditional analogue system. But the media
regulator, Ofcom, believes introducing charges would
spur the two broadcasters to do more to encourage
viewers to change to digital. This would help the
government achieve its target of switching off the
analogue system altogether by 2010. Ofcom senior
partner Ed Richards said the regulator was "ruling in
as a possibility" the idea of charging the BBC and
Channel 4 for its analogue spectrum to "sharpen
incentives to promote switchover". In the Driving
Digital Switchover report, published this week, Ofcom
also warned broadcasters that it could be forced to
step in if they failed to work together to establish a
viable free to air satellite version of Freeview. It
said only 85% of the country was ever likely to be
covered by the digital terrestrial service and that a
satellite service should be developed to fill in the
gaps. While BS*yB continues to offer a satellite
set-top box without subscription for £169, viewers
can't see ITV, Channel 4 or Channel Five because their
broadcasts are scrambled. Until last Christmas viewers
who didn't want to subscribe to S*y could buy a
"solus" card to view the terrestrial channels, plus
the dozens of channels that broadcast unencrypted on
satellite. But following the BBC's decision to
broadcast its channels without encryption, the
broadcasters stopped funding the "solus" cards. Ofcom
called on them to come up with a solution and said it
would investigate whether it needed to intervene.

BBC LOOSES OUT ON WELSH FOOTBALL TV DEAL
Wales international football matches will be shown on
satellite TV station S*y for the next four years. The
Football Association of Wales has also awarded S*y the
rights to all Welsh domestic club matches. But the
broadcaster says all matches will still be available
to viewers in Wales on terrestrial television. The
first Wales game shown under the new deal will be the
World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland on 8
September in Cardiff. BBC Wales will continue to show
the Wales games until then, and will screen exclusive
coverage of the World Cup qualifier against England at
Old Trafford in October. The BBC has accused the Welsh
Football Association of putting profits before fans
after it sold the rights to home international matches
to BS*yB in a £10 million deal. The deal marks S*y's
return to live international football after it last
summer allowed the BBC to take the live rights to
England's home games in a £300 million joint deal.

CHANNEL 4 GETS RACING CONTRACT
Channel 4 has backed down from its threat to abandon
horse racing after 20 years. The broadcaster had
threatened to pull out of racing if it did not retain
the rights to the Cheltenham Festival but following
protracted talks, the Racecourse Holdings Trust
announced that the two parties had agreed an 18-month
deal. Under the deal, Channel 4 will continue to show
racing from Cheltenham, Newmarket, Kempton Park,
Sandown, Haydock Park and six smaller courses owned by
the RHT. Its pledge that it would continue to give
regular airtime to smaller races, an essential
component in bringing in betting and sponsorship
revenues, and its threat to drop racing altogether if
it did not retain the Cheltenham Festival succeeded in
heading off interest from ITV.

ITV3 TO LAUNCH IN SEPTEMBER
ITV is planning a September launch date for its new
drama and golden oldies channel, ITV3, provided
negotiations with BS*yB are successfully concluded.
Executives from the broadcaster are understood to have
been locked in intensive talks with BS*yB in recent
days to pave the way for the launch of ITV3, by
restructuring the two companies' GS*yB pay-TV joint
venture. GS*yB, which operates the Granada Plus
entertainment channel and Men and Motors, has a
first-look deal with ITV for classic Granada dramas
such as Cracker, Cold Feet, Prime Suspect and
Brideshead Revisited. ITV3 could be launched as a
pay-TV channel, replacing Granada Plus on S*y Digital
and digital cable. TV industry pundits believe ITV3
would earn as much as £7-10 million a year in
distribution fees from S*y Digital and the cable
operators if it is launched as a pay-TV channel.
However, BS*yB is thought to be asking for an equity
stake in ITV3 if it becomes a pay-TV service as a
result of the GS*yB talks. Alternatively, ITV3 could
be launched as a free-to-air channel like ITV1 and 2,
relying solely on advertising income. The new channel
is expected to rely heavily on the back catalogues of
Granada and Carlton, which formerly merged in February
to form ITV plc. Granada's library ranges from drama
classics such as Brideshead Revisited to modern
ratings hits such as Cold Feet, Cracker and Prime
Suspect, as well as the soaps Coronation Street and
Emmerdale. Shows in the Carlton back catalogue include
Inspector Morse, Kavanagh QC, Peak Practice and
Soldier Soldier. Carlton also owned a film library
with over 1,500 titles, featuring British movies
including Black Narcissus, The Ipcress File, Room At
The Top and the Carry On series.

BT TO PROVIDE EURO 2004 COVERAGE FOR ITV SPORT
BT Broadcast Services, the broadcast and media
solutions arm of BT, has agreed a deal with ITV Sport
to transmit the broadcaster's Euro 2004 coverage from
Portugal this summer. The deal follows a decision by
ITV Sport last year to engage BTBS to provide
transmission services for its Rugby World Cup coverage
from Australia. BTBS will provide a hybrid solution,
comprising fibre and satellite links, with 24-hour
control and monitoring provided via its International
Media Centre, based at BT Tower in London.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ALSO IN FAVOUR
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have called on media
regulators to consider the provision of free digital
satellite TV access. Speaking on April 9, assembly
member Eleanor Burnham said the move could compensate
for poor TV reception across much of Wales. The
government remains committed to switching of the
terrestrial broadcasting network, but the BBC's
digital terrestrial service, Freeview, can only be
received by around half of the Welsh population. A
recently published Ofcom report on the "digital
switchover" commits the regulator to "consider whether
regulatory intervention is needed to secure a viable
free-to-view satellite proposition". And the Lib Dems
said this could address many of the reception problems
experienced in Wales.

E U R O P E

EC INITIATES CONSULTATIONS ON DIGITAL TV STANDARDS
The European Commission on April 5 opened a public
consultation on the interoperability of interactive
digital television and whether or not to set standards
across Europe. The commission -- the European Union's
executive authority -- said it wants all the players
in digital television to take part in the debate, from
television manufacturers and cable operators to
program makers and telecommunication companies. A
public hearing on this will take place April 20 in
Brussels, the commission said. The commission outlined
the scope of the consultation in a 38-page working
paper, which warned that industry has developed
increasingly complex notions of interoperability to
cover the multiplatform environment.

EBU SIGNS SATELLITE CAPACITY FROM EUTELSAT FOR THE
OLYMPICS
Eutelsat and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU),
the world's largest professional association of
national broadcasters, announced the signature of a
contract for four wideband transponders that will be
used by the EBU for television coverage of the
upcoming Athens Olympic Games. The contract is for the
equivalent of 306 MHz of Ku-band capacity on three
Eutelsat satellites: ATLANTIC BIRD 3, e-BIRD and W3A,
the latest addition to the company's fleet which is
planned to enter into commercial service in May. For
the duration of the Olympic Games this agreement will
double the EBU's capacity leased on a full-time basis
to the EBU by Eutelsat. This additional capacity will
allow the EBU to provide private direct point-to-point
circuits between Athens and the headquarters of
television channels that will have their own TV crews
and content aggregation facilities in Athens. In
addition to these private circuits, the EBU will
simultaneously deliver 800 hours of live coverage of
the sports events with ambient sound to its 71
members. In view of the exceptional worldwide coverage
of the Olympic Games the EBU is setting up an
infrastructure fully dedicated to the event, with the
deployment at the Olympic site of a new teleport to
deliver a total of 36 non-stop programme feeds, 32 of
which will be carried by Eutelsat. Services from the
EBU teleport in Athens will start on 2 August with
technical tests. On 11 and 12 August there will be
coverage of the football matches scheduled as an
avant-première to the Games schedule. These will be
followed on 13 August by the Opening Ceremony and the
start of the Olympic events, which will continue until
29 August. The EBU's services in Athens will also be
deployed to cover the Paralympic Games from 17 to 28
September.

FRANCE

HISTOIRE FUTURE UNDER QUESTION
The future of troubled thematic channel Histoire could
finally be resolved this week as shareholders consider
offers from local and international players.
Histoire's employees issued a statement confirming
that the boards of public shareholders Arte and France
Televisions will be holding talks to mull over offers
from AB Groupe and National Geographic. With losses of
up to ?700,000 last year, Histoire ran into further
trouble in January when the network failed to make it
into France Televisions' final rundown of public
stations destined for digital terrestrial
transmission. Minister for culture and communication
Jean-Jacques Aillagon chose thematic service Festival
over Histoire to join France2, France3, France5, Arte
and the Parliamentary Channel for DTT carriage. A
public holding company currently owns 52.5% of
Histoire, while France Televisions and Arte France own
22.5% apiece. The remaining 7.5% is held by the
National Audiovisual Institute.

FRANCE 3 YET AGAIN FAVOURITE TV CHANNEL
France 3 has been voted France's favourite channel
(76% of satisfied viewers) for the fifth consecutive
year, according to Ipsos Strategie 2004*, ahead of
Arte (65%), France 2 (62%), France 5 (60%), M6 (56%)
and TF1 (49%). TF1's programmes led in several
categories: news, magazines, entertainment, reality
TV, games and serials. Arte is valued for its cultural
programmes and documentaries, France 2 for debates,
French fiction and sport whereas France 3 is preferred
for its youth programmes.

ALL-NEWS CHANNEL DELAYED
A report in Le Monde says that French President
Jacques Chirac's plan to launch a 24-hour
international news channel this year has been put on
hold amid fears that its state funding may flout
European Union competition rules. European Commission
Competition Commissioner Mario Monti has asked the
French government to provide further information about
the proposed financing of the channel, according to Le
Monde. The French government plans to allocate a
one-off sum of ?70 million in state aid to the
station, which is to be managed jointly by state-run
France Télévisions and the private channel TF1. But
Brussels may not allow state funding unless it is
convinced that the channel is a public service. The
delay means the channel is unlikely to begin
broadcasting until June 2005 at the earliest.

GERMANY

PROSIEBEN PLANS SHARE RAISE
ProSiebenSat.1, the German broadcaster controlled by
Haim Saban's Saban Capital Group, said on April 6 that
it plans to raise ?282 million with a new share issue
aimed at cutting debt and strengthening the company's
fiscal position. The move also will help boost Saban's
stake in the company. The broadcaster plans to issue
24.3 million new shares valued at ?11.60 each. The
price represents a 30% discount to the company's
current stock price of about ?16. The subscription
period for the shares is set to run April 13-26.
ProSiebenSat.1 said it will use the cash from the
issue to cut its debt from about ?676 million to ?400
million and boost cash reserves from ?195 million to
?219 million.

ITALY

S*y ITALIA ON COURSE
S*y Italia on April 8 said it would reach subscriber
targets for the end of the year after reporting a 20%
increase in customers. Tom Mockridge, chief executive
of the pay-TV broadcaster, said S*y Italia would meet
its target of three million subscribers within the
period. The News Corporation subsidiary has added
900,000 customers since its launch in July last year,
giving it a base of 2.5 million subscribers. News
Corporation anticipates losses of $300 million at S*y
Italia in the current financial year but expects the
operation to be profitable by the end of 2005. The
group's second-quarter figures were adversely affected
by a $106 million loss from the Italian pay-TV
venture. More than 3 million Italian homes access
pay-TV services through illegally manufactured decoder
cards, according to the latest estimates. S*y Italia
claims it has thwarted piracy after introducing
technology from encryption firm NDS, a News
Corporation subsidiary. Mockridge added that S*y
Italia would not suffer from the rollout of digital
terrestrial TV to the same degree as free-to-air
broadcasters. The Italian government is pushing
legislation through parliament that will accelerate
the implementation of digital terrestrial services in
Italy. A crucial part of S*y Italia's defence against
newcomers is its football offering, but its commitment
to the sport has sucked it into the financial crises
afflicting Italy's top clubs.

RUSSIA

TV3 GETS FINANCIAL BOOST
Russia's TV3 network received a $7 million boost on
April 7 when the World Bank's private lending arm
announced an investment deal with the fast growing
terrestrial broadcaster. The International Finance
Corp. deal with Independent Network Television Holding
-- the parent company of TV3 Russia -- will bring an
investment of $7 million as part of a wider $12
million debt and equity injection. The funding will
fuel the station's plans to expand distribution and
enhance programming, IFC said. Under the deal,
existing shareholders in TV3 will contribute $5
million, according to the announcement.

SCANDINAVIA

FOX SIGNS OUTPUT DEAL WITH VIASAT
Viasat Broadcasting has bought rights to film and TV
titles from Twentieth Century Fox Television
Distribution's catalogue in a three-year deal
announced on April 7. The agreement will see pay-TV
operation Viasat air a mixture of first run feature
films and TV series, along with Fox library
properties, in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Movie
titles covered by the deal include Master and
Commander: The Far Side of the World, Road to
Perdition and Phone Booth, as well as older features
such as Titanic, Independence Day and Braveheart. On
the TV side, Viasat has acquired rights to hit Buffy -
The Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Ally McBeal and 24.
The agreement also gives Viasat the rights to library
TV titles and US Network TV movies and mini-series.
All the acquired programming will air on Viasat
channels TV3, TV3+ and ZTV. Viasat, which is part of
the Scandinavian media conglomerate Modern Times
Group, also the option to extend the agreement for a
fourth year.

SPAIN

SOGECABLE COMPLETES MIGRATION
Pay-TV group Sogecable has completed the migration of
subscribers from the former Via Digital to the current
single digital satellite platform Digital Plus. To
complete the process, the group has had to renew
around 600,000 smart cards that were being used by Via
Digital's subscribers. Over the last month, Sogecable
has been sending the new cards to Via Digital's
subscribers so that they can use them from now on. The
old cards will cease to work by mid April. A similar
operation was carried out by the former Canal Satelite
Digital in 2002 in an attempt to avoid piracy when
1,200,000 smart cards were replaced.

Regards Satdude.

Satdude

Satellite news 19.04.04

News

DISSAPOINTING VIEWERSHIP FIGURES FOR BBC CHANNELS
Although it has spent millions on the launch of
digital channels such as BBC3 and News 24, the BBC's
'reach' - the number of viewers tuning in for at least
15 minutes a week - has dropped steadily in recent
years. In the first quarter of this year the BBC's TV
channels reached just 89% of households, down from
94.2% in 1995, according to BARB figures reported by
The Guardian. That means 11% of the UK's 55.2 million
TV viewers - or 6 million people - do not watch any
BBC channel for at least a quarter of an hour a week.
A BBC spokesman said the figures were affected by the
changes in the television landscape over the past
decade. "In 1995, multichannel had 15% reach with
about 100 channels, now it's 44% with over 300
channels, including Channel Five," the spokesman said.
The spokesman added that other traditional
broadcasters, such as ITV and Channel 4, had also lost
reach over the same period. The Barb figures show that
younger viewers are shunning the BBC's channels more
than their older counterparts, with reach at its
lowest for 16 to 34-year-olds, just 81.8% of whom
watched BBC services. By contrast, 95.6% of adults
over 55 watch the BBC's channels, 6.6% above the
average for all age groups. Reach is at its lowest for
digital arts channel BBC4, which attracted only 2.8%
of households, closely followed by the News 24 news
channel, with 3.5% reach. Youth station BBC3 reached
7% of households, while children's channels Cbeebies
and CBBC scored 5.9% and 3.1% respectively.

MORE4 TO LAUNCH IN 2005
Channel 4 is putting £90 million behind a series of
new ventures, including the launch of several digital
channels. According to "The Times", a number of new
digital channels are to be launched this year, with
comedy, music and factual-themed stations all being
considered. Rob Woodward, commercial director of
Channel 4, has said it has not yet been decided
whether the channels will be free to air or
subscription based. However, he has confirmed that an
advertising-financed channel, More 4, will be the
first to be launched early next year. The channel will
be aimed at older ABC1 viewers and will be carried on
digital terrestrial service Freeview as well as
satellite TV.

BS*yB SEEKS NEW REVENUE STREAMS
An inevitable slowdown in subscriber growth means
BS*yB needs new strategies and new products if revenue
is to keep increasing, according to a report by Dow
Jones. The satellite broadcaster aims to lift its
current 7.2 million subscribers to 8 million by the
end of 2005. Around 11 million U.K. households have
access to pay-TV via BS*yB or cable operators Telewest
Communications and NTL. And in the past 18 months,
around 3 million households have bought a set-top box
for less than £100 that gives access to Freeview, a
free-to-air digital service broadcast from existing
terrestrial transmitters. To sustain subscriber growth
beyond 8 million customers, BS*yB plans to target
non-digital households, while existing digital
viewers, it hopes, may even make the switch. Already
around 55% of its customers take top-tier packages,
leaving limited opportunities for further upselling.
Interactive TV services such as gambling, on the other
hand, though once seen as a big revenue generator,
have proved to be something of a disappointment. Other
offerings include the S*y+ Personal Video Recorder, an
innovative hard disk device which lets the viewer
watch, pause and rewind any program on any channel
once it has been broadcast, or simply record a choice
of programs automatically for later viewing. BS*yB has
invested some £20 million in relaunching the product
and hopes to boost take-up three-fold to around
300,000 by the middle of 2004. At the end of 2003,
around 250,000 customers subscribed to S*y+.

PREMIER LEAGUE SIGNS OVERSEAS RIGHTS DEALS
The FA Premier League has concluded a string of deals
with overseas media firms worth £290 million. The
deals bring the league's total for its upcoming
contracts to £1.6 billion, matching the cash it made
from its existing contracts. Chief executive Richard
Scudamore announced on April 16 that it has made £290
million for the three-year deals with overseas
broadcasters from the start of next season, a £112
million increase on its last batch of deals in 2001.
News Corp and Disney joint venture ESPN Star Sports
paid £96 million for the rights to show live matches
in Asia, while Cable TV paid £55 million for exclusive
Hong Kong rights.

E U R O P E

TV WITHOUT FRONTIERS LAUNCHED
Television stations in Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and
Austria on April 13 launched a joint television
project called "Television Without Borders". The
project comes under a directive of the EU Council and
is to cover a regional market of two million viewers.
Topics will include the economy, culture, science,
society, environmental protection and sports.

E! SIGNS CARRIAGE DEALS
E! International Network has expanded its reach with
its first-ever long-term carriage deals in Germany,
with Kabel Deutschland, and Switzerland, on cablecom.
"These first deals in Germany and Switzerland
represent an important benchmark in our global
strategy," noted Kevin MacLellan, the senior VP of
international at E! Networks, "and mark the next phase
of our E! International Network rollout with localized
versions into the non-English speaking territories of
Western Europe." In Germany, E! will be available on
KDG's digital tier, while cablecom will offer the
channel as part of its "Family Package" on the digital
tier. The German-language feed of E! will launch next
month. In addition, E! has signed a carriage deal with
CYTA, the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority, which
is launching its new television via DSL service this
month. The E! International Network is now available
in 23 countries, including the U.K., New Zealand, the
Netherlands, and Indonesia.

FRANCE

CANAL PLUS REVENUE DOWN
Pay-TV group Canal Plus said on April 13 that its
Canal Plus premium channel had posted total revenue of
?1.4 billion for the year ended December 31, a 2.8%
drop from the previous year. The Canal Plus channel,
which depends on subscriptions for 94% of its revenue,
lost 110,000 subscribers in 2003, in line with
previously announced figures. New subscriptions rose
about 10% to 450,700, increasing the channel's total
subscriber base to 4.7 million, the company said.
Shareholders will receive a dividend of ?0.21 per
share, a 5% increase over last year's dividend, the
Vivendi Universal subsidiary said. This represents an
increase of 5% from 2002, and is subject to approval
at a board meeting in May. The total subscription
portfolio, which includes Mediaoverseas customers who
receive Canal+ programmes, stood at 4,906,936 at
December 31. Total home subscriptions amounted to 4.3
million down 2.8 per cent. At the same time,
institutional subscriptions increased by around 7% to
387,412.

RUSSIA

GLOBECAST EXPANDS CHANNEL ONE'S REACH
GlobeCast has added Channel One Russia Worldwide
Network to its DTH platform on HOT BIRD, bringing the
channel to some 98 million homes across Europe,
Northern Africa and the Middle East. GlobeCast's
HOTBIRD will beam Channel One to about 38 countries
and 99 per cent of cable operators across Western
Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East. Channel
One Russia Worldwide Network is the international
service from Russian broadcaster Channel One, formerly
known as ORT.

SWEDEN

MGM SIGNS DEAL WITH TV4
MGM Networks, a unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., and
TV4, Sweden's leading commercial broadcaster, have
signed an agreement under which MGM Networks will
provide an MGM-branded film block every Monday night
on the TV4 Film Channel, as well as a long-term supply
of movies that will air across the channel. The TV4
Film Channel is scheduled to debut this month, and
will be available to cable, satellite and DTT
subscribers throughout Sweden. The channel and the MGM
Block will feature films in their original language
with Swedish subtitling. Following the channel's
launch, additional distribution opportunities will be
explored in Norway, Denmark and Finland. On the air
since 1991, and with a commercial market share of more
than 50% of the viewing, TV4 is the market-leading
commercial broadcaster in Sweden. Besides operating
the TV4 channel, TV4 operates the TV4 Plus and TV4
Meditv channels. In a related development, ATG
Broadcast, has expanded the play out facilities at TV4
Sweden to enable transmission of TV4 Film. The project
centered on the expansion by ATG Broadcast of routing
and output chain infrastructure installed for TV4
Sport which went on air in January 2003. Additional to
TV4 Sport and the network's main channel, TV4 Film
will be accessible throughout Scandinavia by a
combination of terrestrial and satellite delivery.

SWITZERLAND

SWISSCOM TO DELIVER DIGITAL TV TO CABLERS
Swisscom Broadcast, a subsidiary of the Swisscom
Group, has announced it is to offer premium digital
TV, which will be offered to a TV audience through
local cable network operators (CNOs); though the CNOs
will be free to operate as they wish. The premium
digital TV is programmed to offer an array of new
channels and personal programming choice to consumers.
It will be broadcast and received in a similar way to
analogue TV, via cable and satellite. Since the
majority of Swiss households already receive TV
programming via DVB-C (Digital Video
Broadcasting-Cable), the company has focused on that
medium.

Regards Satdude.

Satdude

Satellite news 27.04.04

News

BS*yB GETS AWAY ENGLAND MATCHES
In an exclusive multimillion-pound deal with the body
that handles the rights for more than 30 national
associations throughout Europe, S*y will now show
England's opening World Cup qualifying matches in
Austria and Poland later this year as well as the away
tie in Azerbaijan in October. Under the new deal, S*y
Sports also won the rights to three Wales games, three
Northern Ireland games and two Republic of Ireland
away matches. The deal means any serious England fan
will have to continue subscribing to S*y Sports to
follow the team's progress towards the 2006 World Cup
in Germany. The deal covers 11 away games played by
the home nations during the World Cup qualification
period and the matches join another 15 live games
already scheduled by S*y Sports, which holds the
rights to home games for Scotland, Wales and the
Republic of Ireland.

BS*yB FAVOURITE FOR HORSE RACING CHANNEL
A bid to create a new TV channel dedicated to horse
racing will this week be put to the owners of the
country's 59 race courses. BS*yB and Arena Leisure,
the racecourse operator, will write to the courses
with detailed proposals to buy the broadcast rights
for British racing. Three weeks ago, Attheraces, the
UK's only horse racing television channel, stopped
broadcasting British races after it failed to generate
the revenues expected from its interactive betting
services. Attheraces was a joint venture between
BS*yB, Arena and Channel 4. Despite the demise of
Attheraces, comprehensive television coverage of horse
racing by Satellite Information Services continued to
be shown in betting shops. The competition to provide
a successor to Attheraces has now become a two-way
battle. BS*yB and Arena, which will keep the
Attheraces brand, are competing with the Horse Racing
Channel, a proposed consortium which would be owned by
race courses with each holding a small stake. The
Horse Racing Channel has reached agreements with eight
race courses, and the Racecourse Holdings Trust, which
owns 13 courses including Aintree, Newmarket,
Cheltenham and Sandown Park, has expressed support.

PROFITS UP AT CHANNEL 4
Pretax profit at Channel 4 almost tripled last year to
£45 million, compared with a year-earlier £16.5
million, on essentially flat revenue of £770 million,
CEO Mark Thompson said on April 20. The rise marks the
firm's highest level of pretax profit since 1999,
Thompson said. The FilmFour unit lost £3.7 million
last year, compared with a loss of £28.7 million in
2002. The film venture and a now-closed horse racing
channel together brought the commercial arm of the
broadcaster into the red by £10.1 million last year,
compared with a year-earlier £56 million loss. Channel
4 also reduced its costs by about £10 million last
year even as it increased its programming budget to
its highest-ever level, £457 million ($820.5 million).

MBE TEAMS UP WITH A.G. MEDIA
A.G. Media Group, Inc., on April 19 announced the
signing of a strategic alliance agreement with U.K.
based television network, Major Black Entertainment,
Ltd. Under the agreement, A.G. Media's Content
Services division will develop new programming for the
MBE 24/7 network as well as explore other related
media initiatives. The newly expanded MBE 24/7 is
expected to launch in the third quarter of 2004. MBE
24-7 launched on February 16 and currently has an
audience of 39 million households in the United
Kingdom and surrounding European regions, Major Black
Entertainment TV is Europe's first television network
providing programming comprised of Black cultural
content. The channel is free to air and is on both the
Eurobird and Hotbird Satellites covering Europe and

BS*yB TO AUCTION PREMIER LEAGUE MATCHES
An auction for Premier League football will begin this
week when BS*yB invites bids for a package of matches.
The pay-TV broadcaster is offering eight games a
season from its latest TV deal following intervention
from the European commission. Brussels officials
ordered a restructuring of its £1.024 billion deal
with the league, which runs from next season until
2007, after describing the rights-selling process as
anti-competitive. Under the terms of the compromise,
BS*yB must sub-license eight "top quality" matches to
a rival broadcaster. These games will be drawn from
the cheapest of four rights packages featuring 31
matches kicking-off at 5.15pm on Saturdays but will
include top-ranking teams. Sources close to the
auction process said broadcasters would be contacted
with an "invitation to tender" in the next few days.

REGULATOR CALLS ON BBC TO REASSESS ACTIVITIES
U.K. media regulator Ofcom, as part of its public
service broadcasting review, has issued a range of
suggestions for the BBC, including the possibility of
distributing license fee funds to other U.K.
broadcasters. Ofcom's public service broadcasting
review is expected to be complete by December. It
seeks to measure how the terrestrials BBC One, BBC
Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five are living up to their
public service obligations. The preliminary findings
of Ofcom's review show that for the main terrestrials,
audience share declined from 87 per cent to 76 per
cent from 1998 to 2003. In addition, erosion was
prominent in the 16 to 34 demographic, where audience
share fell to 69 per cent.

ITV RENEWS FORMULA 1 TV RIGHTS
ITV has signed a new five-year deal with formula one
boss Bernie Ecclestone, which will keep the world's
premier motor racing series on the network until 2010.
For the first time since it poached F1 from the BBC in
1997, ITV has negotiated a deal that allows the
broadcaster to show grand prix action on ITV2 and the
soon to launch ITV3, as well as its main terrestrial
channel, ITV1. When the new deal begins, from the
start of the 2006 season, ITV is planning to offer
expanded coverage of grand prix races across all of
its channels.

FRANCE

SENATE PASSES TELECOM BILL
The French Senate has passed a bill which turns the
telecom package - the six European Commission
directives from 2002 harmonizing the regulations for
telecom and broadcasting networks - into French
legislation and aims to encourage competition. The
bill passed includes in particular an amendment that
maintains throughout a change-over period of five
years the obligation on cable and satellite operators
to broadcast the free-to-air terrestrial channels.
This so-called must-carry rule is intended - in the
context of the spread of digital broadcasting - to
allow cable and satellite subscribers the time to buy
a decoder. It also applies to RFO which is soon due to
join France Télévisions. TV5 is also to be provided
free of charge for cable and satellite subscribers.
Under current rules, the cable networks have the
obligation to distribute all terrestrial channels free
of charge, while for satellite operators the
obligation limited to public service channels only.
The senators also increased the threshold at which a
terrestrial television service is considered as a
national service, from 10 to 12 million inhabitants.
In a bid to "ensure the success of digital terrestrial
television", the senators voted an amendment that
states that "broadcasting television services in
analogue terrestrial will cease five years after the
actual start of digital broadcasts".

TF1 SEEKS TO PURCHASE HISTOIRE CHANNEL
French broadcaster TF1 has entered into exclusive
negotiations to acquire the ailing French channel
Histoire. The thematic channel, which reported losses
of more than ?800,000 in 2003, has been up for sale
for several months. Late last week France's AB Groupe
and the French subsidiary of the National Geographic
channel appeared to be the main contenders, but
latecomer TF1 has secured exclusive talks. "TF1's
offer was the most interesting for us financially and
in terms of safeguarding the current staff structure
and we have entered into exclusive negotiations with
them," said Christian Vion, joint managing director of
Arte France -- the public arts channel which owns
52.5% of Histoire with pubcaster France Televisions
and France's public Institut National de l'Audiovisuel
(INA). Started in July 1997, the Histoire channel has
3.3 million subscribers via cable and satellite and is
estimated to be worth ?4 million. The deal with TF1,
which also involves the takeover of 30% of the
company's stake from film company Gaumont and 8.75%
each from France Telecom's Wanadoo and French cable
company Noos, should be completed within a month, Vion
said. Meanwhile, first-quarter advertising revenue for
commercial TV network TF1 increased 6.1% to ?425.1
million.

CANAL SATELLITE OPTS FOR KUDELSKI MEDIAGUARD
Nagra France, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Kudelski
Group that develops the MediaGuard conditional access
system, announced that pay-TV operator Canal Satellite
has chosen MediaGuard to secure content delivery of
its programming services over an ADSL network. The new
service, CanalsatDSL, will be released to customers in
Paris in May and subsequently to other French cities
in following months. The target audience for the
service is about 3 million homes and will mainly
available in city centres - but not accessible by
satellite. The MediaGuard conditional access solution
protects content transmitted over hybrid broadcast DVB
and TV-over-DSL networks. With this agreement, Canal
hopes to significantly reduce content security and
operational costs, as the MediaGuard will allow the
company to offer either the same or different
programming packages over satellite as well as over
ADSL. Furthermore, the single-server architecture
offers seamless pay-per-view and video on demand at a
minimum cost.

GERMANY

PROSIEBENSAT1 LEADS TV AD MARKET
Haim Saban's broadcasting group ProSiebenSat 1
surpassed rival RTL Television in Germany's TV
advertising market during the first quarter of the
year. According to Variety, ProSiebenSat 1, increased
its audience share and saw a 5.8% boost in gross ad
sales to 43.6% in the quarter to March; RTL's notched
up 42.9%. ProSiebenSat 1 includes main channels
ProSieben and Sat 1 as well as Kabel 1 and news
channel N24. RTL operates flagship web RTL Television,
RTL 2, children's channel Super RTL, VOX and news net
n-tv.

IRELAND

S*y NEWS IRELAND LAUNCHES IN MAY
BS*yB has announced that its new dedicated news
service for Ireland will launch on May 10. There will
be two half-hour bulletins each evening, at 19:00 and
22:00, which will cover news, sport and weather across
the country. At weekends a 'Review of the Week' will
be shown at 19:00 and 22:00. Over two-thirds of all
households in Ireland will be able to receive the new
S*y News service via cable/MMDS or satellite. Irish
expatriates in Europe who wish to receive S*y News
Ireland should tune to Astra 2D at 28.2 East, 12.207
GHz V, SR 27500, FEC 2/3. The service is free to air.

ITALY

EU CENSURES BERLUSCONI
Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio
Berlusconi was censured by the European Parliament on
April 22 for maintaining undue control over Italian
broadcasting despite pledging three years ago to
divest his media interests. The Parliament vote in
Strasbourg was passed despite Berlusconi's Forza
Italia party attempting to derail the action by
attaching some 338 amendments. The censure resolution
calls for laws to prevent politicians or candidates
from having major media interests and urges the
European Commission -- the European Union's executive
authority -- to draft a proposal to prevent media
monopoly abuses. The resolution said Berlusconi has
failed to honor the pledge he made when he became
prime minister in 2001 to resolve the conflict of
interest on media ownership. The report says he has
increased his controlling shares in Mediaset, Italy's
largest private television group. And the report says
there are repeated and documented instances of
governmental interference, pressure and censorship of
the corporate structure and schedules of the RAI
public television service.

THE NETHERLANDS

KPN TO INCREASE DIGITENNE STAKE
Dutch telecom operator KPN aims to increase its
holding in digital DVB-T television provider
Digitenne. KPN currently has a 30 per cent stake in
the company and hopes to increase that to 49 per cent
in order to compete with cable providers who provide
TV to 97 per cent of homes in the Netherlands. The
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs must first approve
such a move, but three years ago had restricted KPN to
a 30 per cent holding in the company. Nozema, the
Netherlands Broadcasting Transmission Company,
currently has a 30 per cent share in Digitenne, NOB
has a further 30 per cent and public broadcasters the
remaining ten per cent.

SPAIN

REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS AGAINST DTT PLAN
Spain's regional Governments are challenging the
Central Administration over the recently-approved
Local DTT Technical Plan. The Regional Authorities of
Catalonia have appealed against the new local DTT rule
arguing that the allocation of multiplex has been very
unfair to Catalonia. The new legislation, approved by
the former conservative Government, allocated 266
multiplexes throughout Spain, of which 20 were granted
to Catalonia, fewer than expected. In its appeal, the
Catalonian Government has asked for more multiplexes
as those 20 only represent 7.5 per cent of all
multiplexes, despite the fact, according to it, that
around 13-14 per cent of all local television stations
are currently operating in this region. The Government
of Andalucia has also announced a similar appeal
against the local DTT rule. As a result, the new
socialist Government is considering changing the local
DTT legislation and putting aside the Technical Plan
approved by the previous Administration.

SOGECABLE LOSSES UP
Leading pay-TV operator Sogecable, owner of digital
satellite platform Digital Plus and terrestrial pay-TV
channel Canal Plus, has declared a loss of ?47.7
million in the first quarter of the year against ?17.2
million the same period last year. The company,
however, managed to increase by 41 per cent its net
turnover reaching ?379.4 million. Revenues per
subscriber grew by 44 per cent up to ?287.5 million
due to the complete migration of former Via Digital's
subscribers to Digital Plus. As of March 31, Sogecable
had 2.27 million subscribers, of which 77 per cent,
subscribe to Digital Plus and the rest to the analogue
version of Canal Plus. The ARPU reached ?50.7 per
month, against ?43.5 the previous quarter.

SWEDEN

MTG REPORTS HIGHER PROFITS
Swedish media group Modern Times Group MTG reported on
April 20 an operating profit (EBIT) of SEK85 million
on net sales of SEK1,571 million for the financial
period January-March 2004. Both operating profit
(EBIT) and net sales for the three-month period
increased, respectively from SEK80 million and
SEK1,513 million, as compared to the corresponding
period in 2003. The company said that it would
continue investment in programming to drive ratings
and increase the share of viewing for its pay-TV.

UKRAINE

TV LANGUAGE RULE CRITICISED
Ukrainian television chiefs have reacted angrily to
measures to introduce license restrictions on stations
that do not meet new requirements to broadcast
exclusively in the local language. Under Ukrainian
Television and Radio Broadcasting Council rules that
took effect on April 19, approvals for new terrestrial
broadcasting licenses may be refused if stations do
not provide 100% of content in Ukrainian. Regional
stations airing in the country's predominantly
Russiaphone eastern half must broadcast at least 50%
of their programs in Ukrainian, despite the fact that
the overwhelming majority of their viewers are native
Russian speakers. Those who fall foul of the new rules
may lose their licenses, though under current laws
only the country's courts have the power to revoke
licenses.

Regards Satdude.