Focus: Broadcasting

Sky Network Television, the leading pay-TV operator in New Zealand, added nearly 45,000 subscribers for the year that closed at the end of June, bringing its total subscriber base to nearly 715,000, the company announced Aug. 17. The operator also posted a nearly 30 percent increase in profits compared to the previous business year. During...

[8/20/07 – Satellite Today] Globecomm Systems Inc. has opened a broadcast operations center for Showtime Networks Inc., Globecomm announced. The 6,000-square-foot custom master and control facility at Globecomm’s Long Island International Teleport supports the transmission of 25 standard-definition, 3 high-definition and an analog channel to satellites serving the United States. Globecomm is providing all technical...

[08/17/07 – Satellite Today] The first satellite radio tuner that can receive Sirius Satellite Radio’s TV offering will be available in the fourth quarter, Sirius announced Aug. 16. The SCV1 satellite radio tuner delivers three channels of programming provided under Sirius Backseat TV as well as access to all of Sirius’ radio channels. The unit,...

[08/17/07 – Satellite Today] EchoStar Communications Corp. unveiled its latest high-definition (HD) digital video recorder (DVR) designed to complement the company’s expanded HD programming offerings on its Dish Network, EchoStar announced Aug. 17. The ViP722, an upgraded version of the ViP622 dual-tuner DVR, can record one channel in HD and a second in standard definition...

Over the last few weeks, all the major satellite pay-TV operators in Europe and U.S. have announced their results. Here, in a special two-part article, we look at how well satellite pay-TV operators are performing against cable and telco alternatives. With telcos aggressively targeting the television market, and able to offer television services as part...

Sirius Satellite Radio is launching two new services which offer enhanced video options and portable audio entertainment to customers, the company announced August 15. Sirius is launching the first satellite radio tuner that can receive Sirius Backseat TV. The SCV1 satellite radio tuner delivers three channels of programming from Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network,...

DirecTV, the U.S. pay-TV operator, has signed a deal with the Current Group, which will boost its position in the broadband space, the company announced August 15. The wholesale distribution deal will enable DirecTV to offer its customers Current’s BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) high-speed Internet service and VoIP services at the end of 2007/beginning of...

MultiChoice South Africa (MCSA), a DTH operator in south Africa, is teaming up with OpenTV as it prepares to roll out advanced digital television services on its DStv platform across South Africa, the companies announced August 14. MCSA is investigating high definition personal video recorders (PVRs) with OpenTV Core2 middleware and OpenTV PVR2 software, in...

Vision TV, a new direct-to-home (DTH) operator in the Ukraine, has signed a deal with NDS for conditional access and middleware services, the companies announced Aug. 13. NDS will provide Vision TV with its VideoGuard solution and its MediaHighway middleware. The platform includes the latest generation MPEG-4 compression via satellite and offers the flexibility to...

DirecTV Group revenues improved 17 percent to $4.1 billion in the 2007 second quarter but profits fell slightly to $448 million, the company announced Aug. 9. A year ago, the company reported profits of $459 million on revenues of $3.5 billion. DirecTV credited the revenue gain to strong growth in average revenue per subscriber and...