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Italian TV holding Mediaset has increased its stake in Spanish private channel Telecinco, from 25 to 40 per cent. The quota, worth L300 billion (Pounds 101 million), was previously held by Luxembourg-based bank BIL. Other Telecinco shareholders are Kirch Group (25 per cent) and Spanish media groups Correo (25 per cent) and Planeta Corporation (10 per cent).
Israel’s embryonic DBS service has lost out to a group of local cable operators which successfully bid for exclusive multi-level broadcasting rights to this coming season’s Israeli Soccer Association matches, and going forward for the following five years. Soccer is Israel’s favourite sport and the cable consortium bid US$21 million to cover the six year period.
Video Italia – Solo Musica Italiana launched on Astra at 19.2 degrees East at the start of July. The all-Italian music channel is to be found on transponder 112 (12610.5MHz, vertical) and is broadcast free to air MPEG-2/DVB. Radio Italia, which owns the TV channel started broadcasting its own Radio Italia s.m.i. channel on the same transponder last year.
The telecom portfolio held by outgoing European Commissioner Martin Bangemann (who has controversially accepted a position as adviser to Telefonica chairman Juan Villalonga) reportedly is set to be incorporated into a wider ‘enterprise and information society’ directorate as part of the reform agenda of the new European president, Romano Prodi. The position is likely to be occupied by Finnish politician Erkki Liikanen.
Bloomberg TV Germany has doubled its coverage from Wall Street between 15:00-22:00 on trading days. Live reports will begin at 08:30 EST (14:30 CET) and continue till close of trading, and will include update reports every half-hour.
London-based MSS operator ICO Global Communications has gained entry into the Mexican market by signing its first agreement with a telecommunications operator to provide rural telephony service, reports our sister publication Satellite News. Telecomunicaciones de Mexico and ICO will offer up to 24 million minutes of traffic during the first year, using 4,000 ICO residential terminals. The ICO service will be part of the satellite service offered by the telco for the rural telephony program of the Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes de Mexico. The goal of the programme is to deliver telephone services to more than 30,000 communities of between 100 and 500 inhabitants. Iridium de Mexico has also received a licence to offer Iridium services in Mexico from the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation. Iridium de Mexico now is the first Mexican company to offer global wireless voice and paging communications services.
Switzerland will soon get its own music television channel. Swizz TV, as the channel is called, intends to launch on September 6. The advertising-financed 24-hour channel targets young people in the German-speaking part of the country. Swizz TV, which wants to position itself as an alternative to MTV and Viva, currently is searching for presenters. Swizz TV will be broadcast on cable and possibly on satellite as well.
Finland’s competition regulator has referred the terms under which MTV supplies its main channel to DTH operators to the country’s competition council. The regulator claims that by supplying the channel free to cable operators while charging a carriage fee for DTH, the music service is discriminating against the latter.
The Austrian entrepreneur and president of the national football association, Frank Stronach, has received a cable and satellite licence for the sports channel planned by his company Sport Management International. The federal media authority, as expected, approved the application last week. No date has been fixed for the launch so far.
Italian pay-TV operator Telepiu is planning to introduce pre-paid smartcards for the reception of its digital pay-TV package D+. The new cards, which can only be used with Seca Goldbox receivers, are valid for three months and allow reception of the Superpremium, Superbasic (Basic plus Cine Cinemas) and Digi packages. The cost of the smart cards is equal to the cost of a three-month subscription. Additionally, the cards can also be used for the reception of Telepiu’s pay-per-view service Palco.

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