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Jerry Glover, managing director of National Geographic Channel Europe, has left the company to become commercial director at Yahoo! Europe. He is replaced by veteran channel specialist John O’Loan, who launched Sky Television in 1988.
Kathryn Mitchell has been appointed head of programming at the Flextech/ BBC joint-venture UKTV. She replaces Roly Keating, who is returning to the BBC as controller, digital channels.
Hughes Space & Communications reportedly is to cut its work-force by 450 (about 5 per cent of the total) by the end of November. According to the reports, further redundancies remain under review, although the company has stated the 450 should see it through till the end of the year. Hughes has been dogged by manufacturing delays and a decline in orders this year. The launch of the new HS-702 has been delayed by several months.
BSkyB has selected NTL to provide primary feeds for its Ryder Cup coverage via the NTL/Williams Vyvx AC-1 transatlantic fibre service. NTL has already used the fibre connection to transmit the US PGA golf tournament. NTL’s premium 12.5Mbps service will provide the main feed. The contract highlights a move towards the use of fibre rather than satellite links for transatlantic transmissions.
The new TV channel for Kosovo, Radio Television Kosovo (RTK), has launched under the auspices of the European Broadcating Union. RTK will broadcast news and information in Albanian and Serb from 1900-2100 every day, broadcasting via satellite.
Spanish pay-TV operator Sogecable should significantly improve its financial performance over the next year, according to a report from investment analysts Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Sogecable, backed by Canal Plus and the Prisa Group (each with 25 per cent) announced interim net revenues of Euro371.2 million (pounds 240.3 million), a 21.5 per cent increase on the first half of 1998. EBITDA was Euro38.2 million, up from Euro9.6 million the previous year. Sogecable reported a pre-tax loss for the half of Euro41.7 million. Morgan Stanley said that Audiovisual Sports, the sports rights arm of the company, had performed less well than expected, because of the absence of PPV sales to Via Digital. Subscribers to the main Canal Plus Espana channel rose by 36.1 per cent over the previous June figure, while subscribers to Canal Satelite Digital rose by 41 per cent to 713,741, outnumbering Via Digital on new subscriber growth by three to one.
UK culture minister Chris Smith has set down his timetable for the UK’s analogue switch off. Smith said it was his view that conditions could be right between 2006-10. However, he has established key requirements, the toughest being that 95 per cent of UK homes have access to digital technology. Smith also said there "should be no automatic presumption" that he would accept the recommendation of the Davies Committee that the BBC’s move to digital should be funded by a supplementary licence fee, a prospect that has attracted the enmity of commercial and satellite broadcasters.
Norwegian digital distribution platform Canal Digital, a joint venture between Canal Plus and several Norwegian media groups, has signed an additional ten niche channels for distribution to digital DTH customers. The new arrivals include BBC World, Sky News, National Geographic Channel, US movie channel Hallmark, three Discovery channels (Sci Trek, Civilisation, Travel & Adventure) and.tv. A Norwegian city channel Metropol will launch at the end of September and UK football channel MUTV will be distributed six hours per day.
Comsat’s Linkway 2000 broadband networking terminal has been chosen by V-SAT Telecom to become part of Russia’s first broadband satellite network. V-SAT Telecom, a satellite integration company, is providing a network for the Russian oil company Rosneft. Rosneft will use the network to connect 10 of its companies located throughout Russia, from Moscow to Sakhalin Island.
Vivendi and Pathe have valued France’s Canalsatellite at Fr10.5 billion prior to Vivendi’s acquisition of Pathe’s 20 per cent stake in the pay-TV operation and its planned transfer to Canal Plus. The figure means that Canalsatellite effectively is valued at Fr9,000 per subscriber. Vivendi owns 34 per cent of Canal Plus.

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