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According to International Launch Services, the Atlas II, IIA and IIAS vehicles have achieved 100 per cent mission success with a tally of 45 successful flights. The string of consecutive successful Atlas launches now stands at 48. Eutelsat will use the first ‘heavy lift’ Atlas III rocket for W4 in April via a contract with ILS.

Chinese satellite and cable transmissions of Cartoon Network have been pulled by the Chinese government. The ban also affects re-distribution of the channel to hotels and housing compounds for foreigners. Individual satellite reception is not permitted.

BBC Worldwide has teamed up with New York merchant bank Veronis Suhler to create a new publishing based consumer media company in the US. The new firm will have an equity capital value of $100 million. The venture initially will focus on acquiring consumer lifestyle and informational publishing properties with cross-media potential.

Reflecting the growing importance of wireless as a distribution channel, Gary Carter has been appointed as director of wireless content development for CNN Interactive. CNN Mobile has also signed up its 20th charter operator, Turkcell, giving it a reach of 41 million mobile phone users worldwide.

BSkyB has taken a 5.5 per cent stake in Internet sports company Sportal, with an option to purchase a further 7 per cent stake in the company. Sportal has franchised Internet sites with a number of football clubs across Europe. Its existing partnerships include AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain and Sporting Lisbon. Sportal reportedly is also seeking partnerships with UK clubs.

E! Entertainment TV, the American showbiz and entertainment channel, is about to expand into the Nordic terrritories. On September 1 E! Entertainment TV Scandinavia will launch in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, initially on the Canal Digital platform, but other cable and satellite outlets will be identified in a near future. Further expansion into Iceland and the three Baltic countries is also planned. The Scandinavian version of E! will be put together in partnership between Los Angeles-based E! TV Networks and two Swedish parties: risk capital venture Ledstiernan (The Lodestar), a group led by former SAS managing director Jan Carlzon, and NonStop Television, a company within Millennium Media Group (MMG), established late in 1998 by Ignas Scheynius, with a background in Sveriges Television, TV1000 and MTG Acquisitions, and CeGe Andersson. MMG was one of the unsuccessful applicants in the latest round of licensing of the Swedish DTT network.

French local news channel i>television has just launched on the TPS bouquet. The channel was launched by Canal Plus in November via the Canalsatellite bouquet and the NC Numericable cable network as well as the Canalsatellite bouquets in Reunion and Antilles. The addition of TPS brings its total number of subscribers to 2.3 million. At the same time, Canalsatellite has renewed the carriage of LCI, the news channel produced by TF1 which is one of the main shareholders of TPS. Canalsatellite had given notice to end the carriage agreement on January 31 . At the end of 1999 TPS had 815,000 subscribers, a net increase of 200,000 over the year. At the end of 1999 Canalsatellite had 1.37 million subscribers.

Euronews could be available in Polish soon. General manager Martyn Wheatley is engaged in talks with Poland’s leading commercial television company Polsat about possible co-operation. It is believed that the two sides are close to agreement. Polsat will be responsible for creating a Polish version of Euronews. The Polish service will use the Euronews video feed from Lyon. Polsat will create a team of translators in Warsaw to create the Polish voice-over. The actual content will remain the responsibility of Euronews. Polsat will take charge of the broadcasting infrastructure for the Polish version. It is likely that the channel will be broadcast, together with other Polsat channels, as a part of the Polsat digital pack Polsat 2 Cyfrowy.

One in three homes in western Europe (50.8 million households) will take digital TV by 2003, according to a report by Jupiter Communications. According to Jupiter, the UK, Denmark and Germany will have digital penetration rates of 52 per cent, 41 and 40 per cent of households respectively.

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