The Channel | 2003 | September

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Global Brief
The latest news from the international broadcasting industry
Murdoch completes his Italian job
Sky, the international satellite TV network owned
by media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp,
has launched its predicted new service in Italy. Sky
Italia was created from a merger between Stream
Television, jointly owned by News Corp and
Telecom Italia, and the Telepiu network, which
Murdoch’s media empire recently acquired from
Vivendi Universal/Canal Plus.
Sky Italia will offer more channels than the previous
Stream and Telepiu services combined, as well as a
dedicated news channel, Sky TG24. Sky Italia is 80.1
per cent owned by News Corp, with the remaining
19.9 per cent held by Telecom Italia. Murdoch said
in June that he hoped to quickly attract three million
Italian customers, and aimed to win over 10 million.
Although News Corp will take a loss for the creation of Sky Italia, the TV-to-
newspapers media giant sees strong growth ahead. International channels carried on
the service include AIB member CNBC Europe, as well as Bloomberg TV, CNN
International, Sky News, MTV, Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
Europe’s first terrestrial all-digital city
Berlin has become the first area in Europe to abandon analogue terrestrial TV
transmissions. The region’s terrestrial TV services
are now available on digital platforms only. Since
most household TV sets are still designed for
analogue reception, many viewers have had to
invest in set-top decoders.
According to the Berlin-Brandenburg Media
Authority, 150,000 of the 170,000 households
who depended on the analogue service had
bought the set-top boxes ahead of the 4 August
changeover. Set top boxes are relatively cheap in
the city - just €99. 27 channels of content are
available on seven multiplexes. BBCWorld - part
of AIB member BBC Global News - is the only
international channel carried on the Berlin digital
service.
In a separate development, Berlin’s DVB-T
system is the world’s first offering Dolby Digital
5.1 surround sound. Commercial broadcaster
ProSieben has launched Dolby Digital 5.1 on its
terrestrial service, complementing the existing
Dolby service the channel operates on satellite.
Next year the federal states of Saxony, Saxony-
Anhalt, Thuringia and North Rhine-Westphalia
will also introduce digital terrestrial TV. The German parliament has decided that
analogue broadcasting should be completely phased out by 2010.
Meanwhile, NHK, Japan’s public broadcatser, along with private TV broadcasters
and the telecom ministry, has decided to bring forward the start of terrestrial digital
TV broadcasts in the nation’s non-metropolitan districts from late 2006. The three
metropolitan areas surrounding Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya have agreed to start full
broadcasts in December this year.
In other districts, the broadcasters and ministry agreed to start in 2004, the lengthy
process of adjusting the existing TV sets in households to prevent interference of
existing analogue broadcasting signals, which would otherwise occur after the start
of digital broadcasts.
Hooray, I’m all digital
Spain goes to Britain
Spanish public broadcaster TVE
Internacional will be available to viewers
in the UK and Ireland from October. RTVE
has signed an agreement with BSkyB, for
distribution of TVE Internacional to its
UK and Irish digital subscribers. TVE
Internacional will be the first channel in
Spanish and the second non English-
speaking channel available after French
TV5. TVE Internacional will be included
in the basic package.
Microsoft builds TV business
Microsoft TV is consolidating its position
in the Latin American TV marketplace.
Cablevision Mexico has commercially
launched Microsoft TV Interactive
Programme Guide (IPG) following a
deployment process that converted all
digital cable subscribers from the
previous guide to Microsoft TV IPG in a
single evening.
Mexico’s largest multiple service operator
Megacable and Cablevision Monterrey
have announced that they will adopt
Microsoft TV IPG and Microsoft TV
Advanced later in 2003.
Indian TV channels to grow
Zee Telefilms, India’s largest private
broadcaster, plans four new city-centric
independent 24-hour channels. The cities
chosen for the launch are Delhi, Mumbai,
Kolkata and Chennai.
“The Delhi project is on the anvil. But
the rest of the three would be formalised
only if the Delhi experiment is successful.
The content will be exclusively local.
Besides locally-produced entertainment
programmes, the channel will cover local
events and will produce local news
bulletins,” said a Zee spokesperson
quoted in the Indian press.
Zee has applied to the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting for a
business news channel.
Zee, through its distribution alliance with
Turner International - Zee Turner India -
is expected to launch four new channels
including two business channels -
Bloomberg and CNN Finance - the old
Turner Classic Movies or TCM channel and
a second kids channel from Australia.
ChannelNewsAsia chooses AsiaSat
AsiaSat and Singapore-based MCN
International have signed a lease agreement
to broadcast Channel NewsAsia digitally
across Asia. On September 1, Channel
NewsAsia - produced by Singapore’s
MediaCorp - will switch its Asian distribution
to Asiasat 3S, replacing the existing Palapa
C2 and APSTAR IIR services.
Channel NewsAsia claims 14.5million homes
and hotels in 19 territories across Asia.
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