Satellite TV – Page 3 – Digital-Lifestyles

BSkyB Reports Soaring Profit, Targets 10 million Subscribers

BSkyB have reported a higher than expected profit in the year to June 30th, and added another 81,000 subscribers. However, investors registered disappointment at these latest subscriber numbers and consequently, shares fell 7%.

After-tax profits were UK£322 million (€488 million), up 75% on the previous year, sales were UK£3.6 billion (€5.4 billion), a 15% rise.

The company is hoping to have 10 million subscribers by 2010, from 7.4 million currently. BSkyB are planning to spend UK£450 million on upgrading infrastructure during that period. BSkyB are keen to get 25% of new subscribers onto their Sky+ package. To achieve this, they will be increasing their marketing budget by 40% next year.

BskyB’s modest increase in subscriber numbers has possibly been affected by rival free-to-air service Freeview, which does not require a monthly subscription. It is likely that this will have a continuing affect as free-to-air services develop and improve their channel offerings.

BskyB’s latest results

Japanese Consumers Protest at Broadcast Flag

Japanese television viewers have begun complaining to broadcasters over the sudden removal of editing and copying freedoms they’re experiencing now that the country’s version of the broadcast flag has been rolled out on digital terrestrial and cable channels.

NHK and and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters launched the broadcast flag on 5 April, limiting viewers to a single copy of programmes carrying the signal. As programmes can only be copied once, no editing can be performed either. Within a week NHK and other broadcasters had received 15,000 complaints and enquiries.

This move also means that Japanese consumers will not be able to remove adverts from programmes they have recorded for archiving, or make a backup in case an offline recording is destroyed.

Furthermore, viewers have to insert a user identification card, B-CAS (from the company who manufactures them, BS Conditional Access Systems), into their digital televisions in order to watch broadcasts.

It’ll be interesting to see the scale of protest when America’s broadcast flag system rolls out in just over a year and a month – whilst not requiring an ID card to access broadcasts, the flag will tell all new television sets what can and can’t be done to a signal – right down to preventing any copying whatsoever.

Japan Times coverage

Slashdot debates the issue

Windows Media 9 Continues to Make Progress

Microsoft’s Windows Media 9 platform is going from strength to strength – it’s being adopted by more broadcasters, it’s being incorporated in more players and MS are making more refinements to the platform codecs for High Definition media.

Microsoft are watching the platform’s popularity in the film and television world and are building on this by partnering with media companies to develop its range of functions. Work with Adobe, CineForm and BOXX Technologies has demonstrated WM9’s multi-stream High Definition capabilities, and companies like USDTV have adopted 9 as their broadcast format.

It’s not just all broadcast work either — Sonic solutions are introducing DVD Producer WMV HD Edition for producing High Definition DVDs later this year.

Microsoft is also submitting an update to its WM9 compression codec to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

Tandberg Television are currently demonstrating their EN5920 encoding platform – the only hardware encoding solution for WM9 available. Companies like NTL Broadcast and Swisscom’s Bluewin are trialling the EN5920 to provide real-time encoding and decoding of WM9 streams to domestic digital TV customers.

Windows Media Home

Half of UK Homes Now Receive Digital TV

With penetration of 50.2% of UK households, the total number of homes in the UK watching digital television now stands at 12.3 million, up 423,000 in Q4 2003. This number includes 3.2 million free to air digital viewers using Freeview and ITV Digital boxes, and PC cards.

The report will be submitted to the secretary of state for culture, media and sport at the end of March.

Ofcom

1st July 2005 – the Broadcast Flag Comes to American Television

From July 2005, every digital TV tuner sold in North America, whether a card or standalone television set, will incorporate a chip listening out for the Advanced Television Systems Committee Flag, or “broadcast flag” as it has become known.

Devised by the Motion Picture Association of America, the broadcast flag is a technology where broadcasters will be able to control whether or not a home viewer can make a digital copy of a particular programme. If a programme has the flag set, receivers disable their digital outputs – so if a viewer wishes to make a copy, it will have to be onto analogue tape, or onto special low-resolution DVDs.

Needless to say the flag has had a somewhat mixed reception – as do most initiatives where the default position is to mistrust the customer.

But what will the flag be capable of in the future? Further incarnations of the technology could be used to prevent viewers from skipping adverts, or even preventing time shifting.

“Losing Control of Your TV”

Tony Ball to step down as Sky CEO – official

After much speculation over the last few days, Sky has confirmed that Tony Ball will step down as BSkyB’s Chief Executive or in the words of the Sky press release “he has decided not to renew his service contract with the Company”.

He’ll stay with Sky until a successor has been appointed – “likely to be well before his current contract ends on 31st May 2004”. The industries view is that there are some large commercial changes likely at Sky, as changing the CEO is often a signal to this is Murdock companies.

Speculation is rife as to the successor, but a fair amount of the smart money is on James Murdock, who is currently with Asia’s Star TV.

BSkyB is the dominant digital TV platform in the UK with nearly seven millions homes supplied through satellite.

Sky press release