TV Services (Pay TV, OTT, Broadcasting) News

MediaKind delivers 4K UHD content for BTV in China
Mar 10, 2021 – MediaKind is working with NDT on the delivery of recorded 4K content for BTV's winter sports channel. MediaKind has provided encoding and decoding solutions enabling the first provincial 4K UHD channel on satellite in China.
News categories: MediaKind, NDT, Narayanan Rajan, Wang Tong, China, Content Distribution, Digital TV, Satellite

Disney+ passes 100 million subscriber milestone
Mar 9, 2021 – Disney+ has surpassed 100 million global paid subscribers in just 16 months. Since its U.S. launch in November 2019, Disney+ has added Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Latin America and Singapore.
News categories: Walt Disney, Bob Chapek, Digital TV, Streaming, Subscribers, Worldwide

Amazon takes lead as connected TV device sales hit new peak
Mar 9, 2021 – Global sales of connected TV devices soared to a record in Q4 2020, reaching 109.1 million units, according to Strategy Analytics. Amazon became market leader for the first time with a market share of 12.1%.
News categories: Strategy Analytics, David Watkins, Edouard Bouffenie, Digital TV, Gaming, Market Research, Set Top Box, Smart TV, Streaming, Worldwide

500,000 UK subscribers for Britbox
Mar 9, 2021 – BritBox UK has announced that it has hit its target of half a million subscriptions. The SVOD service, created by the BBC and ITV with content also from Channel 4 and Channel 5, launched at the end of 2019.
News categories: ITV, Carolyn McCall, Digital TV, Streaming, Subscribers, UK

Smaato adds OTT to its ad tech platform
Mar 9, 2021 – After beta testing its OTT platform with five global streaming platforms, two OTT aggregators, two broadcasters and a smart TV manufacturer, Smaato has launched OTT inside its Smaato Publisher Platform (SPX).
News categories: Smaato, Ajitpal Pannu, Advertising, Digital TV, Streaming, Worldwide

Broadpeak powers multiscreen video delivery for Cellcom TV
Mar 9, 2021 – Broadpeak has announced that Cellcom has upgraded its Cellcom TV service with a multiscreen video delivery architecture powered by Broadpeak's nanoCDN multicast ABR and analytics solutions.
News categories: Broadpeak, Cellcom, Jacques Le Mancq, Content Distribution, Digital TV, Israel, Streaming

Viaplay launches in the Baltics
Mar 9, 2021 – Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group) has announced the launch of its Viaplay streaming service in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Up until now Viaplay has only been available in the Nordic countries.
News categories: NENT Group, Anders Jensen, Digital TV, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Streaming

WOWOW licenses AI powered transcoder from Ittiam
Mar 8, 2021 – Ittiam Systems has licensed its cloud based content adaptive media transcoder solution to WOWOW, a satellite TV station in Japan. The Transcoder provides video encoding with an AAC Audio encoder.
News categories: Ittiam, WOWOW, Ichiro Minagawa, Yuichi Sogo, Content Distribution, Digital TV, Japan, Satellite

Latin America to add 63 million SVOD subscriptions
Mar 8, 2021 – According to Digital TV Research, Latin America will have 116 million SVOD subscriptions by 2026; up from the 53 million at end-2020. Brazil will contribute 44 million to the 2026 total, followed by Mexico with 29 million.
News categories: Digital TV Research, Simon Murray, Digital TV, Latin America, Streaming, Subscribers