Europe Digital TV News

Orange and Canal+ Group sign agreement to broadcast Canal+ and Canalsat channels via Astra satellite
Jan 6, 2009 – Orange (Paris, NYSE:FTE) and Canal+ (Paris: VIV) have signed a multi-annual agreement to allow Orange triple play customers who are not eligible for TV by ADSL to subscribe to Canal+ and/or Canalsat, as well as Foot+ via satellite.
News categories: Orange, Groupe CANAL+, Digital TV, France, IPTV, Satellite, Set Top Box

Bouygues Telecom Deploys Verimatrix Content Security for IPTV Service
Jan 6, 2009 – Verimatrix has announced that France's Bouygues Telecom is securing its MPEG-4 live broadcast and on-demand video content, delivered via ASDL to the BBOX home gateway, with the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS®) for IPTV.
News categories: Verimatrix, Bouygues Telecom, CES2025, Conditional Access, Content Protection, Digital TV, France, IPTV, Set Top Box

Tiscali closes Italian IPTV service
Dec 29, 2008 – Italian ISP Tiscali will suspend its IPTV service Tiscali TV for an undetermined period, starting from 1 January 2009, according to Italian press reports.
News categories: Tiscali, Digital TV, IPTV, Italy

Russia - Raduga TV DTH begins broadcasting
Dec 26, 2008 – GTSS, in co-operation with DalGeokom, has soft-launched a new DTH satellite service - RADUGA TV - for Russia. The package includes more than 40 television channels with a plan to increase the number to 60 in the future.
News categories: GTSS, RADUGA TV, Digital TV, Russia, Satellite

Planned EU tax could kill mobile TV
Dec 23, 2008 – European Commission plans to introduce a 14 percent tax on cellphones with TV receivers would kill the potentially lucrative market before it ever takes off, a senior official at DiBcom has said.
News categories: European Commission, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, EU, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mobile, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Regulation, Romania, Semiconductor, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK

BBC unveils BBC iPlayer Desktop on Adobe AIR
Dec 19, 2008 – The BBC and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ:ADBE) have announced the public beta of the new BBC iPlayer Desktop download manager built on Adobe AIR, a key component of the Adobe Flash Platform.
News categories: BBC iPlayer, Adobe Systems, Digital TV, Media Player, Mobile, Streaming, UK

Portugal - MEO surpasses 300 thousand customers
Dec 18, 2008 – Portugal Telecom (Lisbon: PTC; NYSE: PT) has announced that Meo, its pay-TV service, has surpassed 300 thousand customers, representing circa 43% of PT's ADSL customers. Net additions in the quarter to date surpassed 89 thousand customers.
News categories: Portugal Telecom, Digital TV, DVR, IPTV, Portugal, Satellite, Set Top Box, Subscribers

UK digital TV sales boom as credit crunch bites
Dec 17, 2008 – Figures released by Digital UK show that in the year to October 2008, UK consumers bought nine million televisions. Ninety per cent of televisions purchased in October 2008 were digital, the highest proportion ever recorded.
News categories: Digital UK, Digital TV, Market Research, Smart TV, Terrestrial, UK

BSkyB demonstrates 3D TV
Dec 17, 2008 – BSkyB's research and development team has successfully demonstrated 3D TV to an industry audience at the broadcaster's West London HQ.
News categories: BSkyB, Digital TV, Metaverse, Satellite, Set Top Box, UK