Satellite Television (DBS, DTH, DSat, DVB-S, DVB-S2) News

Freesat nears 400,000 sales mark after first year
May 7, 2009 – The UK's Freesat subscription-free digital satellite TV service has celebrated its first birthday. Sales are on track to reach 400,000 units.
News categories: Freesat, Digital TV, DVR, Market Research, Satellite, Set Top Box, UK

93,000 HD ZON Boxes installed in Portugal in Q1
May 6, 2009 – ZON Multimedia (Lisbon:ZON) has released its results for the first quarter of 2009. A further 93,000 customers installed an HD ZON Box, half of which were PVRs, leading to a total installed base of HD / HDR Boxes of 184 thousand.
News categories: ZON Multimedia, Cable TV, DVR, Portugal, Results, Satellite, Set Top Box, Subscribers

SKY Italia subscriber base at 4.8 million
May 6, 2009 – News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) has reported results for its third quarter ended March 31, 2009. SKY Italia had net subscriber additions of 290,000 over the past 12 months, bringing the subscriber base to 4.8 million at quarter end.
News categories: News Corp, Italy, Results, Satellite, Subscribers

Pay-TV Subscribers Worldwide Will Continue to Grow in 2009
May 6, 2009 – Pay-TV subscribers are expected to grow by 8 percent in 2009 to reach nearly 733 million worldwide despite the challenging economic environment, according to the first quarter update of the Media Forecast from Pyramid Research.
News categories: Pyramid Research, Cable TV, Digital TV, IPTV, Market Research, Mobile, Satellite, Subscribers, Terrestrial

Liberty Global Reports First Quarter 2009 Results
May 5, 2009 – Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) has announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2009. The company added 216,000 RGUs in the first quarter of 2009, driven by strong growth in advanced services, especially digital cable.
News categories: Liberty Global, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Cable TV, Chile, Czech Republic, DVR, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, MMDS, Netherlands, Poland, Puerto Rico, Results, Romania, Satellite, Slovakia, Slovenia, Subscribers, Switzerland

Telenor (Canal Digital) subscribers fall in Q1
May 5, 2009 – Telenor (Oslo:TEL) has released results for the first quarter of 2009. The number of Canal Digital DTH subscribers decreased by 17,000 and the number of Telenor cable subscribers fell by 7,000 during the quarter.
News categories: Telenor, Cable TV, CAM, Conditional Access, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Results, Satellite, Subscribers, Sweden, Terrestrial

STRONG signs with Canal+ for CANAL READY receivers
May 5, 2009 – The STRONG Group has signed an agreement with the CANAL+ Group that will allow it to label its satellite receivers 'CANAL READY', i.e. compatible with the services of the leading French pay-TV operator.
News categories: STRONG, CANAL+ Group, France, Satellite, Set Top Box

DIRECTV Group and Liberty Media Corporation Announce Combination
May 4, 2009 – The DIRECTV Group and Liberty Media Corporation have announced they have entered into definitive agreements for the combination of DIRECTV Group with Liberty Entertainment, a company to be split-off from Liberty Media.
News categories: DIRECTV, Liberty Media, Digital TV, MandA, Satellite, USA

BSkyB adds 80k subscribers in quarter to end-March
May 1, 2009 – BSkyB (LSE:BSY) net customer additions for the quarter ended 31 March 2009 were 80,000 taking the total base to 9.318 million. Gross customer additions were 13% higher year-on-year at 327,000 and churn was 10.6%.
News categories: BSkyB, DVR, Ireland, Results, Satellite, Subscribers, UK