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TELE-satellit News - 31 December 1995
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TELE-satellit
EUROPE'S SATELLITE MAGAZINE
International Satellite Broadcasting News
Number 82, Week ending 31 December 1995
By Martyn Williams
News Desk : Internet martyn@twics.com or CompuServe CIS:martynw
(c) TELE-satellit Magazine
CLT BID RUMORS SURFACE
LUXEMBOURG (TS) -- Reports of various bidders and buyers for all or
part of CLT, Cie Luxembourgeoise de Telediffusion, have emerged in the
past two weeks. CLT owners large stakes in all of the RTL television
and radio channels plus parts of other broadcasting and media ventures
in Europe.
Shortly before Christmas German news magazine Der Spiegel reported a
Franco-German consotrium was interested in buying CLT for three
billion marks.
The report prompted a press release denying current speculation, but
not ruling out the possibility of a bid.
The group is made up of Germany's Bertelsmann AG, French pay-TV
group Canal Plus and French media company Havas, which each had
pledged one million marks for a third share of the group.
The three were apparently interested in buying a majority stake in
CLMM, a company that controls CLT owned by Belgian financier Albert
Frere and his Groupe Bruxelles Lambert SA.
Havas already owns 40% of CLMM and the consortium is now interested
in making it a majority stake.
Earlier the same week CLT was forced to deny rumors that Rupert
Murdoch's BSkyB was to buy a 30% stake in the company.
YELTSIN VETOES LAW BANNING ORT
By Laura Belin
MOSCOW, Russia (OMRI) -- As expected, President Boris Yeltsin vetoed
the law on reorganization, privatization, and liquidation of state
radio and television companies passed by the Duma on 24 November and
approved by the Federation Council on 9 December, ITAR-TASS reported
on 21 December.
The president vetoed a similar measure in June. In particular, the
law would have suspended the creation of Russian Public TV (ORT),
created as part of a November 1994 presidential decree ordering the
restructuring of Ostankino. ORT has broadcast on Channel 1 since 1
April, and Ostankino was liquidated under a 6 October presidential
decree.
ECHOSTAR I LAUNCHED
ENGLEWOOD, California, USA (ESC) -- EchoStar Communications Corp.,
confirmed on December 28th it has successfully achieved geotransfer
orbit and completed final separation of the rocket from the company's
first direct broadcast satellite, EchoStar-I after an early morning
launch the same day from Xichang, China.
EchoStar-I will reach final orbit at approximately the end of the
first week of January. Once final orbit is achieved, the solar panels,
antenna and deflectors will be deployed and in-orbit testing will
begin. The satellite is expected to be ready for full commercial
transmission by mid-February.
EchoStar is developing a state-of-the- art DBS system, the DISH
(Digital Sky Highway) Network, expected to be operational early next
year with programming transmitted from EchoStar-I. A total of over
200 channels of digital video, audio and data services are expected to
be delivered to homes throughout the continental United States with
the launch of EchoStar-II in mid-1996.
PRIVATE BROADCASTING APPROVED IN HUNGARY
BUDAPEST, Hungary (TS) -- Hungarian law makers recently approved the
beginning of private broadcasting in the country breaking state
controlled MTV's monopoly.
The legislature voted 264-31 in favor of the motion to allow private
broadcasting to begin.
Under the plan, MTV 1 and Duna TV will continue to be state operated
while a new state run satellite channel is also established, by
December 1996.
Private channels will be able to use the current channels occupied
by MTV 2 and the now unused channel 58 which used to relay Soviet
Television.
CABLE CHANNELS ATTRACT MORE UK VIEWERS
LONDON, England (TS) -- A recent study by the Independent Television
Commission has found the share of viewing time taken by satellite and
cable channels in cable homes is increasing.
New channels grabbed a 39.6% share of total viewing time, up from
34.9% last year. The biggest looser was BBC 1 which dropped to 21.2%
from 24.1%. Channel 4 also lost share dropping 1.2% to 5.1% whilst the
share of ITV and BBC 2 remained broadly constant.
Average viewing per week amounted to 25 hours, virtually unchanged,
although amongst children the amount of time spent watching TV has
increased with the new channels. In th 2 to 9 year old age group, The
Disney Channel accounted for around 10% of all viewing.
TWO PRIVATE ESTONIAN TV STATIONS TO MERGE
By Saulius Girnius
TALLIN, Estonia (OMRI) -- The private television stations RTV and
EVTV, which currently broadcast on alternate days on the same channel,
will combine their programs from the beginning of 1996 as the first
step toward their full merger as new station TV3, BNS reported on 27
December.
Some 70-80% of RTV's current shareholders are to take part in the
founding of the new station while only one shareholder, Sweden's
Kinnevik, will participate from EVTV.
PANAMSAT PICKS UP MORE ASIAN TRAFFIC
HONG KONG (TS) -- PanAmSat-2, the recently launched Pacific Ocean
Region satellite, has attracted more custom. Hong Kong's TVBI,
Television Broadcasts Ltd International, has announced it has chosen
the satellite to carry its signal across Asia.
ORION GRABS NEW UK CABLE STATION
LONDON, England (TS) -- Orion Atlantic has secured a contract to
transmit Performance - The Arts, a UK cable arts channel. The
broadcasts, direct to cable operators throughout the United Kingdom,
will take place via the Orion 1 satellite.
The contract was awarded by NTL with whom Orion offers transmission
services via Orion 1 from a new, NTL-owned digital video satellite
transmission facility located in Central London, England.
Performance - The Arts is a 24-hour, 7 days a week cultural
programming channel.
Orion has already provided antennas to local cable operators who
have contracted to receive the programming. Over 40 cable systems
passing more than 3 million homes will have dishes pointed to Orion 1
by the start of this service.
The transmission service for Performance - The Arts will commence on
February 1, 1996 along with Channel One which was announced last
November. Channel One, a 24-hour, 7 days a week news and
entertainment channel, will also be transmitted throughout the U.K.
MORE EURO MONEY FOR WIDESCREEN
BRUSSELS, Belgium (EC NEWS) --
Commission grants aid for wide-screen television broadcasting
EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESS RELEASE: IP/95/1463
DOCUMENT DATE: DECEMBER 21, 1995
+
EUROPEAN ACTION PLAN HELPS AUSTRIA, DENMARK AND ITALY TO
ENTER THE WORLD OF WIDE-SCREEN TV - DENMARK EVEN IN DIGITAL
+
Following a proposal of Mr. Martin Bangemann, its member in charge
of Industry, Information Technologies and Telecommunications, the
Commission has decided to grant a contribution of ECU 4.395 million to
support 2000 hours of wide-screen television broadcasting by seven
television stations in five European countries (see below).
The decision will enable the Austrian ORF, the Italian Telenuovo,
Synthesia and Videolina and the Danish Danmarks Radio to present
widescreen TV to their viewers for the first time. The Danish service
will be the first wide-screen service to start using the digital
satellite TV standard developed by the European Digital Video
Broadcasting Group.
Veronica from Holland and Granada from the UK will also receive
support from the programme.
The Commission decision is a part of the Action Plan for the
Introduction of Advanced Television Services in Europe(1) . The new
cinema-like format, also called 16:9-format because of the relation
between the width and the hight of the screen, is wider than the old
4:3-format. The overall objective of the Action Plan is to accelerate
consumer uptake of wide-screen TV by overcoming the "chicken and egg"
problem: broadcasters would not transmit 16:9 without TV sets while
manufacturers would not produce them without broadcasting.
The Action Plan breaks the vicious circle by contributing towards
broadcasters' and producers' extra costs incurred in introducting
16:9.
Broadcasters in countries with no wide-screen services until now
qualify for funding up to 80% of their expenses, in other countries up
to 50%.
"The announcement of a digital wide-screen service by Danmarks
Radio is of strategic importance because it shows that 16:9 really has
the potential to become the screen format of the Information Society,"
commented Mr Bangemann, "Wide-screen is a bridge between analogue and
digital television for the consumer.
It works with either technology and therefore futureproofs consumer
investments in the most expensive part of the TV system, the screen
itself."
Country TV station Hours allocated Total in ECU
80% Grants
----------------------------------------------------------------
Italy Telenuovo 300 740,000
Synthesia 200 540,000
Videolina 200 540,000
----------------------------------------------------------------
Austria ORF 360 860,000
----------------------------------------------------------------
Denmark DR 400 940,000
----------------------------------------------------------------
50 % Grants
----------------------------------------------------------------
Holland Veronica 400 587,500
----------------------------------------------------------------
UK Granada 150 187,500
----------------------------------------------------------------
Grant total 2010 4,395,000
(1) see IP/95/618 and IP/95/1000
END OF DOCUMENT
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CREDITS,
Reports in TELE-satellit news are from our worldwide network of
reporters and sources. In particular we would like to thank :
Curt Swinehart for keeping us up to date with all parts of the
satellite industry.
Don Fitzpatrick of DFA in San Francisco for providing permission to
reproduce articles from Shoptalk, the TV news industry's daily news
and information magazine.
OMRI material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media Research
Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in Prague,
Czech Republic. For more information on OMRI publications, please
write to: info@omri.cz
Reproduction in part of Jonathan's Space Report was maded possible by
kind permission of Jonathan McDowell. To read the full edition see
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html or
ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.*
News from Radio Sweden is made possible by Geroge Wood, presenter of
Sweden Calling DXers/MediaScan, the world's oldest radio program
about international broadcasting. Radio Sweden has presented this
round-up of radio news, features, and interviews on Tuesdays since
1948. It's currently broadcast on the first and third Tuesdays of the
month. http://www.sr.se/rs
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