Last month and a bit in a snapshot
 Things are
not going to well for French CanalPlus. Revenues recorded for the first
six months of 2002 add up to the sum of €766 mln, €5mln less than last
year. French press estimate CanalPlus could loose further 70 to 100 thousand subscribers
this year. Against all odds CanalPlus, together with CSD and TPS continue their
anti piracy mission across Europe and just began converting encryption to second
generation Mediaguard. All PPV Kiosque channels were relauched to new card holders
only last weekend, the rest of the channel line up is expected to follow encryption
change shortly (picture: DrHans).
As announced earlier Canal Plus sold its 89% stake in Canal Plus Technologies
to 3.19 per cent minority shareholder Thomson Multimedia for €190
mln in cash.
Talking about Pluses - the troubled parent company - Vivendi Universal
is moving its headquarters from the US back to France. In this stage of reorganizing
process Vivendi will also fire 327 people...
British government approved plans to create new digital channel BBC3
to replace BBC Choice.
British manufacturer Pace unveiled plans to ship UK's first digital
terrestrial PVR with dual tuner to the shops before Christmas. The box, dubbed
'Twin Digital TV Recorder' incorporates 20GB hard disk drive for roughly 10
hours of Mpeg2 quality recordings.
On October 1st News Corp finally sealed the merger of Stream and Tele+
acquiring the latter from Vivendi Universal by assumption of €450 mln in
debt and a cash payment of €470 mln for the shares of Telepiu. The combined
service will be called Sky Italia, News Corp. In September Tele+ reached record
of 1,6mln subscribers…
American EchoStar Communications and their encryption join venture with
Kudelski's Labs - NagraStar claims UK based NDS broke Nagravision
encryption in its Israeli labs. Sounds familiar? EchoStar reckons that although
their lawsuit can stand alone they just decided to join the US lawsuit registered
by Canal Plus...
Premiere Austria, local setup based on Premiere World lineup
is expected to be launched on September 26.
Money:
Liberty Media sold its 27.42% stake in the French Multithématiques.
Albacom Holding sold €138 mln worth of shares in Mediaset.
The French water and waste services group Suez sold its 25% stake in TPS.
People:
Bertrand Meheut has been appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of
CanalPlus Group.
Malcolm Miller, CEO of Pace MicroTechnology is to part his company on
1 January 2003.
Author:MRK & LazySnatcher [Source: ]
Posted on Wednesday 16 October 2002
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