Skyguide Issue 40 --------------------------------- SKYGUIDE --------------------------------- | | | Your digest of the latest news in the world of Satellite & Cable TV | | | --------------------- Week Ending Sun October 30th 94 ---------------------- * RETURN OF THE SPACE COWBOY After an extended absence, Skyguide is back. Apologies for the delay, and thanks for your patience! To get back up to date, here's two and half thousand words covering what we've missed, and what's happening shortly. * THE HEADLINES Nickelodeon is to launch a children's teletext service in November. Instead of subcontracting the service to an outside company, Nickelodeon has employed experienced teletext editors and writers for the in-house service. Astra 1D will launch on October 31st from Kourou, South America. The launch will be televised, as is traditional, on RTL-4. All transponders have been booked, and current information is that six transponders have been allocated to Sky. Hughes Communications, operator of the DirecTV DBS satellites in America is understood to be planning to launch a number of DBS satellites in Europe. In America, many movie companies sell film rights directly to Hughes rather than individual broadcasters, which could cause concern for European broadcasters such as Filmnet, Sky and Canal Plus. TNT & Cartoon Network are claiming a weekly viewership of 26 million across Europe. 50% of children in cable and satellite households watch Cartoon Network every day. The Independent Television Commission received a number of complaints in October about Sky's advertising of its free home trial offer. The complaints centred around Sky's use of images of Stalin in its "Join The October Revolution" campaign. David Mellor, former National Heritage Secretary responsible for Broadcasting, said in a recent speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival that he regretted giving the go-ahead for Sky Television to merge with British Satellite Broadcasting. He said that, with hindsight, it was "an unfortunate development for Britain". Also at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Sky's head of programming David Elstein said that Sky is not interested in buying exclusive rights to listed sporting events such as Wimbledon. Paul Fox, ex-managing director of Granada Television, said Elstein's speech was "ridiculous". CNN is to add Swedish and Finnish subtitles to Larry King Live and Earth matters to cater for its Nordic viewers on the Tele-TV satellite. It's on, it's off, it's on again. BSkyB and USA Networks are deep in negotiation regarding launching The Sci Fi Channel on Astra as part of Multichannels, but Sky is apparently more interested in the idea of launching its own Sci-Fi channel and eliminating the middle man. A similar situation occurred when the currently cable-exclusive Travel Channel expressed interest on Astra - talks with Sky were held and in the end Sky launched their own Travel channel. Derek Batey, original host of Mr and Mrs may take UK Living to court over its remake of the show. He claims that the show's creator Roy Dickinson named him as the only person allowed to perform the show or allow its performance in Europe. Nino Ferretto, host of "The New Mr and Mrs Show" recently gave an on-air interview to The Childrens Channel, where he confidently asserted the show would air on "Lifestyle", a satellite channel which closed down over two years ago. The Chinese Channel is unhappy that SES, owners of Astra, have told it that it must use Videocrypt if it intends to scramble its signal. Sky is to build a second subscriber management centre in Fife, Scotland. The current centre at Livingston is apparently operating at maximum capacity. Scott Chisholm has withdrawn his High Court action against Sky, in which he was claiming unfair dismissal after alleged fisticuffs with fellow presenter Chris Mann. Sky is to float itself on the stock market, with a possibility of discount shares being offered to Sky subscribers. Sky announced in September that it intended to launch Nick at Nite as part of Sky Multichannels, but since the announcement no further information has been heard. Another Sky idea on which little further has been heard is the possibility of Sky projecting its circular logo onto the moon, from a special satellite. A similar idea four years ago when a French company planned to use the technique to celebrate the 100th Birthday of the Eiffel Tower was greeted with horror by astronomers. The Childrens Channel is to brand itself "TCC" while it considers a change of name in an attempt to attract more teenagers to the channel. TCC has secured the rights to American children's show Sesame Street. It will air daily at 9am from the new year. Sky will launch its first Telethon on Valentine's day next year. Sky One will unscramble its broadcasts between 6pm and midnight in aid of the Variety Club, which raises money for sick, disabled and disadvantaged children. Donations will be handled by Sky's subscriber centre. Intelfax has issued a writ against NBC Superchannel for approximately one million dollars. The teletext company claims that NBC broke its ten-year agreement with Super Channel to provide the channel's teletext service until 1997. NBC has brought in another company to provide the text service. Family Channel has increased its broadcasting hours. It will now broadcast until 5am instead of 1am as previously. The 1am-5am time was previously occupied by Chinese News and Entertainment, which has moved across to Transponder 47, now home of four different television channels. The Broadcasting Standards council has censured UK Living for screening an adult film at 3pm in the afternoon last June. Hack News: Paul and Ron Goodman, the duo behind companies "PR Technology" and "Active Logic", which disappeared owing thousands of pounds to customers who had ordered pirate decoders from them, as well as "MTX", a company which claimed to be launching a European adult channel which disappeared owing almost 3/4s of a million pounds, have set up in business again. They are now called "The Card Company", and are selling - pirate smartcards.... In an unconnected development, former "Hi Tech" supremo Chris Carey has announced an "entirely legal" Sky clone card named Cardmate. The card is claimed to copy a subscribers real Sky card, allowing them to use two receivers and only pay one subscription. A group of Florida-based businessmen is planning to launch a European adult channel named "TV Erotica". They claim they will broadcast in Videocrypt 2, so as not to cause offence to the British Government. It expects subscriptions to be about 150 pounds sterling a year, although it has not yet applied for, or received a broadcasting licence. Six of Sky News's senior journalists have resigned, apparently demoralised at the planned expansion of the service having been cancelled. Home shopping channel QVC will go clear on Astra from January 1st. They claim that they cannot generate enough revenue while they are scrambled, and hope that being clear across Europe will give it an increased audience. Sky has invited David Letterman to host his Late Show from the UK next year, and he has accepted. For one week next May, 'David Letterman In London' will broadcast live from LWT's studios on the South Bank. Following successful counter-measures against pirate series 9 cards, resurrected "phoenix" cards and other cards using "blocker" devices, Sky has announced that they will not be issuing a new set of cards (variously named "10" or "0A" by the satellite press) in the forseeable future. Sky viewers with real cards who have used the illegal phoenix/genesis upgrade to enable their cards for all channels now find that they can receive no channels at all. Such subscribers reporting invalid cards to Sky's management centre are asked to return the cards before replacements will be issued. Sky insist on this procedure so that they can ascertain why subscribers cards have mysteriously become invalid, and it is certain that some very good explanations will be required from the owners of illegally upgraded cards. BBC World Service Television will launch on Eutelsat 2F1, transponder 38 (11.617 Ghz) next month. The Family Channel has commissioned its first children's gameshow. The show, "The Full Dish", is described as a children's version of "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush". Recording of the 13 episodes starts in December, and the show will be presented by John Ecclestone, presenter of Nickelodeon's "Get The Picture". Viacom intends to launch a German language version of Nickelodeon next year, probably on the Hot Bird satellite. * THE DISNEY CHANNEL - FIVE YEARS ON Disney has begun negotiations with BSkyB and media company Flextech, owners of The Children's Channel, about the possibility of launching a UK version of The Disney Channel onto Astra. This follows the announcement that a German language Disney Channel in collaboration with RTL will begin next year. Five years ago Sky and Disney and Sky had secured what at least Sky had assumed was a concrete agreement for the launch of The Disney Channel as one of the first pay-TV channels in the UK, alongside Sky Movies. Embarrassingly, Disney pulled out of the deal just as the wave of advertising material and point-of-sale displays were hitting the streets. Facing legal action from Sky, Disney eventually came to an agreement with Sky for the release of films from its Touchstone movie house for broadcast. * HOT BIRD The Eutelsat Hot Bird 1 satellite will launch on December 12. The satellite will be co-located with Eutelsat IIF1 at 13 degrees east, in the same way that Astras 1A, B, C and D are co-located in the same orbital position. The satellite will provide 16 70 watt transponders, providing even higher power than Astra. UK viewers should be able to pull in good pictures with a 60cm dish. Viewers with a "Little Extra" second LNB attachment are already set up to receive the satellite and will need no external adjustments. The following channels will broadcast from the satellite, many moving from the lower-powered Eutelsat IIF1. TpPolFrq Channel 1 H 11.221 TVE Internacional 2 V 11.242 MTV Europe 3 H 11.262 EBN 4 V 11.283 Sci-Fi Channel 5 H 11.304 MCM Euromusique 6 V 11.325 TV5 Europe 7 H 11.345 Primiera TV 8 V 11.366 CLT (Super RTL/RTL Disney) 9 H 11.387 Eurosport 10 V 11.408 NBC Super 11 H 11.428 TV Polonia 12 V 11.442 Rai Uno 13 H 11.471 NPT (Polish) 14 V 11.492 Rai Due 15 H 11.513 Dubai TV 16 V 11.534 CLT (Super RTL/RTL Disney) * ARE THEY MAD? All Sky viewers are now paying increased subscriptions - some three pounds a month more. The increase came into effect from October. Multichannels subscribers, previously paying #6.99 a month will now pay #9.99 a month - an increase of some 43%. Nigel Griffiths, Labour's consumer affairs spokesman, called for an Office of Fair Trading inquiry into the rise. "This is a slap in the face for subscribers.", he said. "People signed up thinking they were getting a reasonable deal but now they are having to pay through the nose. Now that BSkyB has brought exclusive sports coverage they are holding their subscribers to ransom." A Sky spokesman said that the rise was very good value, including a free monthly listings magazine and the promise of more channels. The ITC, Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards Office are all launching investigations into the rise. The ITC in particular is concerned that channels which Sky promised as part of Multichannels when it launched one year ago are now being paraded are still not on air, and in particular that VH-1, which Sky used in the original Multichannels advertising, has now been classed as one of the "new" channels that the subscription increase is paying for. The Trading Standards Office's angle of investigation centres on Sky's explanation of the increase. The Livingstone subscriber centre is telling subscribers that the increase is to pay for the new multichannels. At the time of the Multichannels launch, however, Sky claimed the Multichannels package was "absolutely free to those subscribing to at least one premium channel" - since even premium channel subscribers are paying the increase, the statements disprove each other. A small legal point emerged in Sky's tactics in notifying its subscribers of the increase - the letter in which the increases are announced was enclosed with the first issue of Sky TV Guide, a monthly listings magazine provided "free" to all Sky subscribers. The letter in question was not individually addressed, containing the greeting "Dear Sky Viewer". While no precedent has been set, under the terms of Direct Debit agreements (allowing Sky to deduct subscriptions from viewers bank accounts), subscribers must be *individually* notified of the change. Sky said that it had no intention of sending any further letters, claiming their letter was all that was required. Sky announced that an extra 1.1 million subscribers lifted its operating profits by over #108m to #170m in the year ending June 1994. Subscription revenue from the Sky Multichannels package currently stands at #450 million pounds a year, with a further #80 million coming from advertising revenue. Sky appears to be concerned at the rate of subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions recently. On-air promotions are currently screening on Sky One, reminding viewers of the increased choice available with Multichannels, ending with the line "something's wrong with this television - it's only got four channels and no MTV.". Individual letters are being sent to lapsed Sky subscribers, with outer envelopes bearing the words "WE KNOW YOU'RE SEEING SOMEONE ELSE", and a pseudo-romantic letter inside reminding viewers that "we know you're seeing those terrestrial channels again", and urging viewers to restart their relationship with Sky. * TROUBLE AT ASTRA Following a tumultuous board meeting which Astra claim did not happen, during which a news clampdown was announced, after which SES issued writs against several parts of the media, Dr Pierre Meyrat, director general of SES, was "released from his duties" immediately on the basis of "differing views on the management on SES". Thought to be at the centre of the disagreement was Meyrat's plans to give the majority of Astra 1D transponders to large broadcasters such as Sky and the German Kirch Group, to assist the introduction of Digital Television in Europe. His belief was that a common standard for digital TV could only evolve if large broadcasters were behind it. Dr Meyrat set up SES with assistance from the Luxembourg government, and his influence on the company will be felt for some time to come. In the end, it appears that the final channel allocation on Astra 1D went Meyrat's way. Six transponders are earmarked for Sky, another six for the Kirch Group, and two for CLT, the owners of RTL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skyguide Issue 40 Edited by Ant Purvis You can find Skyguide on London's CIX system in the Skyguide conference, Fidonet's Satellite TV echo, the Packet Radio Network, on internet in the alt.satellite.tv.europe newsgroup, and in the French language on Minitel in the 3615 SATPHONE area. Skyguide is not a commercial publication, nor is it a cut-down version of a printed journal. It must NOT be distributed for profit and is copyright. Nevertheless, free (as in NO COST) distribution (via BBSs, FTP sites, etc.) is encouraged, provided that permission is asked first. Errors and Omissions expected. If we get something wrong, let us know and we'll put it right! Back issues can be mailed to internet mailboxes (including Compuserve and America Online) on request. Comments, suggestions, and stories are always appreciated! You can contact Skyguide in the following ways: CIX : mail to bignoise, or use the Skyguide/comments conference. Fidonet : Leave a message in the Satellite TV echo Internet: bignoise@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------