Profit growth of more than 10 per cent each year until 2015 will be driven by an increase in subscribers and higher revenues from a rising take-up of digital and broadband services, according to Media Partners Asia, a regional consultancy. The study is based on the forecast growth of 10 of the largest regional pay-TV providers, in countries including China, India, Taiwan and Japan.

MPA said that the average valuation of the 10 could rise within a year from eight times forward earnings to almost 11-times – or nearly double that of pay-TV operators round the world.

“Many Asian pay-TV operators are either in the middle or on the cusp of a high-growth phase similar to the one that accelerated both public and private market valuations for cable operators in North America between 1997 and 2005,” said Vivek Couto, MPA executive director.

MPA described pay-TV profits growth in China, India and Indonesia as “explosive” with the more mature markets such as Australia, Malaysia and South Korea expected to post steady double-digit growth.

Across the Asia-Pacific region there are 330m homes with pay-TV, which MPA forecasts will climb to 437m by 2015. The take-up of digital services over the same period will treble to 350m. Pay-TV revenues in the region are forecast to double to $60bn by 2015, with China and India accounting for half of all revenues.

China is expected to end this year with 170m pay-TV households, although the take-up of high-premium digital services is low. The rising growth rates are expected to tempt some owners of pay-TV providers, which in Asia include News Corp, Telstra and private equity firms, to monetise their investments with stock market listings.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation last month unveiled a shake-up of its Star Asian television unit, effectively betting on India to become the main driver of its regional growth. Mr Couto said that the television markets in India and Indonesia remained open to further foreign investment, and that institutional investors were considering greater exposure to Asian television markets.

In a separate study, to also be released on Monday at its annual regional conference in Hong Kong, MPA forecasts advertising revenues in Asia will grow 4.6 per cent in 2010, and climb to 6.5 per cent the following year, as regional economies respond to government stimulus packages and a rise in domestic demand.

MPA predicts that, at current rates, China will overtake Japan as the largest advertising market in Asia by 2016 with net annual revenues after discounts of around $40bn.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

France's private TV channels have complained they face higher taxes to fund the new public TV subsidies.

In a bid to remove advertising from its public broadcasting service, France is changing its funding mechanism for the public TV network from 2010. The changes will include two new taxes, one on advertisements and the other on electronic communications.

Together with the regular government broadcasting contribution, funding to France Television, the largest French broadcasting group, will exceed €2 billion ($2.87 billion) by 2012, the commission said.

The commission is "concerned about the use made of the taxes introduced by the reform and possible overcompensation for public service costs up to 2011 and 2012," it added.

French private broadcasters, such as Television Francaise 1 SA and M6-Metropole Television SA, have vocally opposed the new tax, which came into effect in March and will take between 1.5% and 3% of their advertising revenue to fill the funding gap caused by the end of advertising. However, as the public channels will remain closed to advertisers, the private broadcasters can now tap a bigger share of the local ad market.

The commission is asking both interested parties as well as the government to comment on the investigation before making a final decision.

While launching the investigation, the commission also authorized a €450 million aid payment for France Television during 2009, saying it was in line with the rules on how governments can support national TV channels.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The FCC report concluded that no single parental control technology works across all the media platforms, such as over-the-air, cable and satellite television; wireless services and the Internet.

In July the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing during which Genachowski said the existing rules governing television programing for children will be reviewed in light of the proliferation of online videos and other technological changes.

Committee chairman John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said more must be done by lawmakers, industry and the government to help parents block inappropriate content from children.

"We must offer the tools and policies that make it easy for people to be good parents and oversee the viewing that goes on in their homes." Rockefeller said in a statement.

"We must do more than simply gather information and hope this alone protects our children."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

LONDON: Rather than having to hop between channels or pre-record shows, Boxee makes it easy to flick between a huge variety of online video services to bring the world’s programming to the television set, via the internet.

Viewers can install Boxee’s free software to a PC or Mac computer, or to a device such as Apple TV, which is connected to both the television and the internet. While broadcasters are just beginning their plans to bring on-demand viewing from the web to the television, Boxee already has 600,000 users.

In the past year, venture capital firms such as General Catalyst, Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital have invested about $10m in Boxee, which has still to generate revenues. The latest round, in August, will help it reach more devices and add more content.

Avner Ronan, Boxee’s Israeli co-founder, says the idea was born of the changing ways he and his friends consumed media. “The internet was becoming the main source of entertainment for us,” he says. “And we wanted it on our TV.”

Boxee is based on Firefox, the open-source web browser, but customised to work in a “10-foot, remote-controlled environment”.

It helps its users discover new content, and eventually will help content owners charge for it.

Early on, Mr Ronan says, Boxee decided not to sign deals directly with broadcasters or TV producers. “There are enough people licensing content on the internet – whether it’s Amazon or Netflix or Hulu,” he explains. Boxee provides access to 150 services such as these – with or without their consent.

And that is where Boxee has run into its first big clash with rights owners.

For months, Boxee has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Hulu, the popular US on-demand site that is jointly owned by the broadcasters NBC, Fox and ABC. Hulu blocks Boxee viewers, then Boxee’s developers try to find a way around the block.

“What Boxee represents in a way is a loss of control over their business model,” says Mr Ronen, because it could compete with their subscription packages.

But changing the way pay-TV services are bundled is exactly what gives Boxee potential, says Toby Coppel, former head of Europe at Yahoo and a Boxee user.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The FCC report concluded that no single parental control technology works across all the media platforms, such as over-the-air, cable and satellite television; wireless services and the Internet.

In July the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing during which Genachowski said the existing rules governing television programing for children will be reviewed in light of the proliferation of online videos and other technological changes.

Committee chairman John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said more must be done by lawmakers, industry and the government to help parents block inappropriate content from children.

"We must offer the tools and policies that make it easy for people to be good parents and oversee the viewing that goes on in their homes." Rockefeller said in a statement.

"We must do more than simply gather information and hope this alone protects our children."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

This is an increase of 400,000 homes from last year and the smallest increase in the last 10 years. Nielsen also estimates that the number of Persons age 2 and above (P2+) in U.S. television households will increase slightly to 292 million.

Local TV Market Universe Estimates

The Top 10 local markets, known in the industry as Designated Market Areas or DMAs, will remain the same this season, with a few rank changes in the Top 20. Moving up are Seattle, from 14 to 13, and Denver from 18 to 16. Tampa, Miami and Cleveland are each down one rank.

There were no new markets to enter the Top 50 or the Top 100, although there were several multi-rank increases and decreases. Notable changes in the Top 100 markets include:

• Four Florida markets are down (Tampa, Miami, Ft. Myers, Tallahassee), partially due to declines in domestic migration
• New Orleans has the largest percentage increase among all markets, up 5.2% from last year, and moves up 2 ranks from 53 to 51 as former residents return to the city and Census Bureau estimates are adjusted
• New York adds the most homes of any market (+59,710) while Waco shows the largest change in ranks, moving from 94 to 89
• Other multi-rank increases in the Sun Belt region include Tucson (+2), Shreveport (+2), and Charleston, SC (+2)
• The Midwest sees multi-rank decreases in Columbus, OH (-2), Grand Rapids (-2), Flint (-2) and South Bend (-2)

For complete details, download the full list of DMA rankings and universe estimates.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

According to ceo Gerhad Zeiler: “In the future, advertising will not pay all the bills.”

Mr Zeiler said it was impossible to see more than a few weeks ahead in any of the markets where RTL Group trades. Pre-tax profits fell by 72 per cent year-on-year in the first six months to €74m ($106m).

Mr Zeiler said he was taking a very cautious view about what effect a recovery would have on the industry.

 “I’m not sure that merely a slight macroeconomic recovery will bring us back to previous levels of television advertising revenue,” he said. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications group, on Wednesday forecast only limited growth in advertising even in 2010.

RTL includes M6 in France, Mediengruppe RTL in Germany, and the global production company Fremantle.

The group’s most recent large acquisitions, its buy-out of co-owners of the UK’s Five and its two-thirds stake in Alpha Media, the Greek television company, were its worst performing assets in the first half of the year. Mr Zeiler said he believed free-to-air television was still a great market to be in.

“In even the worst advertising market in history as we have now, we still had a double-digit return on sales. Television will be the leading media when it comes to advertising efficiency.

“Maybe there will be a different size to the market and every free-to-air group will have to think about, for example, pay-TV, about online services, about video-on-demand.”

Mr Zeiler explained that free-to-air companies would need to think about how they could market channels for pay-TV platforms such as satellite and cable.

RTL Group, which is 90 per cent owned by Bertelsmann, Europe’s largest media company, saw the smallest contraction in advertising revenues in Belgium and the Netherlands, where sales fell 10-12 per cent in the first half of 2009, compared with 14-15 per cent in Germany and up to 18 per cent in France.

Five, in which RTL wrote off all its remaining goodwill at a cost of €140m, saw revenues fall 34.4 per cent in euro terms, although only 25 per cent in local currency.

RTL’s worst markets were in eastern Europe, where between 18 and 25 per cent reductions were the norm, and Spain, where revenues fell 31 per cent.

Mr Zeiler said it was impossible to see more than a few weeks ahead in any of the markets where RTL Group trades. Pre-tax profits fell by 72 per cent year-on-year in the first six months to €74m ($106m).

Mr Zeiler said he was taking a very cautious view about what effect a recovery would have on the industry.

 “I’m not sure that merely a slight macroeconomic recovery will bring us back to previous levels of television advertising revenue,” he said. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications group, on Wednesday forecast only limited growth in advertising even in 2010.

RTL includes M6 in France, Mediengruppe RTL in Germany, and the global production company Fremantle.

The group’s most recent large acquisitions, its buy-out of co-owners of the UK’s Five and its two-thirds stake in Alpha Media, the Greek television company, were its worst performing assets in the first half of the year. Mr Zeiler said he believed free-to-air television was still a great market to be in.

“In even the worst advertising market in history as we have now, we still had a double-digit return on sales. Television will be the leading media when it comes to advertising efficiency.

“Maybe there will be a different size to the market and every free-to-air group will have to think about, for example, pay-TV, about online services, about video-on-demand.”

Mr Zeiler explained that free-to-air companies would need to think about how they could market channels for pay-TV platforms such as satellite and cable.

RTL Group, which is 90 per cent owned by Bertelsmann, Europe’s largest media company, saw the smallest contraction in advertising revenues in Belgium and the Netherlands, where sales fell 10-12 per cent in the first half of 2009, compared with 14-15 per cent in Germany and up to 18 per cent in France.

Five, in which RTL wrote off all its remaining goodwill at a cost of €140m, saw revenues fall 34.4 per cent in euro terms, although only 25 per cent in local currency.

RTL’s worst markets were in eastern Europe, where between 18 and 25 per cent reductions were the norm, and Spain, where revenues fell 31 per cent.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Time Warner Cable's test follows a similar effort started in July by Comcast Corp. as the U.S. TV industry tries to address a major concern: how to keep people from canceling cable-TV subscriptions to watch free TV online.

TV networks participating in Time Warner Cable's trial are expected to include General Electric Co.'s Syfy, Time Warner Inc.'s TNT, Cablevision Systems Corp.'s AMC, and British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC America, people familiar with the matter said.

Other companies also expected to be involved in the trial include CBS Corp., Discovery Communications Inc. and Viacom Inc., some of these people said.

Under the test, TV shows will be made available on the Web to a limited number of homes. To access the shows, people in those homes will have to sign into Web sites and fill out a brief profile to prove they are Time Warner Cable subscribers.

The test, which could be disclosed as early as Thursday will expand in coming months to include about 5,000 homes in several U.S. markets, said one person familiar with the matter. It's unclear in some cases which of the companies' TV shows will be involved in the trial, some of the people said.

The online efforts come as cable-TV networks and companies that sell subscription TV services are wrestling with how to keep people paying for TV, as many TV shows are available free online.

Broadcast-TV networks, which are available over the air without paying a monthly fee, have been most aggressive in moving online. GE's NBC Universal and News Corp., which owns Fox as well as The Wall Street Journal, formed Hulu, an ad-supported Web site that aggregates TV shows. ABC owner Walt Disney Co. recently took a stake in Hulu, and CBS has its own video site, TV.com.

Approximately 136 million people in the U.S. watched online videos in July, a 14% increase from the year-earlier period, according to Nielsen Co.

In July, Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator by subscribers, began its test, signing up dozens of TV networks. That test has also been limited initially to about 5,000 homes.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

According to a report in today’s Financial Times, participants include networks owned by NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery and Disney. They will be joined by advertisers Procter & Gamble, AT&T, and Unilever, as well as agencies GroupM and Starcom MediaVest.

The FT says that the involvement of such big names highlights how urgently advertisers feel the need for better information to justify their return on investments from ads run across multiple media platforms.

Nielsen currently measures audiences for the Internet, mobile devices and TV separately, but has already begun testing a system to measure the Internet usage of some of the members of its national TV ratings sample. This system is not expected to be up and running until 2011.

The consortium, which is expected to be operational by September, is likely to be awarding contracts for measuring set-top box data and cross-platform viewers across TV and digital sources later this year.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

NEW YORK: Jumping on the growing interest in Web-to-TV watching, Condé Nast Digital has signed a deal with internet startup Boxee that will let people watch its Web videos from their living rooms.
 
Through its free software platform, Boxee is one of a growing number of companies that's letting people watch personal and Internet video content on their TV by connecting it with their computer.
 
Boxee has a social component as well: Users can recommend videos they see on Boxee to friends and other Boxee users via social networks like Twitter.
 
Initially, Condé Nast will distribute video and photo content on Boxee from Wired.com and Style.com, two sites chosen for their divergent audiences (techies and women), said Richard Glosser, executive director of emerging media for Condé Nast Digital.
 
The company expects to eventually add content from its 23 other sites, which include Epicurious.com, Glamour.com and VanityFair.com.
 
Boxee already features video content from Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated alongside content from sites like CBS and Comedy Central, but Condé Nast is the first magazine company to have multiple brands on board, said Andrew Kippen, who heads up marketing for Boxee.
 
Glosser said the hope is that the Boxee agreement will expand Condé Nast's video audience by exposing its content to Boxee's claimed 600,000 users, thereby creating a new outlet for video advertisers.
 
"There is such a volume of high-quality video content on our sites, and I think there is a great demand for it in a living room environment," he said. "They've created an open platform . . . that [not only] lets a computer be connected to your TV and that allows content to be viewed in [an] intuitive way, but also combines it with social networking."
 
Launched in 2008, Boxee is funded by General Catalyst Partners, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.