World Cup 2010 | TVNZ and Sky Confirm Sports TV Deal

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) e-mail inbox on October 10 received the official notice that the two New Zealand rivals, pay-TV operator, SKY Television and national broadcaster, TVNZ are linking up for the third time over World Cup Soccer, this time in 2010. This will be under a programming sub-contract agreement with Australasian rights holder, SBS. The deal is split thus: SKY NZ will provide full LIVE coverage from hosts, South Africa. The coverage includes also all the FIFA events leading up to the 2010 World Cup, including the Women's Under 17 World Cup which is being hosted in New Zealand later this month (October 2008) with SKY as the "host broadcaster" for the event. Every match in the Women's Under 17s will screen live on SKY with TVNZ showing the NZ games and the final delayed. Further events include the Women's Under 20 World Cup upcoming in November (including the NZ Under 20 team), and the Men's Under 17 and Under 20 World Cup events, along with the Confederations Cup through 2009, and the Women's Under 17 and Under 20 events in 2010. The SKY NZ/TVNZ rivals trumpet the World Cup deal as ensuring comprehensive (nigh on complete) coverage for New Zealand TV viewers. TVNZ's part of the programming pie will include eleven LIVE matches on TV ONE during the 2010 World Cup, plus daily highlights from all other games.   The prized 11 live games will be The Opening Match, then 4 matches from Round 2, 2 of the 4 quarter finals, both Semi's, the Final and the runner up 3rd and 4th Place event. TVNZ coverage does not end there. The 11 Games above will be re-run on the TVNZ Sport Extra channel on the Freeview platform, as well as LIVE coverage of an additional eleven games and highlights packages from all other matches.   DBVNA can't believe it. In the world of political niceties, FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke positively 'enthused' over the New Zealand deal describing TVNZ and SKY NZ as "absolute leading broadcasters in New Zealand". Actually, who else could take on World Cup in the country? The two are the only TV players anyway with the resources (Sky also owns Prime TV) in the relatively small NZ market.

Digital Broadcast | Noor Dubai TV | Launches Sept 1

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) can tell you that the United Arab Emirates' largest cross platform publisher, the Arab Media Group (AMG) is launching 'Noor Dubai' a new free-to-air satellite TV channel broadcasting locally-originating programs. AMG has chosen today, September 1, the auspicious first day of the Holy Month of Ramadan. "Noor Dubai" TV channel is a natural extension of AMG's popular Noor Dubai radio station on FM 93.9 MHz. Like its radio counterpart, the TV channel aims to embody the social and cultural values of the UAE Noor's unique style of presenting daily life in the country. Nahla Al Fahad, Head of Radio Television Projects, commented: "Noor Dubai has always been a popular radio station that clearly speaks to the residents of UAE, both nationals and non-nationals alike, and reflects their thoughts and concerns. We wanted to expand the base of the Noor phenomenon by bringing it to television, to give the special Noor 'feel' a face and a visual identity." DBVNA notes that Noor Dubai distribution is on Arabsat Badr 4 satellite, transponder frequency 12169 Mhz. Aside from publishing, the Arab Media Group owns and operates the FM-based, Arabian Radio Network (ARN) across the UAE, including Dubai Eye 103.8, Dubai 92, Pulse 95.3, City 1016, Hit 96.7, Noor Dubai 93.9, Al Khaleejiya 100.9 and Al Arabiya 99. Virgin Dubai, a branch of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin International brand, was added in March 2008. The Arabian Television Network (ATN), AMG's TV subsidiary operates MTV Arabia and Nickelodeon, and now Noor Dubai TV from September 1, 2008.

Digital Vendor | Jampro Antennas in New Delhi Move

Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia :: Aditya Jain has joined Jampro Antennas as Regional Sales Manager for South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Mr Jain will operate from New Delhi. In his position of Regional Sales Manager, he will serve existing clients and work with Jampro US headquarters in Sacramento, California to develop strategies to target emerging markets. Jain joins Jampro following a tenure as Sales/ Marketing Manager for QuantM Net Technologies in New Delhi, India, an IT Systems Integrator and IBM partner. He was previously Accounts Manager of Horizon Broadcast Electronics (HBE) in Gurgaon, India. Jain holds an EE (Electrical engineering degree) from the Birla Institute of Technology / Science. Jampro, the antenna specialist supplying RF systems worldwide for TV/DTV/FM/DVB-T and DVB-H has been providing antenna systems to the Asia-Pacific region since the early 1960's and says it today leads the way with new technologies. Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia understands that a major Jampro recent regional project was a complete upgrade of the TV antenna system for the state broadcaster - Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) providing multi-frequency, full coverage of the island nation. Jampro is in a major expansion phase, having enhanced production facilities in Sacremento in January 2008. Jampro is attending Singapore's BroadcastAsia2008: Stand # 7G1-08.

Digital Vendor | Simon Tsang New Asia Sales Head for Strategy & Technology

Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia has been advised that Strategy & Technology Limited (S&T) specialist in interactive TV playout systems and MHEG-5** middleware, has appointed Simon Tsang as Regional Sales Manager – Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong. Tsang (pronounced Chung - as in hung, or Chang) is based in S&T’s recently expanded Asia Pacific regional office. He reports to Colin Prior, Director of International Sales, Tsang's main role is to support S&T’s broadcast customers and resellers as well as S&T’s numerous MHEG-5 middleware licensees throughout the region. Previously, Tsang was with Syno Systems, a telecoms system integrator. Other jobs included Tut Systems, an IPTV headend provider (acquired by Motorola) and publicly-listed, DVN a conditional access and head-end system provider. Tsang is an Associate in Electrical Engineering from Hong Kong Polytechnic and an MBA from the University of Hong Kong. Strategy & Technology Ltd, headquartered in the UK, regards itself as the leading independent company in the industry sector that supports the MHEG interactive TV standard and provides complete interactive applications and systems for broadcasters and manufacturers worldwide. S&T's TSBroadcaster and TSPlayer systems are used for the creation of MHP, MHEG and OCAP interactive TV transmissions. Its RedKey MHEG engine is licensed to digital receiver and set top box manufacturers worldwide. S & I made a name for itself originally as a provider of carousel creation and play-out systems for digital terrestrial television.

Digital Broadcast Vendor News Asia Note: **MHEG-5, or ISO/IEC 13522-5, is part of a set of international standards relating to the presentation of multimedia information, standardized by the Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group (MHEG). It is most commonly used as a language to describe interactive television services.

Digital Vendor | NDS Opens New Delhi Office

NDS Asia Pacific, owned by NDS Group plc (NASDAQ: NNDS) has informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia, that it has opened a sales and support office in New Delhi. A leading provider of technology solutions for digital Pay TV, NDS already has a Mumbai office and a Bangalore Research and Development Center. With 900 staff already working in India, NDS says it is committed to providing continuing support to the Indian PAY TV market and to investing in further expansion. With unprecedented emphasis on technology research and development, NDS says it ensures its customers are market leaders, today and tomorrow. Commenting in Mumbai, Sue Taylor, VP and General Manager of NDS Asia Pacific said, "NDS is very optimistic about the growth of the Indian Pay TV market." Latest research shows that India's digital Pay TV market will lead the Asia-Pacific region in revenue generation by 2015. India's established Pay TV market leaders, Tata Sky, Hathaway Cable and Datacom, as well as new market entrants Bharti and Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), all rely on NDS systems to protect and enable their Pay TV services.

Digital Broadcasters | 6m Malaysians Listen to Muzik FM

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) noticed an interesting announcement from Malaysia's news agency Bernama referring to the increasing number of listeners to Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) radio networks. Bernama quoting Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said that some some six million residents across Peninsula Malaysia tune in every week. Peninsula Malaysia excludes Sabah and Sarawak.

Bernama said that this was the result of a survey carried out by "Utusan Airtime" on RTM's 32 radio stations.

Muzik FM was the most popular network, followed by Minnal FM and Klasik Nasional FM.

DBVNA notices that no other survey results were mentioned.

Digital Broadcast | Ang Moves to Network Electronics

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News has been informed that Patrick Ang becomes the Regional Sales Director for Network Electronics in Singapore. Ang was hired from Harris Inc. Network Electronics a market leader in digital routing, signal processing and optical transport solutions says that Ang's appointment is related to its Asian expansion and making Singapore its Asian headquarters. The Norwegian company has had a presence in Singapore already for several years. Network Electronics said the move to giving the Singapore office "regional status was to speed up response times to customers. Patrick Ang has also worked for Leitch Inc, Videotek Inc, Thomson Grass Valley and Philips Electronics. Ang reports to Joel Lam, Managing Director of Network Electronics Asia.