5/30/2012 – A New York federal judge on Wednesday issued a preliminary restraining order that bars Fox from pursuing its lawsuit against Dish until a hearing more than a month from now. That could give Dish the opportunity to play offense in the fight over its AutoHop service, which allows subscribers to bypass commercials.

Last week, Dish got to the court first, beating separate lawsuits by CBS, NBC and Fox by mere hours. The quick feet appears to have given the satellite TV distributor a slight jurisdictional advantage as U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain has just issued a temporary restraining order against Fox.

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As opposed to the broadcasters that sued in California, Dish appears to have taken advantage of the earlier rising sun in New York to pursue a declaratory judgment that its ad-skipping technology complies with copyright law. Dish chose New York likely with an eye on the fact that in 2008, the 2nd Circuit handed TV distributors a huge victory over content holders in a case involving Cablevision’s plan to introduce remote-storage DVRs, which was heavily disputed at the time.

Swain’s temporary restraining order against Fox could be lifted at a hearing that has been scheduled for July 2. At the hearing, the judge will consider Dish’s motion to enjoin Fox, NBC and CBS from further pursuing their cases.

Dish is cheering the development.

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“We’re pleased that the New York federal court has entered a TRO against Fox until the New York court decides whether the suits filed by Fox, CBS and NBC in California should be enjoined in favor of Dish’s suit in New York,” said Dish executive vp and general counsel, R. Stanton Dodge, in a statement. “Dish looks forward to presenting its case and prevailing on the merits.”

UPDATE: Fox has responded to the ruling: “We look forward to making our case against DISH for copyright infringement and breach of contract in court,” a Fox spokesman said in a statement.

In its lawsuit, Dish plays down any thought that its service represents a big leap for copyright purposes. According to the complaint, “Viewers have been skipping commercials since the advent of the remote control; we are giving them a feature they want and that gives them more control.”

Technically, a California judge could see the New York judge’s order as a jurisdictional intrusion and return fire, but with the heavy docket load of the judicial system these days, the California judges are likely to be happy at the relief from more work.

The broadcasters are claiming copyright infringement, with Fox also alleging breach of contract. Fox said in its lawsuit that Dish’s “wrongheaded decision requires us to take swift action in order to aggressively defend the future of free, over-the-air television.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/directv-autohop-lawsuit-fox-331112

May 31, 2012 – GroupM projects that advertising spending on cable and satellite television will double in three years, while a new satellite TV operator is focusing on content development to attract more advertising and viewers.

“However, we don’t think total TV spending will drop a lot because of the cable and satellite TV channels because the star power and production quality of free-TV stations are still much better than many cable and satellite channels,” Rathakorn Surbsuk, trading partner at GroupM, said yesterday.

The media agency estimates that about Bt300 million to Bt500 million per month of spending has moved to cable and satellite channels.

Read the full article at http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Ad-spending-shifting-to-satellite-cable-Tv-30183200.html

LONDON (May 29, 2012): U.K.-based research firm Ovum has issued new analysis on over-the-top TV platforms, finding that they still have a long way to go before they can serve as adequate alternatives to traditional pay-TV services.

“While we expect OTT to become increasingly integral to the home video entertainment mix, there’s little evidence yet of consumers dropping their pay-TV subscriptions in favor of purely operator-independent solutions,” said Jonathan Doran, the principal analyst at Ovum. “For the time being, OTT will remain a complement rather than an alternative to pay TV.”

Ovum’s research found that half of British consumers who own Internet-connected devices—PCs, tablets, consoles, smartphones and smart TVs—are using OTT services, and more than half of that base have retained their traditional pay-TV subscriptions.

To read the full article, please visit http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/2012-05-29-ovum-ott-netflix-lovefilm-uk

JAKARTA (May 29, 2012) – Indonesian billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo already has over a third of the country’s television viewers in his pocket. Now he wants the same share of votes in a general election, enough to clinch power for the political party he helps lead.

Mr Tanoesoedibjo has built a US$7.2 billion (S$9.19 billion) business empire in Indonesia in only 14 years, targeting the speedy growth in consumer demand among an emerging middle class in the world’s fourth most populous nation.

But business is not the only thing on his mind. While he insists he has no personal political ambitions, he says the reforms carried out in South-east Asia’s biggest economy since the ouster of strongman President Suharto in 1998 have been too slow and that his party could make a difference.

To read the full article, please visit http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120529-0000017/Media-mogul-joins-politics

May 28, 2012 – Malaysia’s newest satellite Measat-3b isn’t due for launch until late next year but that hasn’t stopped Measat’s sister company Astro DTH reserving 18 transponders on the craft.

Astro’s order is for the full anticipated 15-year life of the satellite. The order also means that Measat-3b is now 50 per cent full.

Astrium is building the craft, which will have 48 Ku-band transponders for DTH use.

Source: http://advanced-television.com/index.php/2012/05/28/astro-books-18-transponders-on-measat-3b/

May 28, 2012 – The Government has shelved its plans for a standardised television set-top box, which was slated for launch sometime this year.

The project, dubbed Next-Generation Interactive Multimedia, Applications and Services (Nims), was started in 2009 jointly by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and the Media Development Authority (MDA).

IDA requested for proposals from potential set-top box makers last May. But it has decided not to award a contract to any of the three bidders – SingNet, StarHub and M1 – as none of the bids were ‘likely to achieve the desired outcomes’, said the regulator.

To read the full article, please visit http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_804061.html

Related Story:
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC120528-0000098/No-common-featured-set-up-box-in-the-works,-for-now

May 28, 2012 – While there still seems to be some time before TRAI’s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) ad regulation that restricts commercial time to 10+2 minutes and asks for a 15-minute gap between two ads comes in play, the industry is divided in two clear pockets on the subject. First – those who believe that the regulation will prove detrimental to television and will squeeze out the smaller players. And second are those who believe that irrespective of the short-term implications of the regulation, it will bring long-term benefits to both, viewers and marketers.

Reach and not frequency focussed media plan

One of the first implications of the new order would mean television demand skewing towards certain channels and properties. “Reduction in ad time will not increase ratings. Once the 15-minute ad gap is in place, content-ad break pattern will become predictable. This will neither enhance viewing experience nor help advertiser in getting incremental ratings. The viewer knows he can come back to the programme after three and half minutes. The additional money the advertiser pays will not get compensated by increase in the slot TVR, which means we would pay Rs 110 for the same number of eyeballs tomorrow that we pay Rs 100 for today,” explained Madan Mohapatra, Chief, Marketing, Future Group.

As marketers are unlikely to increase budgets on this count, the likely impact is a more careful selection of channels. “The increased cost of channels will make life difficult for the frequency channels whose selling model itself is based on higher inventories,” observed K Raghavendra, General Manager, Marketing Services, Jyothy Laboratories.

To read the full article, please visit http://www.exchange4media.com/46520_it%E2%80%99s-reach-over-frequency-in-trai%E2%80%99s-ad-regulation.html

May 18, 2012 – Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications asked Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to extend by six months a deadline for implementing new regulations governing broadcast of foreign television channels in Vietnam.

The communications ministry said it is seeking the delay to allow local companies more time to adhere to the regulations, according to a faxed response to Bloomberg questions, released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Authorities were due to begin enforcing the legislation on May 15, requiring international broadcasters to pay state-run media companies to provide translation services such as Vietnamese subtitles for most programs, including news. The communications ministry has proposed the deadline be changed to Nov. 15.

To read the full story, please visit http://www.thanhniennews.com/index/pages/20120518-vietnam-ministry-seeks-6-month-delay-on-foreign-tv-regulations.aspx