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TS News - Nordic Media News

TELE-satellit News, 5 July 1996

Kinnevik Threatens To Sue Over Cable Company Move
  STOCKHOLM, Sweden, 96/07/02 (RADIO SWEDEN) -- Kinnevik is in a different
dispute over another of its TV channels. Some months ago Kinnevik dropped
its ambitious plans for a 24 hour Sport Channel, called Sportkanalen, in
favor of taking over weekends from its existing TV6 channel, aimed at women.

  But Sweden's largest cable operator, which has just changed its name from
Swedish Cable-TV to Telia Cable-TV, gave notice that Kinnevik had violated
its contract, since no sports channel was included in that agreement. Telia
Cable-TV has dropped TV6/Sportkanalen from its networks. This has cost the
channel 75 percent of its audience, as the only remaining viewers are on
smaller cable networks or have TVRO dishes aimed at Sirius at 5 degrees East
and D2-MAC decoders. Kinnevik is threatening to take legal action. (Swedish
Radio News, "Dagens Nyheter" and "Svenska Dagbladet")


NRK To Cease Clear Broadcasts
  OSLO, Norway, 96/07/02 (RADIO SWEDEN) -- Norway's NRK will be encoding its
satellite transmissions on Intelsat 707 beginning August 31. Unfortunately
for Swedes who enjoy watching Norwegian TV, subscrition cards will only be
available to those with Norwegian addresses, although NRK admits it will be
difficult to prevent a Norwegian from buying a card on behalf of a Swedish
friend. There is now a test card for NRK2 on 11.486 GHz. This is due to
launch on August 31.


Finland Aims For Europe Wide Coverage
  HELSINKI, Finland, 96/07/02 (RADIO SWEDEN) -- A Finnish television channel
is set to become the first Nordic TV channel to be made available to viewers
in continental Europe. Norway's telecommunications operator Telenor has
agreed with Finland's YLE public service broadcaster to distribute a channel
called FTV to European viewers, starting this Fall. While a number of
Swedish and Norwegian channels can be watched in Europe by those with pirate
cards or large enough dishes to pick up spill-over from Nordic beams, FTV
will be the first Nordic channel to obtain rights to broadcast to Europe.

  FTV will be a composite of YLE's channels 1 and 2, with programming as
well from Finland's commercial channel MTV, in Finnish and Swedish. The
channel will be distributed digitally from a Eutelsat for the first two
years, and later from a satellite operated by Telenor. (Reuters)


Denmark's DR-2 Prepares For Launch
  COPENHAGEN, Denmark, 96/07/02 (RADIO SWEDEN) -- Denmark's public service
DR1 was scheduled to begin digital broadcasts from the middle of June on
Intelsat 707, 11.592 GHz. This is intended as a feed to terrestrial (PAL) TV
transmitters, and not a DTH service to home viewers. From August 30 the new
DR2 channel will be included in the same digital package as DR1. For
copyright reasons, the programs are to be scrambled, but no decision has
been made yet on the scrambling system.

  DR2 will also be carried from August 30 analog in D2-MAC on this same
satellite on 11.667 GHz. For copyright reasons, these DR2 transissions will
be scrambled in Eurocrypt-M. Danmarks Radio says that all Danes who have
paid their licence fees are to get a free smartcard from Multichoice or
Viasat (Scandinavia's rival pay-TV distributors, representing respectively
Nethold/FilmNet and Kinnevik/TV1000), even if households do not subscribe to
FilmNet, TV3 or TV1000.

  While the analog signals will be on a beam with uncertain reception in
southern Europe, the digital package should have reliable reception in the
south. Danmarks Radio plans to negotiate for transmission rights to southern
Europe, so that it will be legally possible to supply Danish viewers in
these areas with suitable smartcards. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet")

Source: George Wood, Radio Sweden's Mediascan, http://www.sr.se/rs

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