textfiles/magazines/SKYGUIDE/skyguide.40

Skyguide Issue 40

--------------------------------- SKYGUIDE ---------------------------------
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|    Your digest of the latest news in the world of Satellite & Cable TV   |
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--------------------- 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.


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Skyguide Issue 40                                         Edited by Ant Purvis

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