Orange France Telecom Awarded the Right to Keep Its Sports Channel
July 2010
The French Court of Cassation, the country’s highest judicial court, awarded Orange France Telecom, the right to keep its sports channel, Orange Sport, exclusive to its own subscribers. Competitors Free and SFR appealed the case to the highest court in France. The court also ruled that bundling Broadband with a sports channel is not “an unfair trade practice.” Instead, having differentiated content encourages competition among rival offerings the court said. Orange is estimated to have about 300,000 subscribers for its Orange Sport channel, and 2.9 million using its IPTV and Satellite services.
Analyst Comment: Clearly, this is an important victory for Orange since having exclusive content, especially sports, is a big differentiator for the Telco. While this case has gone all the way to the top court in France, this issue still hasn’t been settled legally in other countries. Some Service Providers have even said recently that having exclusive content isn’t as important as it was a few years ago. Instead, extending the content to Mobile and Web properties, especially with content like sporting events, adds new revenues.
Source: MRG, Inc., July 2010 IPTV Bulletin
Project Canvas Selects the Marlin Standard
July 2010
The U.K.’s Project Canvas selected Marlin, a non-proprietary DRM standard, for its upcoming hybrid TV platform in the U.K. Marlin was developed by Intertrust, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony for use in subscription or downloaded content. Marlin is also referenced in Release 1 of the Open IPTV Forum specifications and has the potential to be widely adopted as a part of Internet-connected TV device deployments worldwide.
Analyst Comment: Marlin is an open-standard DRM platform that was first released in 2006 by the five companies. The Marlin Developer Community was started to build an interoperable and more open DRM solution. Marlin is currently being used as the IPTV DRM standard in Japan. Sony also uses Marlin in its PlayStation Network, its online service that allows consumers to rent or purchase video on PS3 and PSP devices.
Source: MRG, Inc., July 2010 IPTV Bulletin
Pace Acquiring 2Wire
July 2010
STB company Pace said it was acquiring 2Wire, a provider of residential gateways, for an undisclosed sum. Pace reported Q2/2010 results that were 21% higher than a year ago, reaching £635.2 million (US$992 million). During the quarter, Pace also completed the acquisition of Paris-based Bewan Systems, a company that makes IP and Cable gateways.
Analyst Comment: With 2Wire, Pace gets an entry into the U.S. IPTV market, since 2Wire is a dominant player in U.S. IPTV residential gateway products.
Source: MRG, Inc., July 2010 IPTV Bulletin
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