Chris Dziadul, July 4, 2024
Polish media protest against copyright law
A number of print and online media outlets in Poland held a one-day protest on July 4 against proposed amendments to the country’s copyright and related rights law. Passed by the Sejm (Parliament) late last month and awaiting approval by the Senate, they will, according to the outlets, leave them significantly weakened in negotiating remuneration with big tech companies like Google and Meta.
LG Channels launches in Russia
The South Korean home appliance manufacturer LG has relaunched its application for viewing LG Channels in Russia. According to Kommersant, the new application was presented by the LG development centre in St Petersburg. Megogo was previously responsible for developing the application but pulled out following the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. LG Channels is an online streaming service that gives free access to over 150 TV channels.
Changes at the top for Polsat
Piotr Zak has been appointed the president of Poland’s Telewizja Polsat, effective July 3. He was previously a member of the Supervisory Board at Cyfrowy Polsat, Telewizja Polsat’s parent company. Zak is the son of Zygmunt Solorz, the founder and majority owner of Polsat.
Hrvatski Telekom partners with SPI International
The Croatian incumbent Hrvatski Telekom (HT) has added 13 channels from Canal+’s SPI International to its offer. As of the beginning of this month, its MAXtv IPTV subscribers can watch Filmbox Premium, Filmbox Extra, Filmbox Stars and Filmbox Arthouse, Docubox HD, FashionBox, Fast&FunBox, FightBox HD, 360 Tunebox HD, Dizi, Gametoon HD, Erox HD and Eroxxx HD.
Streaming growth continues in Czech Republic
The Czech national transmission company CRA has noted a year-on-year increase of 54% in video viewing within its CDN network. In a statement, it says that this will be the third year in a row that the figure has grown by over 50%, adding that in May traffic on its CDN network reached 1,400 Gbps at peak times. CRA provides infrastructure for OTT services for – amongst others – the Czech broadcasters Nova and Prima. Its foreign customers include Romania’s Pro TV, which has used its infrastructure to stream coverage of Euro 2024.
Polsat secures key football rights
Telewizja Polsat has secured exclusive rights to show and stream the new format of the UEFA Europa League and UEFA Conference League on TV in Poland for the next three seasons. Rights to the two competitions were previously held by Viaplay.
Latvia’s Bites Group consolidates
Bite Group’s Bite Latvija and Baltcom have merged into a single company. Baltcom was acquired by Bite Latvija in 2020 for an undisclosed fee and the newly merged company, using the name Bite Latvija will offer a wide range of electronic communications and ICT services. They include the OTT platform Go3, which as of January this year had 500,000 paying subscribers across the Baltics. This was equivalent to a 20% household penetration in the region.
Ultra HD first in Estonia
Levira has begun testing the free-to-air channel (FTA) Museum TV in Ultra HD in Estonia. The test period will last for at least one and a half months and Levira has become the first company in the country to offer a channel in the format. As of the beginning of this month there at a total of 11 TV channels in Estonia available FTA. Alongside Museum TV, they are Duo Media Networks’ Kanal 2., Duo 4, Duo 5 and Kanal 7, as well as ETV, ETV2, ETV+, Current Time, Ukraine 24 and France 24.
New set-boxes from Ukraine’s inext
The Ukrainian company inext has announced it advance that it will release its next generation consoles this year. Known as the TV6 and TV6 Ultra, they are currently in the final stage of testing and not yet available for pre-order. Inext specialises in software development and production of Android set-top boxes and media players for B2B and B2C markets.
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© Chris Dziadul, 2024
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