Apparently-to: scdx@get.pp.se
From: "George Wood" 
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  ::           MediaScan             
  ::      SWEDEN CALLING DXERS       
  ::       from Radio Sweden          
  ::    Number 2272--June 3, 1997    
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Satellite, shortwave and other electronic media news from Radio
Sweden.
This week's bulletin was written by George Wood.
Packet Radio BID SCDX2272
Updated Web edition at: http://www.sr.se/rs/english/media/
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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NORDIC MEDIA NEWS
THOR--Finally, finally, finally....the day after the last edition of
MediaScan, Norway's Thor 2 satellite made it into orbit on a Delta-2
rocket from Cape Canaveral. When it reaches its regular position at 1
degree West, the satellite will join Thor 1, Intelsat 707, and the
aging former German TV-SAT.
Thor 2 adds 75 digital and analog channels to the system run by
Norway's Telenor at that position. The satellite was supposed to
launch in February, but a Delta 2 explosion the month before delayed
the launch. Then the US Air Force pushed back the date again while it
studied the results of the successful Delta 2 launch of the first
Iridium satellites. A spokesman for the Norwegian company said
afterwards that dealing with the Air Force was such a painful
experience, the company may take its business next time to the Europe
Ariane rocket. (AP)
Telenor has already ordered a Thor 3 satellite from Hughes. It will be
co-located with the other satellites at 1 degree West by August next
year. Sweden's Kinnevik is one of the companies which has already
booked capacity on Thor 3. (TT-NTB)
Transmissions from Thor 2 to Scandinavia are expected to begin in
early July. As we've reported before, among the analog offerings will
be three channels from Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting: Fox
Kids, and two specially created combination channels, one called Sky
News and Documentaries, the other Sky Entertainment (mainly composed
of material from Granada's channels, and not BSkyB). 
The Sci-Fi Channel, whose TV-Sat transponder has broken down, will be
moving to Thor 2. The Dutch music channel TMF will also be included,
along with the expanded digital offerings from Nethold, now Canal
Plus, and their package called Canal Digital, marketing for which is
expected to kick off on September 15. (Richard Karlsson and Frank
Oestergren, "Aftonbladet")
SUPERSPORT--Supersport disappears as a channel in its own right on
June 30. Instead, sports programs will be planced in the new Filmnet
channels starting September 1. (Which means two months of the Major
League Baseball season may be disappearing from Scandinavian TV.)
Filmnet is changing name (the new name is not known yet), and as we've
reported before, there are to be separate channels for Sweden, Norway,
and Denmark. There will also be a common Nordic channel. (Richard
Karlsson in "Aftonbladet") All this follows Canal Plus' purchase of
Nethold.
TELE-X--TotoLine has left 12.602 GHz and is now digital at 1 degree
West. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
SIRIUS--We've reported before that the Swedish business channel TV8
plans to start broadcasts on the upcoming Sirius 2 satellite in analog
mode, and would switch later to digital transmission. Now Richard
Karlsson reports TV8 will broadcast instead parallel in both modes.
The analog PAL signal will be Tele-X, probably on Kanal 5's current
transponder on 12.475 GHz, after Kanal 5 moves to Sirius 2. The new
channel is scheduled to launch in October, and the PAL broadcasts
would continue until the end of the year. (Richard Karlsson in
"Aftonbladet") Sirius 2 is scheduled to launch on Ariane flight V99 on
August 28. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL TV--Scandinavian digital satellite TV on Thor 2
and Sirius 2 faces competition from terrestrial digital television,
which is about to start in Sweden. In August Stockholm, along with the
country's second largest city, Gothenburg, and two smaller
communities, Norrk”ping and Link”ping, will see the first digital
transmitters. The system will then carry four channals.
In December, four more channels will added, and the network will be
expanded to two more areas: Sundsvall and ™stersund in northern
Sweden, and the southern province of Sk†ne. Within a year, Swedish
Teracom, which is building the network, expects to reach half the
population, and the entire country by June, 1999. (TT)
The public service Swedish Television will be providing most of the
digital offerings. Richard Karlsson reports these include a Gold
Channel of programming from the archives, the Rerun Channel, which
would repeat programs shortly after first broadcast, the Local
Channel, a News Channel, and something called Arte, presumeably a
cultural outlet. All of these would be free, except the Gold Channel.
There's also been talk of a sports channel, possibly in connection
with the private terrestrial broadcaster TV4. (Richard Karlsson,
"Aftonbladet")
The news channel, to be called SVT 24, will feature news bulletins on
the hour and half hour. In between will be sports, uncut coverage of
press conferences and repackaged material. A feature called "Viking
News" will relay unsubtitled news from Scandianvian neighbors Denmark,
Norway, and Finland. The service is expected to launch at the
beginning of the year, with an official start on March 1, 1998.
Swedish Educational Broadcasting can also be expected to take part in
the new digital package.
Just as with the digital radio, the big hold-up is receivers. The
first consumer receivers and set-top box decoders are expected on the
market in about a year. (TT) 
DIGITAL CABLE TV--Not far behind satellite and terrestrial rivals,
Sweden's largest cable operator, Telia Kabel-TV, is beginning regular
digital operation on its networks starting this Fall. The company
hopes to include 1 million of its 1.3 million households from the
beginning. Richard Karlsson reports that besides extending the number
of channels, Telia intends to expand its current pay-per-view
offerings, as well as allow access to video games and the Internet.
(Richard Karlsson)
ANALOG CABLE--Telia Kabel-TV is not the swiftest company in the world.
The company has been running VOA Europe as the sound for its cable
information channel. When VOA Europe went off the air a few weeks ago,
Telia continued carrying what replaced it on the transponder, Deutsche
Welle in a variety of non-European languages. After a few weeks the
company woke up and found a successor, America One, which beat out the
World Radio Network for the spot. A couple of years ago, when BBC
World Service radio closed its service on Eutelsat, Telia happily
carried its replacement, WRN's relay of Vatican Radio in many
languages, for months before it finally found the BBC again.
SUBTITLING--Back in the analog realm, the Swedes are already inundated
with English-speaking television, mainly American TV dramas and soaps.
But unlike many other countries, you'll never hear agents Scully and
Mulder or even Boris Yeltsin, speaking the local language, because the
Swedes don't believe in dubbing. And, as reporter George Affleck finds
out in today's broadcast edition of "MediaSCan", the people behind the
sub-titles go to great pains to get the translations just right.
FINLAND--Finland has a new television station. The new commercial
channel TV4 began Sunday over the air in Helsinki and the northern
city of Oulu, and nationwide on cable. By next year most urban areas
will have access to TV4, but many parts of northern and eastern
Finland will remain outside the coverage area.
The new channel will mainly show movies, old American police and
thriller series, soap operas, cartoons, and Finnish sports programs.
It will compete with the other commercial channel, MTV3, and the two
national non-commercial channels YLE1 and YLE2. (AP)
STIM--The Swedish Copyright Society (STIM) has lost its attempt to
force a bizarre royalties scheme on the country's commercial
television stations. STIM had demanded a straight percentage of the
channels' advertising revenues, while TV3, TV4, and Channel 5 had gone
to court demanding a system based on the actual amount of music played
and viewership. That's how the non-commercial Swedish Television pays.
A Stockholm court has upheld that alternative, and ordered STIM to pay
almost half a million dollars in court costs.
The strangest thing is a statement from STIM hailing the court
decision as a victory for its view that the system that applies to
Swedish Television should apply to the other channels.  ("Dagens
Nyheter") Which, considering that's the position the society fought
against, is an interesting rewrite of reality. 
VIOLENCE ON TV--The Swedish Broadcasting Commission, the agency
responsible for administering broadcasting in this country, says the
private satellite channel TV3 has the most violence on the promos and
trailers for coming programs. The commission monitored all of the
promos broadcast on the public service Swedish Television's (SVT) 2
channels, the private terrestrial broadcaster TV4, and TV3 during a
two week period in September, 1996. The commission will determine
later if the violence on the TV3 promos violates programming
regulations.
During the period in question, 50 percent of TV3's promos carried some
form of violence. The figures for the other channels were: TV4 36
percent, SVT2 8 percent and SVT1 6 percent. The most common
expressions of violence were: stabbings, bombs and explosions, weapons
of war, severe physical violence, individual firearms, and less severe
physical violence.
Both SVT and TV4 are covered by Swedish law, which says that channels
should be restrictive in showing violence, especially during periods
when children may be watching, before 9:00 PM. TV3 uplinks from
Britain, and so far is covered by the less strict British regulations.
But the European Union directive on Television Without Borders
regulates the depiction of meaningless violence. ("Dagens Nyheter")
EUROPE
ASTRA--NBC is in clear MPEG-2 on transponder 83.
The DF1 Info Channel is in clear MPEG-2 on transponder 56.
The Chinese Channel has left transponder 54, which now carries the
Adult Channel at 23:00-03:00 hrs UTC. the Adult Channel will be
leaving transponder 11 on Wednesday (June 4). It's been reported that
the German pay-movie channel Premiere 2 will replace Filmnet and the
Adult Channel on transponder 11, in PAL, using Syster Nagravision
encryption.
DF1 is adding four new channels on June 21:
Seasons
Planet
Cine Classics
DSF Action
(James Robinson and "SATCO DX Chart Update")
ASTRA RADIO--There are two new ADR channels on transponder 48 (SWF 3
TV):
7.56 MHz SWF 4
7.74 MHz Das Ding
S4 Baden-Wuerttemberg has moved to 7.38 MHz. Radio Italia is coming
soon to 8.10 MHz.
There are four new radio stations using MPEG-2 on transponder 90, in
addition to Nostalgie: Latina 99, Radio Monmarte, RMC, and Radio Notre
Dame. (James Robinson)
EUTELSAT--Animal Planet will be starting on Hot Bird 1 on 11.304 GHz,
in clear PAL on July 1. (James Robinson)
The Arabic News Network is transmitting news programming in clear PAL
every evening on Hot Bird 2 on 11.766 GHz. The Arabesque channels on
12.015 GHz are now encrypted. Muzzik has started on Hot Bird 1 11.304
GHz in clear MPEG-2. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
Italy's Magic TV has started in clear MPEG-2 on Eutelsat II-F3, 12.572
GHz. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
BELGIUM--The European Court of Justice has ruled that EU member
nations can't block the retransmission of programming from other
member nations, even if it doesn't meet the EU's quota guidelines. The
ruling, released May 29, involved the attempts by Belgian officials to
remove Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network from cable networks.
Under the EU's "Television Without Frontiers" directive, TV channels
are supposed to provide a majority of European-produced programming,
"where practical". The latter is the loophole that has allowed various
broadcasters to carry American and foreign ethic programming. (TT-AFP)
VIRGIN--Following its failure to win the Channel 5 terrestrial
licence, Virgin Media Group plans to start an adventure channel, aimed
at Britain. VMG also plans to start a music channel. It's yet to be
decided if these channels will be analog or digital. (Richard Karlsson
in "Aftonbladet")
SPAIN--Finland's Nokia company has confirmed it will be supplying
50,000 of its Mediamaster 9601 digital decoder boxes to the new
Spanish pay-TV operator Via Digital, which plans to launch in
September. Nokia says the box will be the first of its kind, enabling
consumers to change their digital television platform without having
to replace the set-top box (just by switching a card). Via Digital
will be competing with the current digital offerings from Canal
Satelite, which is backed by France's Canal Plus. There's been a
dispute with the Spanish government over which decoder standard will
be used in Spain. (Reuters)
Meanwhile, EchoStar has announced a subsidiary of Spain's Telefonica
group has chosen EchoStar to supply 100,000 digital set-top boxes for
its coming satellite television service, referred to as DTS, scheduled
to launch on hispasat this September. ("Business Wire") 
Since Telefonica is part of Via Digital, this seems to be the same
service, and both Nokia and EchoStar seem to be providing receivers.
Meanwhile, in a move aimed primarily at Canal Satelite, the Spanish
parliament has approved a law to guarantee that certain sports matches
will be broadcast free of charge. Canal Satelite holds the rights to
almost every soccer game in Spain, through owner Prisa's pay-TV
channel Canal Plus Espana, and an agreement with the private TV
channel Antena 3. (AP)
ITALY/SPAIN--France's Television Par Satellite is carrying its
competition with Canal Plus outside France. TPS is starting digital
packages in both Italy (where Canal Plus owns most of Telepiu) and
Spain (where Canal Plus has interests in Canal Satelite). Behind TPS
are TF-1, CLT, France Telecom, and M6. (Richard Karlsson in
"Aftonbladet")
Talks are currently underway between Italy's public service
broadcaster RAI and the telecommunications giant Stet on one side, and
Canal Plus on the other. If a favorable agreement is reached there
will be only one Italian digital platform, controlled by Italian
companies, but with a large stake held by Canal Plus. (Not counting
the TPS package mentioned above.)
According to the daily "La Repubblica" the managers of Canal Plus are
investigating switching all 80,000 Telepiu decoders for new boxes
similar to those used by Canal Plus in France. This would considerably
bring down the price of receiving equipment. ("Tele-satellit News")
GERMANY--In an attempt to strengthen its digital television service,
--- NetMgr 1.00.g4+
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