Apparently-to: scdx@get.pp.se
From: "George Wood" 
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  ::           MediaScan             ::
  ::      SWEDEN CALLING DXERS       ::
  ::       from Radio Sweden         :: 
  ::    Number 2259--Nov. 5, 1996    :: 
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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 SCDX2259
All times UTC unless otherwise noted.
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AMERICAN ELECTIONS:
The big media event today of course is coverage of the American
elections, on terrestrial, satellite, and cable channels around the
world. A couple of notes for Swedes living abroad, and non-Swedes
living in Stockholm: 
The election coverage from Swedish Radio News will be carried on our
Internet Web pages live in RealAudio, the first time Swedish Radio has
been live on the Net. Check out:
http://www.sr.se/ekot/usaval/lyssna.htm
Here in Stockholm, our P6 channel on 89.6 MHz FM will be relaying the
election coverage from National Public Radio between midnight and 6:00
AM local time Wednesday morning.
NORDIC MEDIA NEWS:
TV4--The Swedish government has approved a new licence agreement with
the country's only commercial terrestrial TV broadcaster, TV4. It runs
for the period 1997 to 2001. However, TV4 is using the new agreement
to close down the 15 regional TV stations which have provided local
news on the channel. Few of them were profitable, and during the first
9 months of this year TV4 lost more than 6 million dollars on the
local stations. TV4 says the requirement that it reflect the entire
country doesn't mean it has to maintain the stations. The government
has made it clear it won't intervene, and criticism has been expressed
against Minister of Culture Marita Ulvskog, for being more interested
in newspapers, where she once worked, than in electronic media. (TT,
"Dagens Nyheter", "Svenska Dagbladet")
Marita Ulvskog has also defied the current philosophy of deregulating
the electronic media markets, to block the joint project between
Swedish Television and Telia Kabel to launch a Gold Channel of
classics from the TV archives. Public service broadcaster Swedish
Television is not allowed to directly own what would be a pay-TV
channel. So, like the BBC's very similar UK Gold, a commercial partner
has been found. But in this case, the partner is the country's largest
cable TV operator, and the Minister of Culture says Telia should not
involve itself in channel programming. (TT, "Dagens Nyheter", "Svenska
Dagbladet")
DIGITAL RADIO--The agency allocating Swedish broadcast channels (RTV)
has revised its earlier proposal for Digital Audio Broadcasting,
because public broadcaster Swedish Radio has asked for more capacity
for its digital transmissions in Gothenburg and Malmoe than RTV had
estimated. This means that the number of private stations in
Gothenburg and Malmoe have been reduced from four to three in both
cases. The new list is:
Stockholm: Radio Q (women's channel), RBS Broadcasting, Bandit
Communication (presumeably CLT), and Kyss AB
Gothenburg: Tidnings AB Stampen, Svenska CFM, Tom McAlevey (founder of
the original English-language Bandit Radio)
Malmoe: GE Cityradio, Dagen (religious), and Radio Megapol (Bonniers)
Kinnevik's Radio Z and the oldies channel Golden Hits have lost their
provisional allocations.
There is a qualification for Stockholm. Radio Q has questioned the
transitter capacity. Should the government accept the argument and
increase capacity, then the number of licences would also drop to 3.
This means Kyss AB (operated by radio veterans Lennart Wretlind and
Kjell Allinge) would not be licenced. ("Radiotidningen")
DIGITAL TELEVISION--The government's go-ahead for digital terrestrial
television is expected next month. Meanwhile, digital satellite
broadcasting is about to arrive in the Nordic region, after some
delays. Nethold, the company that owns FilmNet, and recently purchased
by France's Canal Plus, is about to follow up on its digital packages
to South Africa and the Benelux:
Nethold has said all along it would launch its digital package during
the Fall, but as recently as two weeks ago, Swedish Radio News
reported the start had been delayed several times. This despite
all-out production of the necessary digital receivers at Nokia's
factory in Motala, in southern Sweden.
But recent press reports say Nethold and Nokia will be launching the
service by the end of this month. It will initially include 19 TV
channels and 40 CD-quality themed radio channels from DMX. The TV
channels include:
Nethold's own Filmnet, SuperSport, and Hallmark Entertainment, along
with Discovery, the Children's Channel, Bloomberg Information
Television, NBC, CNBC, EBN, Country Music Television, the Weather
Channel, the Travel Channel, Performance, and Sweden's Kanal 5 and
Norway's TV Norge. 
Later on interactive home shopping, Internet access, movies-on-demand,
and impulse pay-per-view will be added.
The TV channels are already available on Nethold's digital
transponders 73, 77, 93, and 97 on the Astra satellites. The wait has
been for the receivers. Initially these will cost more than one
thousand dollars each, and it's uncertain yet if Nethold will
subsidize them in the same way that telephone providers have
subsidized the purchase of GSM mobile telephones, or if they can be
rented, or if extra decoders will be available for those with existing
satellite receivers.
The situation has been complicated by a German company that has been
importing digital receivers into Sweden. These are intended for the
German market, and according to Nokia after a short period they will
no longer decode the Nethold signals. (Swedish Radio News, "Dagens
IT", and "Elektronikvaerlden")
It also appears that the long reported talks about a merger between
Nethold's pay film channel FilmNet and rival Kinnevik's TV1000 have
fallen through. This is partly because Kinnevik owner Jan Stenbeck
made a whole series of new last minute demands, and partly because of
Canal Plus' purchase of Nethold. Filmnet is now part of a company that
is 40 times the size of TV1000's owner. But Filmnet says the door is
still open. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet" and "Dagens Industri")
FILMNET/ASTRA--Nethold's subsidiary Multichoice has denied reports
that it will soon leave its analog transponder 11 on Astra to make
room for Britain's new Channel 5. According to Ulf Persson, head of
Filmnet Television AB, transmissions will continue as previously, and
if the Filmnet 1 transponder is to be closed, this will be announced
well ahead of time. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet")
According to chief executive David Elstein, Channel 5 is likely to
launch in late March, 1997, three months later than planned. Elstein,
who came to Channel 5 from British Sky Broadcasting, says he hopes the
channel will be on satellite and cable from the start, and that it's
inclusion would strengthen Sky's satellite offerings. (Reuters)
FILMNET/BBC PRIME--There seems to be some confusion over where BBC
Prime is going to appear at 5 degrees West. It was reported that it
would take MTV's old transponder on Thor at 12.092 GHz. But now
Richard Karlsson tells us that beginning November 13 (at 01:45 hrs
local time), Filmnet 1 is moving to that transponder, and leaving
Intelsat 707 at the same position (at 13:45 hrs). (Richard Karlsson,
"Aftonbladet") That will probably make it harder for people in Britain
with pirate cards to watch the channel, since Intelsat 707 has a far
larger footprint than Thor. 
BBC Prime will reportedly take over instead Filmnet 1's transponder on
Intelsat 707 on 11.133 GHz, beginning November 13. BBC Prime will join
the CTV package. (Jan Johansson, Nordisk Satellitinformation)
NET SURFING VIA TELETEXT--While Kinnevik has no immediate plans for
digital broadcasting, it has gotten involved in the digital domain in
a different way. Kinnevik's TV3 is now allowing viewers to surf the
Worldwide Web for free, using teletext. Viewers punch up teletext page
801, and then dial a free phone number. From then on they can use
their telephone touch buttons to net surf. The system uses the Lynx
browser, so there aren't any graphics, but it does work, and it's
free.
Because TV3 is carried in D2-MAC on the Sirius satellite at 5 degrees
East, anyone who can receive that satellite can actually watch other
people net-surfing. D2-MAC includes built-in teletext, which works
even if you don't have a card to view the channel. The Web-surfers are
allocated teletext pages between 780 and 799, so that if you check out
some of those pages you can often find people using the system.
SCI-FI CHANNEL--Ironically, the inclusion of teletext in D2-MAC has
delayed TV3's owner Kinnevik from providing the well-known Dominion
teletext pages for the Sci-Fi Channel, which Kinnevik has been
distributing on Tele-X since October 1st. Kinnevik's subsidiary MTG
and uplink partner Swedish Teracom lack the equipment to convert
teletext to the MAC format. Teletext will be gradually introduced on
Sci-Fi, VH- 1, and Nickelodeon between now and the end of the year.
(Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet")
Originally Sci-Fi was reported to be coming to the TV-Sat satellite at
1 degree West. We've even received a letter complaining that the
Tele-X signal is too weak, and as a virtual answer to that complaint,
Sci-Fi has now started on TV-Sat, on 12.054 GHz. According to Peder
Ramel at Kinnevik's subsidiary Viasat, the move is because of Tele-X's
weaker signal. According to Viasat's Peter Karlsson, Sci-Fi will be
encoded in Eurocrypt on January 1, 1997. 
Sci-Fi will not in included in the CTV package on Thor (CNN,
Discovery, TCC, Eurosport Nordic, and MTV), instead it will be
included in its own package with Nickelodeon and VH-1 (which are on
Thor's sister satellite Sirius, the stronger satellite at the same
position as Tele-X). According to Peder Ramel, Viasat has plans to
include more channels in this new package, but rather than renting new
transponders, they will use the Murdoch method of using sparetime on
existing transponders. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet" and
"Tele-satellit News")
Regarding the report last time about Telia Kabel TV including Sci-Fi
in its cable output, this is being taken from the Hotbird MPEG-2 feed,
rather than Tele-X, since it includes the Teletext pages that have not
been available on Tele-X. (Johan)
ZTV--Kinnevik's ZTV Denmark, which has been sharing a TV-Sat
transponder with Danish channels TV3+ and Sportkanalen is disappearing
on November 30. It may be replaced with a Danish version of
Nickelodeon. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet")
THOR--The Norwegian satellite Thor 2A is scheduled for launch on
February 22. It will be placed alongside Thor 1 (and TV-Sat and
Intelsat 707) at 0.8 degree West. Thor 2A will be equiped with 15
transponders between 11.200 and 11.450 GHz. In contrast to Thor 1
which started life as Britain's BSB satellite), the transmissions on
2A will be linearly polarized. ("Tele-satellit News")
CABLE TV--NetCom Systems AB is buying the rest of the cable operator
Kabelvision from Swedish publishing giant Bonnier, Time Warner and
UCI. Netcom, a subsidiary of Kinnevik, already owned 38 percent of
Kabelvision, which has around 450,000 connected households around
Sweden. (Richard Karlsson, "Aftonbladet")
EUROPE:
ASTRA--BSkyB's Computer Channel and Sky Scottish started right on
schedule on Astra transponders 58 and 59 respectively on November 1st.
Both are broadcasting 6:00-8:00 PM British time, sharing the
transponders with Granada Good Life and Granada Talk.
But Warner Brothers TV, which was due to start at the same time on
transponder 57, has yet to appear. Sky's owner Rupert Murdoch
apparently pulled the plug on Warner Brothers, because Time Warner has
refused to allow his new Fox News Network from running on Time
Warner's cable network in Manhattan. Following the merger with Turner
Broadcasting, Time Warner now owns CNN. ("Tele-satellit News")
(Who said you had to be grown up to be a media mogul?)
Fox  Kids Channel started sharing Astra transponder 7 (06:00-19:00 hrs
UTC) with Sky 2 in mid-October.
TNT and the Cartoon Network will start separate digital 24 hour
services on December 16 on Astra transponder 71 in clear MPEG-2. The
analog service on transponder 37 will remain unchanged. The Chinese
Channel will also start in MPEG-2 on transponder 71, on December 15.
The Travel Channel (see below) is already using this transponder.
(James Robinson)
QVC Germany has started a test service on Astra transponder 52. (James
Robinson and "SATCO DX Chart Update")
CMT Europe and JSTV have left Astra transponder 24, and have been
replaced by a BSkyB promo. The Racing Channel has moved to transponder
60. ("SATCO DX Chart Update")
Astra 1G is scheduled to launch in June 1997. (James Robinson)
SKY--According to press reports in late October, British Sky
Broadcasting is planning to launch a 6.35 million dollar takeover bid
for the British media group Pearson Plc. One analyst suggested that
Sky may want to only acquire Grundy or Thames Television, rather than
the entire Pearson group. Meanwhile, BSkyB is considering further
investment in Germany. It already holds 49 percent of Leo Kirch's DF1
digital TV venture. (Reuters)
Analysts also say Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is likely to benefit from
the planned merger of MCI and British Telecom. News Corp, which
already has a wide-ranging partnership with MCI, would strengthen its
global media interests on the coat-tails of the creation of the
world's second largest telecommunications group. It could also
stabilize News Corp's partnership with MCI, which has seemed
increasingly strained in recent months. (Reuters) BT has been working
closely with News Corp's British Sky Broadcasting, as the telephone
operator and the satellite broadcaster have allied against a common
enemy, the cable operators.
CABLE--In October, British telecommuniations watchdog Oftel banned a
promotion by BT and BSkyB, citing a ban on BT's use of its network for
entertainment. Analysts say the subsequent birth of a cable giant led
by BT's rival Cable and Wireless should enliven competition in
Britain, and could eventually ease pressure on such pressure on BT by
regulators. 
The merger, announced October 22, brings together Cable and Wireless
(which owns Mercury, Britain's second telephone company), and the
British cable operations of Nynex, Bell Canada International, and
Videotron. It's constituent companies already reach almost 2.5 cable
households. (Reuters)
DIGITAL MUSIC EXPRESS--DMX temporarily closed 6 channels:
Channel 22 was New Music and is now Light Classical
Channel 49 was Folk Music and is now Piano
Channel 71 was East Mediterranean and is now Folk Rock
--- NetMgr 1.00.g4+
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