Television and the Internet in the Ex-Soviet Bloc.In Eastern Europe Eastern Europe The countries of eastern Europe, especially those that were allied with the USSR in the Warsaw Pact, which was established in 1955 and dissolved in 1991. , television reaches the entire population. The region is served by a myriad of networks, local stations, satellites and, in Moscow, by a digital-TV service via microwaves. Cable TV is also highly developed in the area, allowing some countries to receive up to 70 analog channels In communications, a channel that carries voice or video in analog form as a varying range of electrical frequencies. Contrast with digital channel. . Cable is one of the few benefits left behind by Communist governments that feared foreign TV signals passing through its airwaves airwaves Noun, pl Informal radio waves used in radio and television broadcasting . Jeremy Maddock of the U.K.'s NDS Group NDS Group plc is a DRM and conditional access firm. It is listed on the NASDAQ (symbol NNDS), but its major shareholder is News Corporation. The company is headquartered in West Drayton (near Heathrow), United Kingdom. The CEO of NDS is Abe Peled. pointed out that in almost all former communist countries, infrastructures for broadband Internet See broadband. services are already in place. The problem now is represented by the last mile and by the small number of computers in homes. For this reason, the television industry is planning to incorporate a low-cost set-top box The cable TV box that sits on "top" of the TV "set," although it is often located several feet away in an equipment rack. The set-top box descrambles the premium channels and provides a tuner for the higher cable numbers that very old TVs did not support. in new TV receivers, morphing Transforming one image into another; for example, a car into a tiger. The term comes from metamorphosis. Morphing programs work by marking prominent points, such as tips and corners, of the before and after images. them into computers for all basic Internet functions, such as e-mail. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Maddock, DSL DSL in full Digital Subscriber Line Broadband digital communications connection that operates over standard copper telephone wires. It requires a DSL modem, which splits transmissions into two frequency bands: the lower frequencies for voice (ordinary technology is virtually nonexistent non·ex·is·tence n. 1. The condition of not existing. 2. Something that does not exist. non in the entire sector, but experiments are under way in Poland and Hungary. The former Soviet bloc has a highly educated population which tends to be attracted to the Internet, a technology that became available in the region only last year. Hungarian producer Beata Hegedus remembers how, just a year ago, Hungary's TV executives had no access to the Internet. Andrea Zajocova of Slovakia's Branding stated that, in her country, cable TV is highly developed but there are only two local networks and one new regional TV station in the works. Of these, only one -- the commercial network -- uses the Internet, despite the high percentage of users who could be connected. Similarly, in Bulgaria, Asen Asenov, director of Star TV Productions, reported that TV stations seldomly use the Internet. But, according to www.stockaccess.com, an English-language website specializing in Eastern Europe's use of the Internet, Russia has up to 8,000 web programmers. This year, they generated revenues of up to $100 million wit1h an estimated annual growth of up to 60 percent. In a very short time, the region zipped from primitive phone systems directly to digital cellular phones with access chips (SIM cards) readily available in stores. Conversely, a standard phone hookup hookup, n in the Trager method of therapy, the practitioner enters into a meditative state along with the patient, which allows him or her to work more intuitively and to feel subtle changes in the patient's movement and tissue texture. is still a lengthy bureaucratic bu·reau·crat n. 1. An official of a bureaucracy. 2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure. bu operation. Thanks to digital (GSM) cellular phone systems, access to the Internet is also easier. According to Patrick Jucaud, organizer of DISCOP (see separate story), the growth of the Internet in Eastern Europe will be aided by the fact that cable TV operators want to compete with the phone companies, resulting in lower access fees, which now tend to be high in Hungary as compared to Russia.
COUNTRY MAJOR CHANNELS
Bulgaria MSAT, BNT, BTV, Star TV
Croatia HRT Croatia, CCN, TV
Moslavina,
Virkovacka Televizija,
Continental
Czech Republic TV Nova, Czech Television
(CT1 & CT2),
Prima TV, TV3, AQS
Estonia ETV, TV3
Hungary Hungarian TV, TV2, Duna
TV, MTV,
HBO-Spektrum TV, Minimax,
PECS TV
Latvia Latvia-TV, LNT
Lithuania LNK, LTV
Poland Nazsa TV, Polsat, TV
Family, TV Polska,
TV Polonia, Wizja TV
Romania Antena 1, Media Pro
Int'l, TVR, Telen
Russia CTC, ORT, REN-TV, RTR,
TV5, ORT Int'l
Slovakia TV Markiza, Slovak
Television, Luna TV
Slovenia POP TV, RTV SLO
Ukraine Studio 1+1, NTU, Era TV,
ICTV, Inter TV,
Saga TV, STB, Telekom-1
MAJOR CABLE OPERATORS
Bulgaria Euvrotur Sat TV; Globo
Cable TV;
Union TV AD
Czech Republic Kabel Net Holding; Kabel
Plus
Estonia Levicom, Ltd.; Starman;
STV Cable TV
Hungary Matavkabeltv Kft; UPC
Hungary
Latvia Baltcom TV, Ltd.;
Televideotikls, TVT
Lithuania Baltcum TV
Poland Aster City Cable; Gosat
Cable Television;
PTK
Romania Astral TV Ltd.; HBO
Romania; Romsat
Cable TV & Radio; Terra
Sat Company Ltd.
Russia MITI; Policom; St.
Petersburg Cable
Slovakia Kabel Plus; Satro S.R.O.;
SKT; Trnavatel/Kabeltel
RANGE OF EASTERN EUROPEAN LICENSING FEES
TV Movies $300 - $25,000
Hour Dramas $250 - $35,000
Half-Hours $250 - $10,000
Children's $300 - $3,500
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