The European logic of digital television.The new gold rush for library material The new password in the industry is "Ally and digitize!" The bazaar of alliances is in full swing, and so is the digital TV bedlam. It seemed that no one could enter the Palais at last month's MIP-TV convention without this password. The situation that resulted in this busy intersection caused a bit of confusion. CLT's Albert Frere gave the password in hopes that it would untangle the mess with mess with Verb Informal, chiefly US to interfere in, or become involved with, a dangerous person, thing, or situation: he had started messing with drugs Havas and Bertelsmann's UFA Ufa (  fä`), city (1989 pop. 1,082,000), capital of Bashkortostan, E European Russia, at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers. . CLT CLTtotal lung-thorax compliance. , a Luxembourg-based media group owned by Havas, Bertelsmann, Generale des Eaux and Paribas, is in the French grand alliance with France Television, TF1 and Lyonnaise ly·on·naise adj. Cooked with onions: lyonnaise potatoes; potatoes lyonnaise. [From French (à la) Lyonnaise, (in the manner) of Lyon, from Lyon. des Eaux. This alliance, blessed by President Chirac, plays against the digital consortium of BSkyB, Bertelsmann and Canal Plus. The scheduled merger between CLT and UFA complicates the matter even further. Rupert Murdoch of BSkyB used the password while meeting with Bertelsmann and Canal Plus about the digital alliance. Michael Dornemann used the password when he visited his Bertelsmann to solve the problems with CLT. Apparently Dornemann told CLT that it had to choose between the French grand alliance and the UFA merger. Havas' Pierre Dauzier uttered the password to dig his company - which is owned by France Telecom, Societe Generale and Paribas, among others - out of the CLT quicksand quicksand State in which water-saturated sand loses its supporting capacity and acquires the characteristics of a liquid. Quicksand is usually found in a hollow at the mouth of a large river or along a flat stretch of stream or beach where pools of water become partly filled . Pierre Lescure used the password to monitor the actions of his Canal Plus vis-a-vis the grand alliance, which works against Canal Plus' alliance with Bertelsmann and BSkyB. Canal Plus is owned by Havas and Generale des Eaux and is friendly toward the currently out-of-power Socialist Party Socialist party, in U.S. history, political party formed to promote public control of the means of production and distribution. In 1898 the Social Democratic party was formed by a group led by Eugene V. Debs and Victor Berger. . Leo Kirch used the password to show the d-Box to his allies - Vebacom, NetHold and retail giant Metro (led by Otto Beisheim). The Kirch Group also has a digital alliance with Telepiu, which it co-owns with Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest. Kirch also owns Premiere with Bertelsmann and Canal Plus. The Kirch consortium works against all the others. Johann Rupert of NetHold mentioned the password while reviewing the progress of his Telepiu digital bouquet. Rupert's Richemont Group is allied with Kirch and Fininvest. In effect, the European TV world is now divided into two camps centered on Rupert Murdoch and Leo Kirch. Around these camps orbit some 10 key private sector groups from France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and South Africa. Even though there are five different digital TV standards - one for each delivery system (see Video Age March/April 1996, Page 36) - the technical fiefdoms could be reduced to two main camps. The first is the MMGB alliance formed by CLT, Bertelsmann, Canal Plus and Deutsche Telekom. On the MMGB side, Thomson, Philips, Sony and Pioneer are developing a unique "Conditional Access" smart card decoder. The second camp is the d-Box alliance formed by the Kirch Group, NetHold, Mediaset, Metro and Vebacom. The d-Box technology, which was developed by Kirch's BetaTeknik, is being used in Italy by Telepiu and Stream (Italy's telecom), in Australia by Galaxy and in South Africa by M-Net. Kirch and NetHold have ordered two million d-Boxes from Pace, Panasonic and Nokia. A minor but equally important sub-plot involves the two satellite camps. On one side we have the Luxembourg-based SES with its Astra satellite's 40 digital TV transponders. On the other side, there is Eutelsat (owned by Europe's main telecom operators) with its Hot Bird satellites. Finally, there is the question of the alliances with U.S. studios. At this point the d-Box camp can count on the Sony Pictures (Columbia TriStar) library and is allied with Viacom (and therefore with Paramount, Nickelodeon and MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. ). At MIP MIP See: Monthly income preferred security , the Kirch Group announced an agreement with Discovery. The MMGB consortium can count on 20th Century Fox. Bertelsmann has a deal with Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . CLT's RTL (Register Transfer Level) A high-level hardware description language (HDL) for defining digital circuits. The circuits are described as a collection of registers, Boolean equations, control logic such as "if-then-else" statements as well as complex event sequences; recently signed a co-production agreement with MCA MCA in full Music Corporation of America Entertainment conglomerate. It was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Jules Stein as a talent agency. In the 1960s it bought Decca Records and Universal Pictures, and today it produces films, music, and television shows. and the U.K. company Cloud Nine. It has been said, however, that these alliances, with their hundreds of satellite TV channels, represent only a maximizing of library material and not an explosion of production activity. |
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