Digital TV set for Portugal
Launch skedded for Sept.
TV Cabo will supply five channels and Via 14 for a TV Cabo bouquet that will beam direct-to-home to subscribers in Portugal. It also will be accessible for the 350,000 cable TV clients of TV Cabo.
The TV Cabo digital TV service will be transmitted by Spanish national satellite Hispasat, which also is used by Via Digital for its DTH transmissions to Spain. Via will supply conditional access digital set-top decoders.
Channels carried by Via included on the startup package include BBC World, BBC Prime, MTV and the Bloomberg financial news channel.
It is questionable how valuable, in immediate economic terms at least, the TV Cabo pact will prove for Via Digital. Prospects for digital TV in Portugal look healthy.
With Portugal vastly undertelevised, the analog version of TV Cabo has proved one of the fastest-growing cable TV networks in Europe. But Via will now have to clear Portuguese rights where necessary for its channels' programming before their trans-mission to Portugal.
TV Cabo sources were unavailable for comment on their platform's channel lineup.
The TV Cabo-Via digital alliance looks like a psychological blow, however, for Via's rival digital TV operator CanalSatelite Digital (CSD), owned by Canal Plus and Spanish media empire Prisa. The deal could block the entry of CSD channels into TV Cabo's basic cable package in the future.
CSD had been negotiating for a similar digital TV accord with TV Cabo. The deal with Via may well have been aided by political pressure from TV Cabo's sole owner, telco Portugal Telecom (PT). Via's lead (25%) shareholder is Spanish telco Telefonica. PT and Telefonica hold minority stakes in each other's shareholding.
