Austria pulls plug on mobile TV

The days of mobile television in broadcast standard DVB-H are numbered in Austria with the participating companies deciding to pull the plug on the ailing service on 31 December, states Rapid TV News.

According to industry insiders, only 10 000 to 15 000 customers have been acquired. Austria is not alone: Mobile TV in DVB-H already failed in neighbouring states Germany and Switzerland.

The broadcast technology which has been tailor-made for mobile television, suffers from the necessity to set up and operate a separate transmission network, which is a costly undertaking.

UKTV, the owner of digital channels Watch, Gold and Good Food, has extended its digital broadcast operations deal with Red Bee Media, according to Digital Spy.

Under the agreement, Red Bee will continue to deliver UKTV's core portfolio of standard definition channels, including Dave, Alibi, Yesterday and Home.

Red Bee, which was previously BBC Broadcast, will also look at 'emerging technologies' that could allow UKTV to unveil new and enhanced services in the future.

Satellite broadcast firms in Egypt say the telecoms regulator has stopped them from offering live feeds to private TV channels, a move that government critics see as a crackdown on independent media before a November election, reports Reuters.

State media officials say the decision to cancel the feed permits was part of a broader attempt to better regulate independent media and was not a curb on free speech.

Critics say this was bound to hamper reporting in the run-up to the November parliamentary vote and a 2011 presidential election.