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Starwars

Star Wars in Scandinavia by Bertil Sundberg (c)

The Scandinavian battle about supremacy over the audiencies in the Nordic countries is intensifying these days, when X-mas shopping might result in an increased sale of dishes and packages in the big shopping centres. The Kinnevik people who just celebrated their 5th anniversary are trying to consolidate their positions by leaving Astra - without proper notifying SES in Luxembourg it is said, and have chosen 1 degree west as their home base. Although 5° East will also be a crucial factor with the new Sirius - former "free" and unencrypted satellite apart from old film and porn channel FilmMax. But with last Summer´s turmoil in mind, when Viasat like the Pied Piper of Hameln tricked Statoil to sell cheap "Sweden-packages" for five new unencrypted channels" and then were forced to go back into D2MAC -"becauce some restaurants and hotels in Italy were able to retrans- mit the italian fotball-matches live". Does that contraversial conglomerate Kinnevik really think people in Sweden would swallow that bait? No siree! It´no less than a hoax tried earlier. The reaction among the professionals, the public and in various media was furious. The thin explanation that "we were not aware of that fact" is a fat lie. This was deliberately planned long ago. If not Mr Stenbeck should sack a few dozen more of his "advisers." TV 4 had the same experience some years earlier and did not encrypt! Even on "home base" 1 °W Kinnevik encountered some difficulties. The worn-out German high power TV Sat 2 had to turn off two frequencies carrying one Danish and one Norwegian channel and pushing away SVT 1 to the old DFS 1 at 33,5°E leaving the expatriote Scandinavians no comfort. Only a week´s stay and then the Usingen-controlled bird began its around the word tour like Olympus did some years ago. Bye bye black bird... While the mastermind Mr Jan Stenbeck allowed himself the modest sum of US $ 1 Million in consultancy fee for 1994 he sacks managing directors, and other key players and closing down magazines at an increasing speed, his propaganda Minister boasts about new thrilling channels and programs coming next year... The vision is somewhat blurred though. Which are these future secret programs? To be seen by a Eurocrypt Viasat card of course.

FilmNet Multichoice who recently celebrated their 10th anniversary with a grand party at Café Opera in Stockholm, have chosen a lower key and have decided to stay on with Astra and develope the MPEG-transmission standard. The new sports channel, however, SuperSport is at the moment showing some programs via FilmNet + although some time after New Year´s Eve some cable nets will include this program in their package. Also the american Hallmark channel will join. Talking about joining: Nethold, the owners of FilmNet have joined forces with TV 4. An agreement of future cooperation production and distribution and technical developement. It will benefit all parties. TV 4 will get out of the present web - the concession agreement, which impedes new productions and enterprises Thus there is a possibility that TV 4+ will be entirely satelliteborne in 1996 with material not having been shown on TV 4 before. Since Nethold is one of the frontrunners in digital techniques TV 4 will benefit from that know-how. Initially the agreement will run for the next three years within 9 sectors.

A scandal has shaken Scandinavia and Sweden in particular this Summer. By law you have to pay a fee for watching the Swedish public serviceTV-channels and radio programs. If you are unable to see the programs by geographical hindrance it makes no difference. You got to pay! But in Norway you can watch the programs, which signals are taken terestrially over the boarder and distributed via cable for free and on oilrigs in the Nordic Sea via encrypted signals by satellite. In connection with the EU-election the reporter announced that both in Brussels and Straßburg the programs were free of charge as 50 (fifty) democards were sent down "to test the reception quality" Some are apparently more equal than others...Anyhow a rare bird showed up at Intelsat 702 1° W some weeks ago. That was Denmark 1 occupying the "Nittedal"-frequency 10,969 H for most of the day or at least some hours in teh afternoon and at night. Whoever has the best cards up their sleeve Kinnevik has by far won the Bad Will Trophy of the Year.

"Wie man bettet muß man schlafen"
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These pages are under a constant space watch. Copyright © 1996 Bertil Sundberg.