The Dutch digital satellite bouquet Canal Digitaal is planning to launch a pay-per-view service later this year. According to owners Canal+, the service will offer subscribers a chance to view movies prior to being screened on main channels Canal+ 1 and 2. The satellite service via Astra will also be used as a feed to cable-headends. Canal+ will only offer the pay-per-view service to Dutch customers with a Mediaguard MediaHighway receiver - also known as Mediasat, with in-built Canal Digitaal software.
The Netherlands' based erotic TV channel X-Zone is now offering a 24 hour service for hotels. The channel started test transmissions last week on the Canal Digitaal Satelliet bouquet on Astra 1 transponder 12.344 GHz H, SR 27500, FEC 3/4. The test transmissions were only decryptable with unofficial cards, as owners Canal Plus will not offer the service to official home-users. X-Zone transmits its service to official Canal Digitaal Satelliet subscribers daily from 22:00 to 06:00 CET. The 24 hour hotel service is on a pay-per-day basis.
Eurosport is to cease its analogue Eutelsat Hot Bird transmissions on the 12th March. The channel will carry an info-trailer on the transponder until the 17th March, informing viewers of other options to regain access to the channel. Eurosport currently reaches over 92 million households across Europe, reaching 250 million viewers in 62 countries. The channel now broadcasts simultaneously in 17 European languages, meaning that over 96% of viewers can now watch programming in their native language. Eurosport is available on all basic tiers of digital platforms in the UK, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Russia. Free-to-air feeds via Astra at 19.2 degrees east are currently available in analogue (11.259 GHz V) and in German only on digital (11.954 GHz H, Symbol Rate 27500, FEC 3/4).
Canal Digital will close their D2MAC transmissions before the end of the year. A date mentioned is September 3. Kanal 5 and TV Danmark, however will remain in D2MAC for yet some time. Canal Digital has announced that K-World will be gone from D2MAC by March 1.
Viasat Nordic will close their D2MAC transmissions late spring. TV3, 3+, viasat+ and ZTV however will remain in D2MAC for yet some time. TV8 is the first channel in the Viasat Package that leaves D2MAC