Really Rocket Science

The trends are pointing in favor of the cord-cutters.

Even BSkyB, the pay-tv service that put Astra on the map, is itself moving away from using satellite technology.

The Telegraph published an excellent report, which could be the slow de-orbiting of the satellite business…

BSkyB is preparing a major overhaul of its set-top box technology to address the threat to its subscription business from internet-based television services from American giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google.

A special unit has been set up within the company under the name “Project Ethan” to develop an entirely new system that will aim to make it easier for customers to access programmes on any device, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

For instance, Project Ethan is understood to include plans for television recorded using the Sky+ service to be stored in a central data centre rather than on set-top box hard disks. The recordings in “the cloud” will be accessible via smartphones and tablets, or on internet-connected televisions outside the living room.

For both recorded and on-demand video, the new software will make it possible for viewers pause on their main television and then pick up where they left off on another device, and vice-versa. Sources said BSkyB, which formerly referred to the investment as “Project 2016,” could roll out the system to millions of customers as soon as two years from now.

The multi-screen technology would also allow BSkyB to extend the reach and sophistication of its recently-launched targeted advertising service. In one possible scenario, retailers could target viewers in a given postcode on their sofa then follow up with a special offer delivered to their smartphone via the Sky app.

Almost sounds like the IP-PRIME service that SES killed back in 2009.

After the blokes at NOTW got caught being stickybeaks with cell phone hacking, it seems News Corp. has a Buckley’s chance of buying the 61% of BSkyB it was after. He must have spit the dummy at the meeting.

The news is everywhere, with the most interesting being how executives must deal with an investor relations crisis, et. al. The details, via Business Insider…

The phone hacking scandal at News Corp’s UK newspaper the News of the World has now cost the company a large prize.

Yesterday it officially withdrew its offer for the remaining 61 percent of BSkyB – and the chances of it returning to bid again in the near future are remote.

Still, the pressure continues, the implications are spreading and the results not only threaten the company’s business interests, but also its IR efforts in the US.

News Corp and Murdoch wanted BSkyB because it continues to grow and, according to company financial records, throws off 12 percent of its revenue as free cash. That’s a big temptation to News Corp, which currently has long-term debt of $15.5 bn.

The pace of increased problems seems only to speed up. Calls for investigations, which eat up management time and create fires that IR personnel must put out, have grown. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the government will investigate rumors that News Corp journalists tried to gain illegal access to phone data of some victims of the 9/11 attacks in the US.

That could help open a potentially ugly new front for the company. News Corp, which is registered in the US, might already be liable under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for alleged payments to police in the UK. Hacking into phones of 9/11 victims would not only add another potential criminal investigation, but one that is an emotional hot button in the States.

Senator Jay Rockefeller has called for an investigation into the allegations, and a group of institutional investors amended a suit filed against News Corp in March to include the current scandal and back allegations that ‘Murdoch has treated News Corp like a family candy jar, which he raids whenever his appetite strikes’, as a copy of the complaint states.

News Corp continues to look for ways out of the scrape, including a $5 bn stock buyback, which is $3.2 bn over and above what remains of an existing buyback plan. And there are other, larger potential changes in the works, such as the sale of its UK newspaper division – well, at least if there were a potential buyer for holdings in an economically wounded industry. But it will take something extraordinary to get ahead of the developing story at this point.

Now the AP is reported the FBI is going to give it a burl.