Reports out of Zurich state that in the next 4 weeks German pay-TV operator Premiere will switch from Kudelski to NDS conditional access.
Last week we reported on Premiere's latest financial reports and their admission that card-hackers had compromised Kudelski's conditional access. More than 1m pirate boxes are reportedly in use. Kudelski said it would be replacing allof Premiere's smart cards at a cost of almost $10m. Kudelski stressed it had a contract in place at Premiere until 2013.
Perhaps. But most such contracts contain performance obligations, and such aclause could be the perfect opportunity for Premiere to break itscontract, and appoint NDS as its encryption supplier. RupertMurdoch's News Corp owns 80% of NDS, and News Corp also owns a 14.6% stake in Premiere (and the broadcaster's single largestshareholder).
Premiere boss Michael Boernicke said he would be working closely with SkyItalia (100% owned by News Corp) in the future, although did not elaborate on the depth of such co-operation. Sky Italia has 4.2m subs, against Premiere's official DTH count of 3.65m.
Now, the Zurich office of Thomson Financial specifically states that Premiere "will change its encryption service" and is "considering ending its relationship with technology partner Kudelski".
Quelle: JKF
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