DIGITAL TV 

The first digital TV channel arrives in Argentina

Argentine digital television, created to transmit this technology.  Viewers, who already have converters,  have access.  Claudio Villarruel and Bernarda Llorente will act as contents managers.

Osvaldo Acosta and Gerardo Ferreyra, owners of Electroingeniería construction, are the investors. Endemol Argentina will provide services, taking charge of technological support. The axis of the programming will be information, culture and spectacles – both local productions and international. The content will be developed with a strong emphasis on editing. It will be added to a grid which currently is comprised by Encuentro, Canal 7, Telefe, Paka Paka, TaTeTi, Video Exito, the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (Incaa), Gol TV, Vivra, Telesur, CN23, C5N, Argentina HD, Vesvi and SuriTV.

TELEVISION

César Millán and Powwow Media create association

Dog behavior specialist, show owner of El encantador de perros, and POWWOW, media and entertainment company VÉRTICE 360, partner to create contents in Spanish for Latin America and Spain.

El líder de la manada, to be the first project of the association. In this new reality, César launches in the search of dog lovers, the applicants will not be experts but ordinary people: from housewives to executives who are eager to change their computers for a leash and a collar.

After a few weeks of intensive training and evaluations, César will choose the winner of the show, in each of the territories to which this occurs. The program is in its pre-production stage in Spain and will have a local version in Latin America.

El Encantador de Perros, currently distributed in over 100 countries, with a weekly audience of over 14 millon people.

Events

Digital TV, central theme of cable TV summit in Lima

Well over 200 cable operators will meet in the cable TV 2011 summit, this coming 5th and 6th of May in Lima, Peru. Representatives of Discovery Channel, ESPN, HBO, Fox Sport, TV Sur, TV Azteca y MBA among others, will be part of this event. Digitalization and migration to the new technology (internet and telephony), are the main topics to be discussed.

"Pay TV in Peru, comes to light toward the converging technology, in other words the larger independent cable operators are already migrating to the new technology to grant internet and telephony services. We are one step from digitalization of our operating system. According to the report obtained from the Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones (the Ministry of Transportation and Communications) more than 250 concessions have been granted for cable television service throughout the national territory a potential business in the future in the television industry" comments Ovidio Rueda, president of the Asociación Peruana de Televisión por Cable (Peruvian Association of Cable Television).

Business

Televisa registers losses in the first trimester

Grupo Televisa has a decline of 17.8 per cent earnings for the first trimester of 2011, ensuring that the sales of its open TV business decreased 1.8%, contrary to cable TV and telecommunications, which marked a growth of 18% to $271 million dollars.

While in 2010, Televisa obtained a net profit of US$ 89 million. In this 2011, a net profit of US$ 102 million was forecast. But the reality was that it only had a gain of US$ 73 million. Also, the group's stock on the local bourse fell 0.89 per cent.

"This decrease reflects the absence of Grupo Carso (of Carlos Slim) as advertising client of Televisa", the company mentioned in its report. The positive is that sales of their satellite TV unit SKY, increased by 15% to US$ 245 million.

Telenovelas

La teacher de inglés acquired by Panama

After its release on Telelatino a few weeks ago with great success in Canada, La teacher de inglés, a Caracol TV production, since this past 12th of April is broadcast in Panama by TVN, at 1:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

The production stands as one of the most successful of Caracol TV, since it has been sold in the markets of Europe, Latin America and North America.

La teacher de inglés was filmed in Bogota and Miami. Is an original idea of Dago García and stars Víctor Mallarino and Carolina Gómez. Written by Carlos Fernández de Soto, Ana Fernanda Martínez, Andrea López y Karen Rodríguez.  Responsible of Direction by Andrés Marroquín y Unai Amuchástegui.