Arena with a successful premiere
On the first day of the Bundesliga season, the new pay-TV channel Arena went on the air. Despite a few minor glitches, the channel is off to a promising start. By contrast, only a few viewers of rival channel Premiere were able to receive the “television of the future” service planned in collaboration with Telekom.
The new pay-TV channel Arena went on air on the first match day of the Bundesliga. As Spiegel Online reports, the channel showed itself to be in good shape despite some minor glitches. Arena relied on a whole host of experienced presenters, but Spiegel Online believes that the styling of the presenters and the channel still needs to be greatly improved. Spiegel Online praised the individual preliminary reporting from all stadiums.
While football programs could be watched on Arena without any problems, this was not really possible with the announced Internet TV from Telekom and Premiere. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported, the service, which is being praised as the television of the future, could only be viewed by a maximum of 43 customers, as they have to have the new VDSL service, which is only available in a few cities, and a modern multimedia box. Although a video stream of the Premiere/Telekom press conference from July could be viewed on the Telekom website, there was no sign of Bundesliga Future TV.
Süddeutsche Zeitung sees the project as a PR stunt that served to distract Premiere from its problems and boost its share price. It was already clear in May that the technology was not yet ready. According to the press office, test access for journalists should be available in a few weeks.
