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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillyG who wrote (30718)	3/10/1998 7:39:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

SkyPerfecTV uses C-Cube decoders.................................. c-cube.com biz.yahoo.com Tuesday March 10, 5:10 am Eastern Time JSkyB-PerfecTV venture to begin service on May 1 TOKYO, March 10 (Reuters) - A new digital satellite broadcaster created through an equal-footing merger between Japan Sky Broadcasting Corp (JSkyB) and PerfecTV will start service on May 1, presidents of the two firms said on Tuesday. The two firms said they signed a formal merger agreement on March 9 and created Japan Digital Broadcasting Services with a capitalisation of 40 billion yen. The 140-160 channel service will be called "SkyPerfecTV." Five major shareholders, News Corp , Sony Corp [NYSE:SNE - news] , Softbank Corp Fuji Television Network Corp and Itochu Corp each own 11.375 percent each of the joint venture, they said. Koya Mita, president of PerfecTV, said the merger was aimed at fostering healthy development of the digital satellite broadcasting industry. ''Cut-throat competition among three service providers would do no good for the industry,'' Mita told a news conference. ''The merger will contribute to the healthy development of the industry.'' Besides the two firms, DirecTV, partially owned by Hughes Electronics Corp made its debut in Japan's digital satellite service market last December. Mita said the merger would also help to consolidate their market ahead of the launch of powerful digital broadcasting service by Japanese national broadcaster NHK in 2000. JSkyB president Hajime Unoki said they expect the new firm to acquire one million subscribers by the end of March 1999. SkyPerfecTV will assume 600,000 subscribers of PerfecTV, which has been in service since 1996. JSkyB was to begin its own service on April 1.