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

To: PaulW who wrote (32895)	5/4/1998 11:05:00 AM
From: Don Dorsey	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

TOKYO, May 1 (AFP) - Two Japanese digital satellite broadcasters, PerfecTV Corp. and Japan Sky Broadcasting Co. (JSkyB) merged Friday to become the largest provider of satellite channels in the country. The merger took effect on an equal basis, with major shareholders including Sony Corp. and Australian media giant News Corp. The merged company, Japan Digital Broadcasting Services Inc., is expected to provide 171 channels in autumn under the channel name, SKYPerfecTV. It will compete with the only other digital satellite broadcaster, DirecTV Japan Inc., which began operating in December with 90 channels. Koya Mita, president of PerfecTV, became the head of the new company, while JSkyB president, Hajime Unoki, became chairman. The pair told a news conference the new company is expected to climb into the black in the year to March 2000, while targeting the break-even point of two million subscribers in the preceding year. PerfecTV was set up in 1996 to become the first digital satellite broadcaster in Japan and currently has about 670,000 subscribers. PerfecTV was owned by major trading houses such as Itochu Corp. as well as Sony, Toyota Motor Corp. and other investors. JSkyB, originally launched by News Corp. and software house Softbank Corp., was to start trial services in late April. Sony and Fuji Television later invested in JSkyB as equal shareholders.