L-R: Robert Knorr, Cameron Munter, Dragan Šolak & SBB’s Dragica Pilipović Chaffey

Mid Europa Partners-backed pay TV operators including Serbian cable leader SBB, Telemach Slovenia, Telemach BiH in Bosnia-Herzegovina, satellite operator Total TV and 15 smaller companies will begin operating as United Group from Wednesday May 1.

The group, which is majority-owned by Mid Europa Partners and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, plans to develop a series of joint initiatives for customers across the region’s borders, the first of which, free fixed phone calls between SBB, Telemach Slovenia an Telemach BiH customers, goes live on Wednesday.

United Group’s networks currently serve 1.65 million residential and business users, with about 10,000km of fibre-optic networks across the three countries. United Group companies generated revenues of €180 million in 2012, with capital expenditure across the region totaling €50 million.

Dragan Šolak will serve as the group’s chairman and managing board, with Marko Šter serving as CEO at Telemach Slovenia and Željko Batistić as CEO at Telemach BiH. Cameron Munter, a former US ambassador to Belgrade, will join the group as senior advisor to the board.

At a press conference to mark the launch, Šolak highlighted the ability of the group to benefit from scale in negotiating directly with TV rights owners and in investing in technology.

United Group includes Mid Europa Partners-backed companies SBB, Telemach Slovenia and Telemach Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as pay TV outfit Total TV.

As part of the new group Telemach will introduce free phone calls between subscribers to United Group companies in Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from May 1.

Telemach CEO Marko Šter said that the member companies of the group were the leading suppliers of TV in their respective countries and could share best practices and achive synergies through the merged organization.

United Group serves a total of 1.8 million residential and business customers across the three countries.

The group has appointed former US ambassador to Belgrade Cameron Munster as a senior adviser.

Beesmart is already deployed on PCs and Android and iOS tablets as well as set-top boxes. The new Beesmart app will be available first on Samsung Smart TVS and will be launched at the TV Connect show in London later this month.

‘’Beenius continues its vision to create, nurture and inspire the society with bringing the most advanced multimedia services to its doorstep. Beesmart Smart TV application improves the quality of peoples’ lives. We choose to collaborate with a progressive development partner who shares our vision of the future of TV‘’ said Beenius CEO Matjaž Bevk. ‘’Humanlayer has continuously delivered top quality solutions characterized by stability and easy maintenance’’ said Bevk and added ‘’they have a flexible team and with a strong insight into technology of the future which creates an inspiring collaboration environment.’’

Milutin Cvetković, Humanlayer CEO, said: “The API enables the creation of numerous simpler apps for BeeStore, which will prove particularly appealing to operators in terms of ARPU possibilities. This joint project for the development of Smart TV app can be considered as a proof-of-concept for the API and its applicability.”

The acquisition will enable Vision247 to provide services for large telecom providers, expanding its role as an over-the-top TV service provider. Fora’s Perception platform supports telco IPTV including video-on-demand, network-based DVR and time-shifting, HLS streaming, and set-top box and mobile client applications for operating systems including iOS and Android.

As part of the deal, Vision247 will invest in an expansion of Fora’s R&D and T-2 support facility in Slovenia, as well as integrating front end development of the Perception and XtremeIPTV platforms, enabling integration of Perception’s cloud-based DVR and catch-up capability for legacy connected devices.

Vision247 will expand content management capabilities within Perception through the integration of its SuperVision and LiveTranscoder products, and extend support for Samsung Smart TVs, Roku streaming players and Google TV devices.

Matt Vidmar, chairman and chief technology officer, Vision247 said: “Fora has the highest expertise and synergy with our own service offering in the broadcast market. Together the Fora Perception platform and Vision247’s award winning XtremeIPTV platform enables us to cover every segment of the broadcast industry, from OTT to telco IPTV packages, then strengthen these offerings for customers with our additional expertise in content acquisition and 24/7 playout management.”

The platform supports linear and non-linear TV on a range of mobile and fixed devices including iOS and Android devices, Windows and Mac computers and set-top boxes.

SBB initially used the platform to deliver services under the D3 Go brand to households outside its existing cable footprint, and then extended this to offer services to multiple devices. Other technology partners include Anevia, Envivio, NXP and Verimatrix.

“The additions Zappware has designed to enhance the OTT solution will increase the stickiness of our services, making subscribers much more likely to continue to take advantage of our offerings,” said Victoriya Boklag, Deputy CEO of SBB.

Time Warner backed Central and Eastern European broadcast group CME is considering selling Nova TV in Croatia and Pop TV in Slovenia, according to a local report.

The news story, which came from a Croatian business news site, follows comments from CME CEO Adrian Sarbu that the company is looking at selling some assets.

The company issued disappointing third-quarter results last month.

Speaking to analysts in the wake of the results, Sarbu said: “We are in the early stages of evaluating the potential for asset sales, as well as other measures to further optimize or restructure our cost base.”

CME bought Nova TV in 2004.

Time Warner upped its stake in CME to 40% earlier this year.

A CME spokesman declined to comment.

The Slovenian telco has launched Fox Movies and Orlando Kids channels on the service. Fox Movies airs the latest blockbusters and library titles from 20th Century Fox. Kids channel Orlando kids airs cartoons including Atomic Betty, Iron Man and Wolverine.

SiOL TV viewers will be able to choose between all 130 Champions League matches in HD, with a choice between concurrent matches possible via a user interface on channel 500 of the service. All matches come with Slovenian commentary.

SiOL Football is available free of charge to TopTrio, TopTrio HD and TopTrio Optika subscribers, and costs €5 a month for €39.90 per season to other subscribers. The service is also available via the SiOL TViN multiscreen service to PCS, tablets and smartphones.

Each match week basic-tier channel SportKlub will show live the best-pick Wednesday match, followed by a highlights programme.

Telekom Slovenia has been awarded the rights to all the remaining matches and will broadcast the best-pick Tuesday match each match week, followed by a highlights programme on basic-tier channel Planet TV. Further matches will be broadcast on Telekom Slovenia’s IPTV channel.

The UEFA Champions League final and UEFA Super Cup have been awarded to both broadcasters on a co-exclusive basis.

Pay TV broadcaster SportKlub has been awarded the right to all live matches, except the first pick. Each match week SportKlub will broadcast one live match per kick-off slot as well as a highlights programme.

All rights can also being exploited on the internet via www.sportklub.si, and on mobile.