Euro1080 succeeded to sign distribution agreements with over 20 cable operators, and we are negotiating with many more. H- Eight Industrial partners, including ASTRA did what was agreed. Pioneer is the only CE manufacturer that fulfilled all his obligations, all other CE manufacturers and retailers use our signal illicitly, or are begging to receive limited amounts of CACards just to be used in shops to sell displays. I- Not a single Euro is offered by European or any other Authorities, although Euro1080 in spite of its limitations is building a Motorway for thousands of HDTV users from Consumer Electronics over Set Top Boxes, from Satellite operators over Satellite launchers. We invested a comprehensive amount of time and money in our HDe channel, but did not manage to get a high amount of cinemas on board. Cinemas appear to have only small budgets available, expect immediate return on investment, which understandably we cannot offer yet. They are not used to actively go to their audiences and create new business opportunities. Although everybody who has witnessed a Euro1080-emission on a large cinema screen, is extremely excited and describes the experience as fabulous, unique and innovative, the cinemas do not make promotion for the events. Therefore we are obliged to adapt our business model. We sold some 62.000 cards. This is quite close to the expected target, but only some 20.000 are activated, the rest will be activated in the next months. Many retailers are just using the Euro1080 signal to sell their 40 and 50 inch HD displays more easily. Due to the high prices, and the complicated distribution model of STBoxes, our penetration of the end users’ market has surely slowed down. We were able to buy the rights to rebroadcast Euro2004 from UEFA, but not for the Athens Olympics. Most journalists or analysts have never seen HD1 after September 1st, or base their comment merely on the “trailers and announces” that we broadcast during daytime. Our main content is shown from 8PM till midnight. We will solve this by sending amounts of Receivers and CA-Cards to journalists and analysts, but therefore we need more support from the STB and CE industry. We believe that with the limited team of less than 20 persons, we did after all an excellent job and we prepared the soil, we have seeded in view of harvesting in the next years. HD2 will permit us to exclude some countries if we can’t receive Pan European rights. The access to HD2 can be paid (Pay Per Event), but it can be free too. Using the actual Euro1080 CA Card, you can witness real top events in HD just by paying an extra fee for that particular event. The amount to be paid varies according to the content, but also to the region where it is distributed, and to the category of viewers. HD2 will officially start on June 1st 2005. We will run test transmissions from March 1st 2005 on. HD2 will carry Top Events such as major Tennis Tournaments, major Car Races or Football Tournaments. More detailed contents will be announced in April 2005 and each time that content will be confirmed. HD5 will be from June 1st 2005 on our HDTV DEMO and HDTV instructions channel, repeating one hour content permanently between 8AM and 8PM (or even 24/24), partially unscrambled. HD5 will show every hour (8AM, 9AM, 10AM…8PM) a 6 minutes instruction film explaining to the “end user” what HDTV is, what Euro1080 is, how he must connect his Receiver, how he must deal with 5.1 sound, how he can pay for the events on HD2… Obviously many of these salespeople leave the shops round 6PM and are not aware about our real evening programming. As the demo- and instruction content will be taken over by HD5, we will from May 2005 on do what we intended in the beginning: re-broadcast 5 times the main 8PM-12PM content of the previous day. The retailers can than choose between already 3 attractive channels to show to their clients, HD1, HD5 demo and from time to time HD2. Other “Demo” channels on ASTRA will disappear from the start of HD5 on. Euro1080 will transmit simultaneously in MPEG4 format from June 1st 2005 onwards both HD1 and HD2. The existing CA-Card is of course compatible with this new transmission technology. Euro1080 guarantees MPEG2 transmission on ASTRA until at least JANUARY 1st 2008 for both HD1 and HD2 channels, this is at least 3 more years from now. HD5 will be available in MPEG2 until at least mid 2006. HD3-4 will start only end 2007 and this obviously in MPEG4 only. In June 2005 Euro1080 will move to a new building, situated in Antwerp/Belgium. An old 110.000m˛ factory is being renovated into a comprehensive MEDIAPARK called EUROCAM, including five huge TV studios. The whole Play-out, editing facilities, Commercial and Marketing Departments of Euro1080 will be housed here. The new “EUROCAM” Media park is situated in the middle of Europe, just 25km from Brussels. The Official Opening Event will be on Saturday 10th of September 2005 during an unforgettable evening with Live transmissions from all over the world. Invitations to some thousands guests and to the press will follow later during the year. From the hundreds of events, concerts and fiction content that our sister company ALFACAM created in HDTV, many will be brought out on standard DVD, but also on HDTV DVD or HDTV BLURAY. Obviously our website is the perfect medium to promote these HDTV products and to sell them. This will be started in February 2005. We will start regular advertisement blocks at the end of 2005 on HD1. Advertisers can receive favourable rates today, with guaranteed low prices for 2006-2007-2008 if they make commitments in this early stage. On our HD1 program list for 2005 figure the following top events. Although they are not all are yet confirmed, at least 90% of the list is: - The Indian Film Awards - June – Amsterdam – 5 hours - The Queen Elisabeth Music Contest for Violin (Brussels – May – Live – 20 hours - Mediterranean Games – Almeria August - 50 hours - Prestigious Opening Event Eurocam - September 10th with many LIVE contributions - 5 hours - Rebroadcast all Euro2004 games - spread – 50 hours - 3-4 World Touring Car races or GT races - 30 hours - Some qualifiers for the WC2006 or Champions League Games -spread - 20 hours - Some Tennis WTA, ATP - 100 hours - 6 Golden League Athletic Events - 20 hours - At least 50 major rock concerts and festivals - 80 hours - At least 50 major Operas or Classical Concerts - 120 hours - Internal production of city trips and nature documentaries -100 hours - Acquisition of some 300 hours documentaries, fashion,… - Re-broadcast existing 200 hours of productions from 2004 - Other sports and Events – 200 hours (excerpts from a Quali-TV/Euro1080 paper)