French homes to get email via TV

NEWS French satellite company TPS (Télévision Par Satellite) has launched the country's first email service accessed by a television set. Users will also be able to access three portals from the service - gameplay.com, securities trader consors.com and lastminute.com. A single subscription entitles users to five email addresses and an address book capable of storing 50 contact sheets. Users are alerted to incoming emails automatically whenever the television channel is changed. TPS said the cost of the service depends on the number of messages received and the length of emails sent. A message with 500 to 1,000 characters will cost FF1.48 (14p), but reading three or four messages will only cost 90 centimes (8p). TPS is the second largest satellite company in France surpassed only by Canal Satellite. At the end of last year it boasted 1.374 million subscribers with a turn over of FF3.1bn (£289m).