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Scroll down page or click below for news - latest first
Tuesday
Friday 9th March
MySpace for media?
Virgin offers discounts to stay
New rules for participation TV
NNN from old MTVers
Turkey cuts YouTube
Greenlight for Sogecable control of football rights
Five under pressure
Movie Gallery acquires MovieBeam
TiVo more direct subs
CHUM Television gets Joost
3 ad-funded mobile content
MySpace for media?
News Corp is in "very active negotiations" with other media companies to license video content and distribute it through MySpace, indicating its intention to compete both with YouTube and new virtual platforms like Joost and Babel. Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, News Corp’s digital division which includes MySpace.com, said that the talks were aimed at creating the "most robust video offering on the web."MySpace, the world’s biggest social networking site, last year introduced video-sharing features and has become the second-biggest video site after YouTube. Levinsohn, hinted at deal structures when he said he thought a joint venture could work if it was structured properly. Previous efforts by media companies to form consortia have fallen apart amid bickering of competing objectives.
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Virgin offers discounts to stayVirgin Media is offering discounts to customers threatening to defect to rival BskyB after Sky basic channels were dropped from the network.
But Virgin has also told analysts it expects to add to its 3.35 million TV customers in the quarter ending March, despite the loss of Sky. Virgin media chief, Steve Burch, predicted the number of customers who would ultimately defect to Sky would be "in the thousands."
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New rules for participation TVUK premium-rate phone service regulator Icstis has announced a range of measures to restore public confidence in participation TV, including systematic monitoring of broadcasters and a licensing regime for premium rate service providers.
Icstis said the priority was to ensure viewers got a "fair deal" from broadcasters, after a slew of allegations about irregularities with premium-rate phone-ins and interactive services. It said it would be writing a letter to broadcasters by the end of Monday asking them "to carry out a review of current and forthcoming participation TV programming to ensure there's no risk of consumer harm". The findings are to be relayed to Icstis within two weeks.
Icstis will also set up a monitoring system to inspect participation TV programmes to ensure phone ins and interactive services are being run fairly. A new licensing regime will be put in place for premium-rate service providers within three months, defining responsibility for their operation and Icstis was also considering an industry-wide "trustmark" or "quality standard" in a further bid to build up public trust in participation TV.
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Next New Networks, is a New York start-up from former executives of MTV and Nickelodeon, that will produce "micro-networks" on niche topics like do-it-yourself fashion, comic books, car racing and cartoons.
The company’s founders include Herb Scannell, ex of Nickelodeon and responsible for SpongeBob SquarePants and Fred Seibert, the first creative director at MTV and behind the "I Want My MTV" slogan.
The company has received $8 million in seed capital, in part from the Pilot Group, a media investment firm run by Robert W. Pittman, who created MTV and later overhauled Nickelodeon. Jonathan Miller, the former chief executive of AOL has also invested and will join its board.
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Turkey cuts YouTube
Turkey’s largest ISP shut down access to the YouTube this week after a court ruled that some of its content insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. It came after a flood of complaints to the site and to the media from Turkish users angered by what one newspaper said were "fanatic Greeks broadcasting videos" insulting Ataturk.Turk Telekom acted first by removing the offending items, but a court ordered access to the site to be blocked late on Tuesday after prosecutors brought a case against YouTube. A message on the site said access had been suspended following a decision by an Istanbul court.
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Greenlight for Sogecable control of football rights
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain's antitrust Court has paved the way for Sogecable to control the Spanish football TV rights by allowing the pay-TV group, owner of Digital Plus and Canal Plus, to take full control of Audiovisual Sport, the company that manages football TV rights in Spain.
The Court has made its approval conditional on Audiovisual Sport guaranteeing "access to third parties without any exclusivity and using transparent, objective and discriminatory terms". This condition was already imposed on the authorisation of the merger between Via Digital and Digital Plus in 2002 to create Digital Plus. Last October, Sogecable agreed to reduce its stake in Audiovisual Sport to 75 per cent from 80, with Mediapro holding the remaining 25 per centThe antitrust court's decision is non-binding. The cabinet now has one month to make a final ruling on the matter.
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Five's audience share fell to 5.9 per cent in 2006, down 0.7 percentage points, proportionately the worst performance of the five main UK terrestrial channels. A tough advertising market and E22m of start-up costs for Five Life and Five US put pressure on Five's earnings, which were down from E36m in 2005 to E21m last year on an underlying basis.
Along with other UK commercial broadcasters it has also suspended all premium rate call activities until a full review has been carried out.
Meanwhile 5’s parent RTL Group, Europe's biggest broadcaster, has revealed profit last year rose 66 per cent as popular programming and a rebounding economy lifted advertising sales. Net income climbed to E890 million from E537 million a year earlier. Sales rose 10 per cent to E5.64 billion.
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Movie Gallery acquires MovieBeam
Digital entertainment provider Movie Gallery has acquired MovieBeam, an on-demand movie service. The acquisition of the service provides Movie Gallery with a technology platform to enable digital content delivery and drive future revenue growth.
The MovieBeam content delivery network, which is available in 31 major metropolitan areas across the US, uses over-the-air datacasting technology to provide instant access to a digital line-up of new releases and popular movies. In addition to MovieBeam's proprietary set-top box based content delivery network, Movie Gallery intends to use MovieBeam's existing infrastructure to underpin the development of alternative digital delivery capabilities.
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TiVo reported fourth quarter numbers and showed it could still attract customers to its service but the DVR pioneer kept losing DIRECTV users during the three-month period. TiVo-owned subscription gross additions totalled 163,000 during the quarter, increasing overall subscriptions to 1.7 million.
As expected, TiVo unveiled a net decline of DIRECTV subscriptions, falling to 2.7 million during the three-month period, as the satellite TV company deployed fewer TiVo boxes and as there was continued churn of existing DIRECTV TiVo subscriptions.
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Canadian media company CHUM Television will partner with Joost, to provide CHUM programming to audiences around the world. This deal will see programming delivered from Canada’s music and culture station for youth, MuchMusic, as well as content from SPACE, FashionTelevision, and CityLine – all through Joost’s video platform that delivers video content using streaming technology.
3UK, the mobile media company, is set to launch a range of free-to-access content for customers on its Planet 3 portal. Working in partnership with Rhythm New Media, the new service will be supported by personalised advertising from major brands, meaning content that was previously paid for can now be viewed for free by customers.
With the launch of ad-funded content 3 has increased the range of video content available to customers for free. Video content made available on the portal for free will continue to sit alongside existing premium entertainment and information services, such as full-length music tracks and mobile games.
Thursday 8th March
Google defends YouTube
ITV wary of Sky holding
Babelgum delivers new revenue opportunity to programmers
US firms back UUSee in China
Tandberg recommends Ericsson
Coalition for 4G in America Sets Agenda
T-Online "best in French IPTV"
Mobile DVR setting
NDS for HOT Telecom
Verimatrix secures ON Telecoms deal
PacketFront and GothNet deliver FTTH
Google defends YouTubeGoogle Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt has defended YouTube against Microsoft’s ‘pirate’ attack (see 07.03.07) and also against investor doubts about the value achieved for the $1.7bn acquisition, although admitting; "it will take time for YouTube to become a major source of sales and profits for the company."
Schmidt said they are working with big media companies to resolve copyright issues regarding content owned by the media firms that's posted on YouTube without consent. But, significantly, he also allowed that there was a "genuine disagreement" between it and media companies about the value of copyrighted video material. "The value is determined by whether people view it, and in our world value is measurable. People say: my product is worth x, and Google says: prove it. In that context there is a genuine disagreement."
He said that the main reason Google agreed to buy YouTube last year for nearly $1.7 billion was because of the massive amount of traffic the site generates. But he inferred that working through a successful business model was not complete, saying the acquisition "was going very well" but he warned investors not to expect any meaningful financial impact from YouTube for the foreseeable future. "An old joke in the Internet is that URL stands for Ubiquity first, Revenue Later."
Speaking at the same Bear Stearns conference Viacom president and CEO Philippe Dauman stressed that it was important for it to have control over their content since advertisers are wary of user-generated content on sites like YouTube. "People aren't going to spend money for user-generated content like a cat going to the bathroom." Talking about recently announced content sharing agreement with YouTube rival Joost, he said getting compensation for content was key - promotional value is not enough.
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New ITV chief Michael Grade said the company needed to "be more innovative and take more risks" in programming as he revealed a 7.4 per cent drop in annual pre-tax profits to £288m (E417m) on a 0.7 per cent decrease in sales to £2.18bn for the year ended 31 December.
ITV’s share of advertising revenue has fallen along with other broadcasters in the UK as clients shift their spending to the internet. Advertising revenue at the company’s flagship channel ITV1, which accounts for 90 per cent of the company’s total ad revenue, fell 12.5 per cent in 2006. He also revealed that the company’s total advertising revenues were likely to fall by 4.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2007, compared to the 0.5 per cent rise predicted for the UK TV market as a whole. And results will not be helped by the suspension of premium rate phone services (see 07.03.07), but Grade said he anticipated there return soon.
Grade also signalled that ITV may have concerns about the stake taken in the broadcaster last year by BSkyB. He stated: ITV’s submissions to Ofcom, the Office of Fair Trading and the Department for Trade and Industry, which are reviewing the investment, have "noted the concern that BSkyB may be able...to block a shareholder resolution requiring a 75% majority."
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Babelgum delivers new revenue opportunity to programmers
Babel Networks is opening up the Babelgum on demand Internet TV channel to professional programmers for content submission prior to the platform’s consumer launch. Babelgum says its platform offers programmers a significant new and complimentary business opportunity to generate profit and profile from existing video assets.
Babelgum claims its P2P technology enables high resolution television to be broadcast worldwide and to anyone with a PC and broadband Internet connection. For producers and content providers, this represents the potential to access to a global and growing audience of over 300 million.Babelgum chief executive Erik Lumer said that by adopting a global platform that was open, it was creating a publishing opportunity that was complementary to traditional media, placed between professional broadcast and amateur User Generated Content. "It has all the elements to grow into a new global medium," he claimed.
Chairman and co-founder Silvio Scaglia admitted that the Babelgum concept was "a leap of faith," but he was convinced it was here to stay. He said that it was not important to differentiate the platform from Joost – also in Beta trials – suggesting instead that they would define the space in which they operated. "We’re different from IPTV and video over the Internet," he added.
Babelgum has announced content plans for news, lifestyle, fashion, sports and animation. It says rights will be protected through sophisticated copyright protection. Content is delivered on a ‘visual access’ basis only - streamed in encrypted form and not available for download. Similarly, Babelgum’s peer-to-peer and streaming architecture prevents the content from being shared with other users.
Reports suggest that Scaglia, a founder of Fast Web, is prepared to sink E350m of his personal fortune into the project. He envisages running costs for Babelgum of between E20m and E50m in the next year. Content providers will be guaranteed $5 per 1,000 views to start with.
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A group of United States venture capital firms, including Disney's investment arm, are investing $23.5 million in UUSee, a major Chinese site for Web video. UUSee distributes live and on-demand TV from CCTV; CSAT, China's largest satellite TV company; and Beijing TV. The content includes subtitled United States shows like CSI: Miami and 24.
The investment round was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Highland Capital Partners and was joined by Steamboat Ventures, the venture-capital vehicle of The Walt Disney. Other investors are Sequoia Capital and Susquehanna International Group. The site has 36 million registered users, making it China's largest Web TV operator, according to Dan Nova of Highland.
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Tandberg recommends EricssonThe Directors of Tandberg Television are recommending the offer from Ericsson which outbids the previously recommended proposal from Arris.
Ericsson’s offer is NOK 106 (E13) in cash per share, a premium of approximately 10 per cent over the Arris offer which was partly in Arris shares. Ericsson’s price also reflects a 63 per cent premium over the average price for Tandberg shares during the 90 trading days preceding 15 January 2007 (the announcement date of ARRIS’ offer).
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Coalition for 4G in America Sets AgendaA group of seven major communications companies have come together to form the Coalition for 4G in America - an initiative focused on urging the FCC to take action on the 700 MHz auction proceeding.
In a joint release EchoStar, DIRECTV, Intel, Yahoo! Google, Skype and Access Spectrum unwrapped their collective efforts to influence the regulatory agency with five principles aimed at affecting the proceeding. First, the Congressionally-mandated DTV transition must remain on track and any modifications to the FCC's rules must not violate the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005, which establishes Feb. 17, 2009, as the hard date for the DTV transition and Jan. 28, 2008, as the deadline for the auction of the 60 MHz of commercial spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
Second, the Broadband Optimization Plan (BOP) should be adopted promptly. "Adoption of BOP also would enable more flexible choice of broadband technologies in the spectrum allocated to public safety."
Third, the 15 MHz paired commercial allocation in the upper 700 band should be re-configured into a 16.5 MHz paired allocation. "The use of 5.5 MHz 'building blocks' gives an immediate 10 percent increase in bandwidth (which) allows more capable next generation broadband network performance," the group said.
Fourth, package bidding should be used in the upper and lower 700 MHz band. "The use of package bidding and the proposed licensing scheme facilitates more efficient geographic and bandwidth aggregation"
And lastly, two sided auctions should be used to enable the aggregation of the upper 700 MHz commercial blocks in a single, more efficient auction.
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T-Online "best in French IPTV"Since launching Club Internet3, T-Online says the service has risen to the top of the ranks for IPTV and triple play services, as measured by independent benchmarking organisations including ip-label and Witbe.
In the latest report from ip-label, Club Internet is now ranked number one in France for its IPTV service in the latest three month average composite index, above five other service providers including Orange, Tele2, Neuf, Alice, and Free. Results from the Witbe benchmark report concluded that Club Internet's IPTV service is ranked best in class for each category in which it was measured: TV service availability, channel zapping time, quality of TV image, and image stability.
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The top two U.S. wireless providers are starting to let customers use their mobiles to remotely record television shows, hoping the new service will help them better compete against rivals. AT&T subscribers can now use their cell phones to record TV shows on home TVs via Homezone, a video-on-demand service that AT&T offers with satellite TV provider EchoStar.
And now No. 2 mobile provider Verizon Wireless also plans to let its customers use their phones to program TiVo digital video recorders remotely. Sprint Nextel the No. 3 wireless service, is also planning a similar offer later in the year through its venture with cable providers such as Comcast.
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NDS has been selected by HOT Telecom, the Israeli cable operator, as sole supplier of conditional access technology for its pay TV subscription-based service in Israel. As a part of this process, NDS VideoGuard conditional access software will be downloaded to existing STBs and existing smart cards will be replaced by NDS smart cards, and all new STBs will be exclusively equipped with NDS VideoGuard technology.
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Verimatrix secures ON Telecoms deal
From Colin Mann in LondonContent security and revenue enhancement technologist Verimatrix has been selected by Greek telco ON to secure the first IPTV service in Greece. Verimatrix's solution enables ON Telecoms to deliver Catch-up TV, nPVR, VoD and other On Demand services utilising Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) to provide digital video content security throughout its digital video network.
ON Telecoms operates a metropolitan fibre network in the Athens area, delivering advanced triple play services. Within the triple play offering, ON Telecoms' aim is to introduce next generation TV and video services, offering its customers a wide array of entertainment packages.
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PacketFront and GothNet deliver FTTH
FTTH technology provider PacketFront has secured Sweden's biggest active city network to date in Gothenburg. GothNet has deployed the full PacketFront solution to provide businesses and residential areas with advanced broadband services.
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Wednesday 7th March
DTG warns on two tier HD
"Google cavalier on copyright" – Microsoft
ITV suspends ‘participation’
PCCW video VoIP
On Demand Deutschland to serve German TV markets
FCC acts to speed local competition
Fox Sports to stream live football over the Internet
Envivio converges for IPTV and Mobile TV
Red Bee Media, CacheLogic enable quick video downloads
Qualcomm, CNS and TTV MediaFLO Trial
Try mobile TV for free
EuroNews on Scandinavian mobiles
The UK Digital Television Group has warned the government against allowing Ofcom to auction off DTT spectrum that could be used for public broadcaster HD on Freeview.
Broadcasting Minister Patricia Hodge spoke at the groups annual summit and members took the opportunity to make it clear they fear auctioning-off will create a two tier system with many ordinary viewers unable to subscribe to pay services, including HD. They want spectrum set-aside for free HD.
Senior representatives from Sony, Dixons and the BBC all heavily criticised the current sell-off proposals. Tim Davie, the BBC's Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences said: "We've never allowed a two-tier system to develop before and we must not let it happen now." He added that there would be "recriminations" if the British public who are helping to pay for the 2012 Olympics are not able to watch the games in HD on Freeview, when people in other countries will be able to do so.
Peter Bury, Director of Strategic Resources at Ofcom, invited the industry to
participate in the consultation but declined to comment specifically on the call
for spectrum to be set aside.
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"Google cavalier on copyright" – MicrosoftIn a speech to the Association of American Publishers, release to the press befrehand, Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, attacks Google for a cavalier approach to copyright and says it profits from exploiting all kinds of other peoples content without permission. Rubin states, "companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the back of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising and initial public offerings".
Recently Google subsidiary YouTube has run into rights problems with media majors and the The Authors Guild and a group of publishers backed by the Association of American Publishers have separately sued Google for making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries without permission.
Rubin asserts Google’s decision to take digital copies of all books in various library collections, unless publishers tell it not to, "systematically violates copyright, deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetising their works and, in doing so, undermines incentives to create".
David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google works with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and has recently added the BBC and NBA basketball league as YouTube video partners. "We do this by complying with international copyright laws, and the result has been more exposure and in many cases more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content."
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UK’s ITV has suspended all premium-rate phone-ins, interactive competitions and votes while independent auditors conduct a review of its programmes. Its quiz channel ITV Play went off air with a message telling viewers "we hope to be back very soon".
The premium rate competitions are a substantial source of revenue for commercial TV channels. According to ITV's latest interim report, it expected ITV Play to make £20m (E29m) profit.
ITV said its interactive services would return on a programme-by-programme basis, with each production facing scrutiny in the investigation. It said the Dancing on Ice show (its most popular programme) will only be shown at the weekend if phone-in procedures have been shown to be sound.
A statement from Eckoh, the company which provides ITV's phone-in services, said it took its obligations "very seriously" and supported the review.
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PCCW, Hong Kong largest fixed-line operator, will launch its first broadband phone service next quarter, featuring a telephone with a video panel. The yet-to-be named service will be an upgrade of existing PCCW's fixed-line operations and will be the first time the company has used its broadband network with residential fixed-line voice services, says SCMP.
The broadband phone unveiled last week was equipped with a colour TFT-LCD panel and a camera for video conferencing, allowing users to browse photos and videos. The phone comes with a memory card slot and two USB hubs.
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On Demand Deutschland to serve German TV markets
From Colin Mann in LondonSeaChange International subsidiary On Demand Group is joining forces with Munich-based media company Tele München Gruppe (TMG) to launch On Demand Deutschland, a jointly-owned venture aimed at establishing on-demand and pay-per-view services on multiple platforms. On Demand Deutschland will cater to German-speaking Europe.
Tony Kelly, CEO, On Demand Group, said the pair had the perfect combination of content and services to jump-start the market.
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FCC acts to speed local competitionThe Federal Communications Commission has released its written order to promote speeding the entry of new competitors into the cable television market. The Commission has mandated the streamlining of the local franchising process through which companies gain local approvals to offer subscription video services.
Marilyn O'Connell, chief marketing officer of Verizon Telecom commented: "This decision removes obstacles to the continued aggressive rollout of our all-fiber-optic network and our FiOS TV service."
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Fox Sports to stream live football over the InternetVideo streaming technology company Vividas has agreed a deal with Fox Sports to stream 10 live football games from the 2007 Copa Libertadores (the South American equivalent of the Champions League). The first few games will be streamed for free to help promote the service. Once a certain level of interest has been generated, then Fox will make the games available on a pay-per-view basis. Each paid-for game will be purchased for an estimated $5.99. Vividas will be providing the complete outsourced delivery platform and payment gateway. Fox Sports will be promoting the games on its website.
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Envivio converges for IPTV and Mobile TV
From Colin Mann in LondonIP video convergence solutions provider Envivio has introduced its Convergence Generation headend, supporting an all IP infrastructure for IPTV and mobile TV service providers. The company has also debuted at the IPTV World Forum its fourth generation, multichannel IP video encoder, the 4Caster C4, designed to bring together Envivio’s MPEG-4 video compression expertise to offer a multi-channel, multi-service encoder capable of addressing Mobile TV, Desktop TV and IPTV at extremely low bandwidths.
Julien Signes, President and CEO of Envivio, suggested the Convergence Generation headend, with its all-IP infrastructure, represented the future for service providers who must compete in a fixed to mobile environment. "Its architecture and infrastructure support today's and tomorrow's IP video digital business models," he claimed.
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Red Bee Media, CacheLogic enable quick video downloads
From Colin Mann in LondonMultimedia content distribution specialist Red Bee Media and content delivery network service provider CacheLogic are teaming up to enable the efficient and corruption-free downloading of video content through Red Bee Media’s white-label search and navigation tool, Sherpa.
Red Bee Media is adding CacheLogic’s peer-assisted content delivery network (CDN) to its growing number of supported CDNs on its Sherpa platform. Sherpa offers a single point of entry for a consumer to find and play video content on their TV, mobile phone, computer or IPTV service.
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Qualcomm, CNS and TTV MediaFLO TrialQualcomm and China Network Systems (CNS), together with Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV), have signed an agreement to conduct a technical trial of Qulacomm's MediaFLO technology in Taipei, Taiwan.
Expected to begin this month, the technical trial will feature four live channels of CNS content and up to three live channels of TTV content. The trial is intended to allow CNS and TTV to closely evaluate the performance capabilities of MediaFLO technology as they explore opportunities to deliver multimedia services to mobile devices in Taiwan.
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Try mobile TV for freeTelefónica’s O2 Czech Republic is offering all seven of the country’s TV channels (ÈT1, ÈT2, ÈT24, TV Prima, music TV Óèko, Eurosport and Meteo TV ) on Mobile TV for free until March 11th. At the moment, the service is available in both UMTS and GTS networks for all mobile O2 customers.
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EuroNews on Scandinavian mobilesEuroNews is now available on mobile phones in Scandinavia. The Swedish mobile operator ‘3’ launched EuroNews Live in Sweden and Denmark. This latest agreement sees EuroNews available on 32 mobile networks in 20 European countries. The channel, available 24 hours a day, is broadcast in English.
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Tuesday 6th March
Virgin to sue Sky
Sky: Virgin are not victims
Izimi: network from home PC
BBC World profit race
BBC, IBM partner for search
Bellamy back to Channel 4
Lower profit at Ideal
Ericcson: Interactive ads could make mobile TV pay
Nortel and NDS create new IPTV Capabilities
Espial’s IPTV middleware surpasses 1m units
Sonaecom selects Widevine for Portugal IPTV
Latens approved for Basebox
Virgin to sue SkyIn the latest escalation to the Virgin versus Sky carriage dispute, Virgin says it will sue Sky in the High Court if its dispute isn’t settled within the next thirty days. At the same time it repeated its offer to go binding arbitration to settle the dispute over fees for Sky’s basic channels.
Virgin, which has 3.3 million cable TV customers, claims Sky, with 8.4 million subscribers, is guilty of "abuse of dominance" for pulling its basic channels such as Sky One its cable network. "Following Sky's withdrawal of its basic channels from Virgin Media's TV service, Virgin Media has formally advised Sky that it will pursue action in the high court if their carriage disputes are not resolved within 30 days," Virgin Media said. "This comes on the heels of Sky's rejection of an offer by Virgin Media to have the matter resolved through legally binding arbitration by an independent expert."
Virgin said it would seek damages, adding that it wanted to pay a "reasonable commercial rate" for Sky's channels. It is also seeking to renegotiate the deal to have its own channels from its content unit flextech, distributed on Sky's digital satellite service. Sky recently made flextech cut its carriage fees in order to continue to be included in Sky’s retail package.
"We are not interested in prolonging this dispute any longer than necessary but we will not allow Virgin Media or our customers to be the victim of Sky's market power," said Steve Burch, the Virgin chief executive. "In the interest of the consumer, we want these issues resolved quickly."
Virgin claims that, under Sky's current proposal, it would be paying 17 times more per subscriber for Sky's channels than the satellite company would pay for the Virgin (flextech) channels. "This gaping disparity in channel valuation is the hallmark of Sky's systematic abuse of dominance and their longer-term objective of suppressing existing and emerging competition from other companies." Virgin said.
Cable viewers lost access to the Sky channels last week when the companies failed to agree a price for showing the TV services on Virgin.
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Sky: Virgin are not victimsJames Murdoch, chief executive of BSkyB has called Virgin Media a company seeking "victimhood" in order to achieve its ends. Murdoch also claims he was astonished by the Government's recent decision to launch a public interest probe into his acquisition of a stake in ITV. Murdoch told the Telegraph: "I think their PR offensive was always part of the plan. They want to try and turn Virgin Media from what is a pretty big business into a victim to try and get public support."
And referring to the inquiry into the ITV stake he said "The sum total of squandered human enterprise from this sort of nonsense is astonishing. We were astonished at the Secretary of State's statement because the law is very clear. We will be engaging fully, as we have so far, and I'm confident after review that all of that public interest business will be fine because the law [The Communications Act] is very clear. It is called the 'Murdoch clause'." He said, referring to the stipulation of a 20 per cent limit on other media company’s ownership of national broadcasters.
Murdoch also took the opportunity to air concerns about the new BBC Trust: "The question around the BBC is what is the limit to the scope of the BBC's activity? That relates to us, the radio industry, the newspaper industry and anyone in the business of information and ideas. There will be tests for them [the Trust] in terms of how serious they want to take market impact assessments or whether it becomes a routine fait accompli that the public value always exceeds the market impact."
Meanwhile Sky and Virgin have accused each other of never wanting to conclude a deal over carriage. On the accusation they had an ad campaign ready to roll as soon as negotiations broke down, Murdoch said "We made sure that we had two versions ready. When Virgin say we did not want to do a deal it's just a lie: why would I have spent that money [on two sets of posters]? I had 'See Speak Surf' posters ready to go on every truck that went out with a 'Don't Lose Lost' poster because if I had a deal I did not want the 'Don't Lose Lost' ones out there."
Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson has conceded the company faces a ‘rocky week’, "Sky cleverly launched 24 the week before we got to this stage and it gave people their drug, their first shot, and then withdrew the drug for the second week. But apart from that, Sky One has a tiny market share."
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Izimi is an internet service that allows users to bypass social networking sites and host their own videos, pictures and other files. It allows them to serve material from their own computers instead of uploading it to a website, such as MySpace or Flickr. Izimi was developed in the UK, and has raised $3m in funding to date.
The service is based on a small downloaded application that allows users to create a url, or web link, for any file on their computer. They can send this web address to someone else in an e-mail and it will also be posted to the izimi.com website. No files are uploaded on to servers and they are not split up among other users to speed their delivery.
Izimi claims its service is the future of internet publishing but it has no business model at present for turning a profit.
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BBC World profit raceThe commercial arm of the BBC is planning a substantial push in an attempt to double profits to £200m (E290m) over the next five years. John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide, said 2007 was an "inflection point" for the division, adding that there were rising expectations within the BBC for the commercial arm to bridge the funding gap between what the corporation had been seeking and the actual settlement.
Smith wants to increase revenues from English-speaking countries and digital businesses, including through advertising on its planned international website. The BBC Trust has deferred its decision on whether it should be allowed to; indendent dotcom publishers say it would destort the market.
Smith said the public, politicians and commercial rivals had to accept that either the BBC exploited its assets successfully or it engaged in no commercial activity at all. He wants to increase the revenue contribution made by Worldwide’s digital operations to 10 per cent of total turnover by 2012. International sales currently account for about half of its overall revenue, but he wants to see this increased to two-thirds of the total.
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BBC, IBM partner for searchThe BBC has made a partnership with IBM to develop "web 3.0" technology, starting with a video search system for CBeebies and CBBC programmes. Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of future media and techology, said harnessing new video search technology could be the "difference between success and failure" for the corporation's online operation.
"All current video search technology only works using meta tags or key words added to the videos, not the content itself," he said. The idea is that the system being developed with IBM, called Marvel, will deliver a mass of relevant images and videos when content is searched, rather than relying meta tagging.
He also identified the potential of IBM's technology to hugely simplify the mammoth task of digitising the 1.4m-plus hours of TV and audio content in the BBC archive. "It is hugely important for us when we start to uncover our archive as we have none or just simple tags on much of the content."
Another area of early collaboration will be using an IBM product called Media Hub. This ties into the Digital Media Initiative a behind-the-scenes project that aims to break down the BBC's content fiefdoms and create a single "digital repository" of information on a particular subject for use on multiple platforms.
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Bellamy back to Channel 4BBC3 controller, Julian Bellamy, is returning to Channel 4 to run its flagship network after less than a year at the corporation. Bellamy will be head of programming for Channel 4, with overall responsibility for commissioning for the network.
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Lower profit at IdealTV shopping channel owner Ideal Shopping Direct reports a £1.1m fall in full-year pre-tax profits to £6.1m on an 8.1 per cent rise in turnover to £85.6m, blaming non-recurring costs including closure of Jewellery Vault channel. Online sales grow to account for 21 per cent of total (2005: 16 per cent), with Freeview contract renegotiated and secured to 2018.
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Ericcson: Interactive ads could make mobile TV paySweden’s Ericcson hopes to turn mobile TV into a more viable proposition with a new technology that would let viewers buy from advertisers at the push of a button. Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), combines some of the benefits of broadcast TV and point-to-point video-downloads. TV signals can be transmitted to multiple handsets from a mobile phone tower without increasing the amount of network bandwidth required each time a viewer tunes in. Programming would be transmitted in much the same way as an e-mail with several carbon copy recipients, but communicating one-on-one is also possible.
Unlike traditional broadcast TV, each connection would have a return path, allowing for interactive applications. Mobile phone owners could buy a product they saw advertised or take part in viewer polls simply by pushing a button, rather than having to send a text. Advertisements could also be aimed at individuals, based on information their carrier was able to provide.
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Nortel and NDS create new IPTV Capabilities
Nortel and NDS are collaborating on a new set of IPTV services for the European market. Nortel has signed a global reseller and joint marketing agreement with NDS, and the companies are working together to facilitate the integration of Nortel’s voice and multimedia features into the TV environment.
Plans include integrating Nortel’s voice and multimedia products into NDS’ MediaHighway middleware to produce a new set of communications services for television.. Other planned features include caller ID, call handling, address book, click-to-dial, call-logs, IM messaging and other IP-based communication services.
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Espial’s IPTV middleware surpasses 1m unitsEspial IPTV, a provider of IPTV middleware and applications, has achieved a company milestone by surpassing one million subscriber unit shipments for its Evo family of IPTV products. This milestone was achieved during a break-out year for Espial in 2006, which saw the company ship over 750,000 Evo subscriber licences to operator customers and partners around the globe.
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Sonaecom selects Widevine for Portugal IPTVWidevine Technologies is securing premium Hollywood programming for the first IPTV service in Portugal--Clix SmartTV, offered by Sonaecom, the country's second largest telecommunications provider.
Sonaecom's national network reaches 1.6 million homes in Portugal and delivers multimedia content secured by Widevine to set top boxes, PCs and mobile devices.
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Latens Systems announces its FCAS and IPCAS are the first CA solutions approved for the protection of TV content for Sweden’s Basebox environment, an Open TV initiative. The Basebox project, founded in Sweden, is an initiative to develop an Open Access Environment for digital information and entertainment.
The guiding principle of Open TV is to switch to a horizontal business model and produce a digital environment which provides universal access to all digital information services – for the consumer this means that they aren’t faced with the choice of content from one supplier or multiple set-top boxes and subscriptions. For content owners, the Basebox environment means that all users of the environment are potential customers.
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Monday 5th March
Virgin may haemorrhage subs - and will let them go
BBC YouTube partnership
Bakker out at MTV
Consumer Council attacks Sky and Virgin
Football clubs concerned by piracy threat
Fox, Disney blanked in China
Viacom reaps reward of YouTube decision
Premium video services to hit $277bn by 2010
China digital cable TV subscribers rise
US Fiber Subscribers to reach 18m by 2011
Fox streams on station’s sites
EchoStar Q4 profits
Digital Rapids and TNMG to stream world cup cricket
Virgin may haemorrhage subs - and will let them go
A survey on Virgin’s own website signals it may face a torrent of cancellations. On Friday afternoon it revealed 46 per cent of respondents said they would definitely leave as a result of the loss of Sky channels. Another 17 per cent said Virgin should do and spend whatever it takes to get the Sky channels back.
32 per cent said they were not going to be ‘bullied’ by Sky and just 5 per cent said they were happy with Virgin and ‘didn’t know what all the fuss was about.’
As reported on Thursday, the National Consumer Council said Virgin customers would be entitled to cancel their contracts without penalty – subscribers normally forfeit the any balance of their current years subscription. Virgin denies this saying it is not on breach in light of the extra channels it has provided and the declining viewing of the Sky Channels. However, it said it would allow customers to cancel without penalty through to the end of March.
Meantime, Sir Richard Branson personally ordered Virgin to remove the ‘spoof’ names for the missing Sky Channels (see Thursday 02.03.07) on its EPG.
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The BBC has revealed a deal with YouTube to make programming available via a number of branded channels, including supplying an ad-funded BBC News clips service.
The multi-year deal will see two separate BBC-branded entertainment channels created to showcase clips and exclusive content from the BBC and BBC Worldwide, as well as a dedicated channel for BBC News clips. Both the BBC News and BBC Worldwide branded pages will run with limited advertising.
The advertising-funded clips will not be available to view by UK users. David Moody, the director of strategy for BBC Worldwide, said that the new ad-funded BBC News deal with YouTube did not undermine the process of the BBC Trust - which has deferred its decision on whether or not to allow advertising on its international website BBC.com until later this spring.
"This deal is absolutely no different to what BBC World has offered for years, we have deals to offer clips on websites such as Yahoo!," said Moody.
Ashley Highfield, the director of future media and technology at the BBC, added: "BBC.com is a BBC-branded portal and that is where the fundamental difference arises, BBC Worldwide has been syndicating its content for a long time." The BBC-branded YouTube channel will offer clips of new shows and specially commissioned promotional material for shows including Doctor Who and Life on Mars. Users will be able to comment on clips, rate them, recommend them to friends and even post their own video responses.
The idea is that, subject to the conclusion of the public value test, the content on the branded BBC pages will drive users through to the commercial and non-commercial versions of the iPlayer. "Our digital strategy is to make our content as widely distributed as possible and there is an audience of millions on YouTube," said Moody.
At launch, the BBC-branded pages will only run with standard banners, however Patrick Walker, the head of video partnerships for Google EMEA, said that other forms of advertising would be introduced over time.
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Michiel Bakker, chief of MTV Networks UK and Ireland, is leaving the company after 20 years. The news follows Viacom’s announcement that 250 jobs are to be axed from its MTV Networks International business, which operates channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1 in the UK.
Bakker, a member of the launch management team for MTV in Europe, was responsible for MTV, Paramount Comedy and Nickelodeon UK and also set up the UK's ad sales arm Viacom Brand Solutions. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Heather Jones, senior vice-president and managing director of music and comedy, and Richard Tan, senior vice-president of finance and operations.
Bakker said: "The company has a great and challenging future ahead of it but I have decided it is time to turn the music off and see where life takes me."
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Consumer Council attacks Sky and Virgin
The National Consumer Council is considering a so-called ‘super complaint’ demanding a review of the digital television market after Virgin Media stopped broadcasting some BSkyB channels.
Philip Cullem, deputy chief executive of the consumer council told the BBC "At the end of the month we'll make a decision about putting in the super-complaint that that will help to knock heads together. It's time to get them back round a table. Let's have a common-sense solution and one that puts the customers first, rather than all this posturing between two rather big media companies." The Council is an organisation which under the Enterprise Act can file a ‘super complaint’ on behalf of consumers it believes are being mistreated.
Virgin said: "We would welcome a thorough investigation of the causes of this and possible solution by the relevant regulatory authorities and would co-operate fully with any such enquiry."
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Football clubs concerned by piracy threat
From Colin Mann in LondonA number of Europe’s leading football clubs are worried that their efforts to expand their Internet presence will be compromised by online and offline piracy.
Although rights issues preclude the live coverage of most domestic and European games, clubs are increasingly looking to offer exclusive content to subscribers. Mark Rowan, Head of Communications at English Premiership side Everton FC told delegates at Servecast’s New Media Sportscasting Summit that Everton TV’s 320 per cent growth since its relaunch was under threat from unauthorised redistribution of such content. His concerns were echoed by representatives of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Barcelona.
Casimir Knight, MD, Digital Media at English Premiership champions Chelsea FC, suggested that combating such threats should be at a national league level.
Chelsea recently became the first leading football club to strike a deal to show archive footage and club news on YouTube. Content from the club's subscription channel Chelsea TV appears in a branded area of the video-sharing website.
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Fox, Disney blanked in ChinaA joint venture between News Corp and Disney has had two of its sports channels cut from China’s list of foreign broadcasters that may be distributed to hotels and upscale housing complexes. The removal of the channels, run by Singapore- based ESPN Star Sports, is the latest setback for the two companies, which, like other international media groups, have struggled to establish a presence in the fast-growing Chinese TV market.
Star Sports and ESPN were not included in the 31 channels approved by Sarft – the state administration of radio, film and TV – for broadcast to hotels and compounds in 2007. It is reported the move followed ESPN Star Sports’ failure to attend a licensing meeting with Chinese regulators last year concerning extension of its landing rights.
News Corp and ESPN both have 50 per cent stakes in ESS. ESPN is 80 per cent owned by Disney’s ABC Inc.
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Viacom reaps reward of YouTube decisionViacom has reported that traffic to its MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon websites rose sharply over the past month, validating its decision to force YouTube, the video sharing site bought by Google, to remove all Viacom video clips.
The media group said it had been "heartened by the broad industry support" for its move against YouTube to force it to remove more than 100,000 video clips from the site. The action followed a breakdown in negotiations between Viacom and YouTube to license video content.
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Premium video services to hit $277bn by 2010
Revenue generated by the premium video services market, an area comprising pay-TV, mobile video, DVD, broadband video and theater/box office receipts, is expected to rise to $277 billion (E210bn) by 2010, up from under $200 billion in 2006, technology research outfit iSuppli predicts.
Much of that growth will be driven by increasing revenue for pay-TV services, particularly for the fast-expanding Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) area. IPTV is the fastest-expanding segment of the pay-TV market, with revenue expected to increase to $23.5 billion in 2010, rising at Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 103 per cent from $681 million in 2005.
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China digital cable TV subscribers rise
Digital cable television subscribers in the China have almost doubled in number in the past eight months, driven by growth in major southern cities. The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (Sarft), the media industry regulator, said digital cable television had reached 12 million to date, up from 6.5 million in the first half of last year.
The Chinese Government is pushing digital service in Beijing, the host of the 2008 Olympics, and Shanghai this year. Beijing targets one million new digital service customers out of three million cable users by year-end. It had only 17,859 digital cable television users for the first half.
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US Fiber Subscribers to reach 18m by 2011
The number of U.S. households subscribing to FTTx (fibre connections) will increase from three million in 2007 to 18 million by the end of 2011, according to "FTTx and BPL: Analysis and Outlook" a report from Parks Associates.
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Fox streams on station’s sitesFox will start streaming and selling its shows on the websites of its more than 200 affiliates under a new deal, the first time local stations will offer network programming both for free and for sale on their sites.
Fox has planned to make a deal with its affiliates since it began streaming shows on its owned sites in August. Under the new deal, affiliates will also start streaming the shows and be able to sell local ads against them, in addition to selling the shows for download.
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EchoStar Q4 profitsUS No. 2 satellite television provider EchoStar Communications has reported a higher fourth-quarter profit and said Dish Network added about 350,000 net new subscribers during the quarter. EchoStar said net income rose to $153 million (E116m) from $133 million a year ago. Revenue rose to $2.58 billion from $2.20 billion the year before
Digital Rapids and TNMG to stream world cup cricket
The New Media Group (TNMG) has been awarded exclusive ICC World Cup Cricket rights for Japan and Korea and non-exclusive rights for other select markets. The Cricket World Cup will be streamed by World On-Demand, the IPTV service from TNMG, using Digital Rapids StreamZT media encoding servers.
