Remote controls that come bundled with smart TVs in Europe will soon feature a dedicated Netflix shortcut button. Smart TVs from Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Toshiba and Vestel going into retail this year will come with a Netflix button providing a direct shortcut to the online streaming service. Bill Holmes, head of business development for Netflix […]
Discovery Communications has confirmed the completion of its acquisition of a controlling interest in Eurosport France to consolidate further Europe’s leading sports entertainment group. Discovery increased its interest in Eurosport France to 51 per cent from 20 per cent as part of a larger strategic partnership with TF1 Group that began in December 2012. In […]
South Africa’s communications minister, Faith Muthambi has said in an official statement that the government has decided to abandon the digital migration project. The move, described by local press as “shocking”, has completely caught the broadcasting industry off guard, and they had been working to a mid-year analogue switch off. “Seeing that none of our […]
BBC iPlayer had its biggest week ever beginning on February 16th, when audiences wanted to catch up on the 30th anniversary episodes of EastEnders, with 75 million requests. Total requests for the month were at 299 million, making it a successful month given that February is three days shorter than January (which saw 343 million […]
India’s giant DTH and cable market is seeing a “sustained” increase in ARPU levels, says accountancy firm KPMG in its latest FICCI-KPMG study on the Indian media market. Last year DTH operators saw ARPU growth of between 12-15 per cent, and this followed on from 2013’s growth rates of about 8-9 per cent. The overall […]
Renowned film-maker Lord Puttnam has called for a European digital single market that retains scope for territorial licensing to boost cultural diversity and consumer choice and warned against an inflexible approach to release windows. Puttnam, President of Film Distributors’ Association (FDA), made his comments during a keynote address at an FDA event for the UK […]
Ofcom has published research into UK viewers’ perceptions of content standards for on-demand and online content. The research covers the full range of content available on-demand and online – from ‘catch up’ TV services such as the BBC iPlayer to user generated videos on YouTube, and subscription services, such as Netflix. On-demand and online content […]
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has suggested that introducing global content will disincentivise would-be subscribers from using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access different versions of the service. Speaking to Gizmodo Australia – in a territory where it has been suggested there are are as many as 200,000 ‘subscribers’, despite there being no operation there prior […]
Freesat has revealed that its Freesat App has now been downloaded over 500,000 times. The app, which is available on iOS, Android and Amazon Kindle devices, first launched in January 2014. For Freesat Freetime viewers, the app allows them to browse the best of free TV, set recordings from their device and even replace the […]
Emerging from ‘stealth’ mode as it refined its technology over a five-year period with a range of industry partners, video compression solutions specialist V-Nova has released a number of products based on its PERSEUS technology, suggesting its performance shifts the entire video bitrate-quality curve, offering UHD quality at HD bitrates, HD at SD bitrates, and […]