The Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, has confirmed the UK regulator is to abandon plans for a “public service publisher”. He said the idea had “served its purpose” in shifting the debate on the future of public service broadcasting by emphasising the importance of digital media. It is understood that Ofcom no longer envisages recommending […]
The two transmission companies owned by Australian bank Macquarie can merge creating a de-facto monopoly, says the UK Competition Commission “subject to the agreement of a package of measures to protect the interests of their customers”. The Commission admits there will be a “substantial lessening” of competition in the supply of broadcasting services for TV […]
Nielsen will offer a new service that uses cable set-top boxes to shed light on people’s TV-viewing habits. Under the deal with Charter Communications, Nielsen receives information from 320,000 households in Los Angeles and then develops second-by-second data that it can sell to clients like media agencies and advertisers. Nielsen has worked for years with […]
The European Commission has cleared France's E99 million state aid for Quaero, the multimedia search index being built by a consortium of electronics and other companies. Former French president Jacques Chirac agreed to fund Thomson for the project back in 2005. The EC said the project in fact “brings positive externalities for the community as […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid The largest cable operator in Spain, ONO, has surpassed one million subscribers to its pay-TV offer, following the company adding 51,000 clients in the last quarter of 2008. The operator is leading the audience ratings in the pay-TV market with an average share of 7.34 per cent in February, […]
From Nick Snow at the IPTV World Forum in London Computing and networking giant NEC Corporation is to launch a full-scale IPTV business with what it describes as high-profile NGN (Next Generation Networks) carrier applications. It is looking to providing end-to-end IPTV solutions to network operators on a global scale. The says it company will […]
Astra says it has added 1.72 million households in Germany to bring the total number of DTH homes reached to 9.75 million. In total, Germany had 36.98 million analogue and digital TV homes last year. The number of satellite households remains stable at 16.7 million or 45 per cent of all TV households while cable […]
From Colin Mann at the IPTV World Forum in London Digital content monitoring system provider Mixed Signals has signalled a move into Europe by opening of a European sales and support office. The North American company plans to enhance its European business development efforts to strengthen its position in the rapidly expanding European video services […]
GridNetworks, provider of managed Internet television delivery services, has announced that Cisco Systems has made an investment as a strategic investor in GridNetwork's first round funding. With this latest investment, GridNetworks raised a total of $9.5 million financing. GridNetworks streams television and film content with HD clarity and high-fidelity sound to a computer or a […]
From Colin Mann at the IPTV World Forum in London Video over IP sever specialist Anevia is teaming up with middleware vendor Smart Com to promote an IPTV ecosystem compliance that aims to strengthen marketing and sales to European telecom operators and ISP of integrated solutions, featuring Smart Com’s IPTV middleware and Anevia’s live TV […]