Alex Green, Director of TV at BT Vision, has described the telco’s involvement in and support for open IPTV platform YouView as the ‘first step’ in making linear channel content available to BT customers and subscribers to its BT Vision hybrid on-demand/DTT platform. Noting that BT was approaching the question of linear TV from the […]
The number of pay TV homes in the Middle East and North Africa will double between 2011 and 2018 to 16.0 million, according to a report from Digital TV Research. The report forecasts that fewer than 15 per cent of TV households (analogue and digital) legitimately paid for TV signals by end-2012. This proportion will […]
Things were already bad at YouView, the UK’s struggling on-demand TV service, but there was complete meltdown on February 28th when the operation’s Chairman, Lord Alan Sugar (who fronts the UK’s version of The Apprentice reality TV show) and the owner of Channel 5, Richard Desmond reportedly came to near fisticuffs during a regular board […]
Lord Sugar is to step down from his role as non-executive chairman of YouView in the next few weeks. During his two-year tenure, Sugar was credited with being instrumental in the successful launch of the open IPTV service, with YouView now claiming to be the fastest growing TV platform in the UK. He took over […]
Senior managers at UK free-to-air digital satellite platform Freesat have confirmed the service’s support for the HTML5 multimedia Internet standard. The move follows Freesat’s successful launch of YouTube built on HTML 5, offering a TV-optimised, visually stunning and fully interactive viewing experience. James Strickland, Chief Technology Officer, noted that previous standards such as MHEG, which […]
Product Placement could significantly alter the way UK TV programming is produced, financed and consumed over the next few years, according to a KPMG report published ahead of the two year anniversary of an Ofcom ruling which allowed product placement for the first time on UK TV. The report – Taking a subtle approach: How […]
The US television and film industries have revealed plans to roll out a national multimedia campaign to inform parents about the many tools that can help them manage what their children see on television and at the movies. The industries will make a positive contribution to the national conversation on violent behaviour by launching a […]
The BBC will launch BBC Two HD on March 26th. BBC Two HD will be available on Sky HD (169), Freeview HD/YouView (102), Virgin Media (187), Freesat HD (109) and BT Vision (852). The announcement follows the successful launch of BBC One HD on November 3rd 2010. BBC Two HD will replace the existing BBC […]
New figures revealed by Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK, show that TV viewing in the UK is continuing to expand as people watch additional TV on-demand via TV sets, tablets, smartphones and laptops. In total, the average UK viewer watched 4 hours, 4 minutes of TV a day in 2012 […]
Telecom Italia-owned network channel La7 is likely to be bought by Italian investment fund Clessidra Capital Partners. Italian newspaper La Repubblica is reporting that Telecom Italia’s board made the decision at its latest meeting, and declined the bid from media conglomerate Cairo Communications. It is not yet known what price has been achieved for La7, […]