The BBC announced that iPlayer has delivered record end of year figures. December 2008 saw 41million requests to view BBC TV programmes via BBC iPlayer, the biggest month since launch in December 2007. This compared to just over 35 million requests in November 2008. The total number of requests for the year now stands at […]
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, taking over from Bill Gates in his first CES keynote, said one of the biggest areas of opportunity for the consumer-electronics industry — even given the current economic recession — is to converge the capabilities of PCs, phones and TVs. "In the future you will be able to connect to information […]
David Del Valle in Madrid A Spanish Court in the North of the Country has sentenced a hotelier to six months in jail and to pay E20,000 for pirating Sogecable-controlled pay-TV platform Digital Plus. It is the first jail conviction in the country, but, possibly not the last one as there are 15 legal proceedings […]
French broadcaster TF1 is discussing the sale of its 50% stake in news channel France 24 with French authorities who are their partners. TF1 could receive about E2 million, significantly less than it had hoped to recoup. It would 'sell' the stake to government holding company Audiovisuel Exterieur de la France. The parties said that […]
The number of DTH subscribers in Poland has exceeded the number of cable subscribers for the first time. According to figures from Wirtualne Media, there were a total of 4.7 million subscribers to DTH services as the end of December, over 40 per cent more than a year earlier. The number cable homes in the […]
UK cable operator Virgin Media has secured a deal with ITV to show some of the broadcaster’s programming through its on-demand service. ITV will make 40 hours of its programming from channels ITV 1, 2, 3 and 4 available each week. Programmes will be available for seven days after they are broadcast. Some 500 hours […]
A survey of 2,023 people for Deloitte's Media Democracy report suggests TV advertising is twice as effective as online ads. Some 84 percent of consumers said TV ads would influence them to buy a product – against just 45 percent for online. So, despite advertisers getting more guarantees, monitoring and lower CPMs users still apparently […]
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) is putting new DTV-to-analogue converter box coupon applications on a waiting list, having already run up against its statutory maximum of $1.34 billion funding limit. That means anyone down that list won’t get their boxes in time for the Feb. 17 transition date. “On Sunday, Jan 4, NTIA […]
Over 80 copyright holders including video portal Joy.cn, film distributor PolyBona Film, and record label Orange Sky Entertainment have formed an anti-piracy alliance, and are suing China's largest video-sharing site Tudou. In May 2008, Joy.cn filed suit against Tudou for unauthorised use of its video content, which Tudou resolved in November with an out-of-court settlement […]
French viewers have for the first time watched prime-time television without advert breaks, as President Nicolas Sarkozy’s media reforms get under way, but journalists at the national stations are threatening to strike. Advertising is now banned on French public television between 20.00hrs and 0600hrs and will be phased out altogether by 2011. It is part […]