The English Premier League is planning an aggressive campaign to protect its intellectual property rights in an attempt to clamp down on rogue websites that stream football matches for nothing and pub landlords who broadcast foreign feeds, amid fears that they could damage its income from broadcasting rights. Having recently recorded a surge in the […]

3 UK is adding video-on-demand to its mobile TV offering, offering pay-to-download shows for between £1.29 (E1.37) and £1.99 for a week's access. Shows come from MTV, Comcast and Turner. It's a partnership with Mobix, whose Adrenalin platform is powering the new "3 On Demand" section of the operator's mobile portal. Three's other TV initiatives […]

Lloyds TSB is providing £10.5 million (E11.5m) in debt funding to European DVD and games rental service Lovefilm, designed to repay existing debt and invest in VOD technology. Amazon is Lovefilm's largest shareholder after putting its European and German DVD rental ops in to the business last year. Lovefilm announced record sign-ups over the Christmas […]

In a possible precursor to partnership, the BBC and Channel 4 have joined forces in negotiations to buy Virgin Media out of the UKTV joint venture, which owns channels including Gold and Dave. The talks could see C4 join BBC Worldwide in the UKTV business by buying out Virgin Media’s stake. This would de facto […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome Zon Multimédia and Telecinco submitted the only bids on the tender for the fifth terrestrial TV channel by the January 22 deadline to Portugal's Regulating Body for Social Communications (ERC). Zon's project calls for a low-cost venture, which will have a smaller budget than the existing private TV channels SIC […]

Leading Italian broadcasters Rai and Mediaset, together with Telecom Italia Media, are to launch a free-to-air satellite platform in June. The venture is expected to employ Eutelsat’s Hot Bird satellite – already widely used by Italian DTH broadcasters. Unveiling the service, Mediaset chairman Fedele Confalonieri said the joint venture would boost competition with Sky Italia.

Dish TV, India’s number one direct-to-home (DTH) company, will invest an estimated Rs 1,600 crore (E25m) in 2009-10 to acquire new customers and improve back-end operations. The company which is close to achieving the 5 million subscriber-mark said it hopes to touch 8 million subscribers by the end of 2010. Salil Kapoor, chief operating officer, […]

Fetch TV, the IPTV platform from IP Vision, has signed content deals with the National Geographic and Baby TV to create branded environments within its EPG listings. The deals, which are the first since Fetch TV launched last November, will see users directed through to fully branded pages that include VoD content when selecting either […]

As widely trailed, UK regulator Ofcom has recommended to government that Channel 4 should be underwritten as a PSB broadcaster via a merger or partnership with either BBC World Wide, the commercial exploitation part of the BBC, or Five. It says Channel 4 should receive £130 million (E140m) a year from the BBC Licence Fee […]

CHANNEL 4 held merger talks with telecoms group BT after it launched its IPTV service, it has emerged. The broadcaster's chairman, Luke Johnson, met Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT, on more than one occasion last year to discuss a tie-up. "They have obviously got a pipe into every home in the country, they have […]