Virgin Media says Ofcom has been too lenient with BskyB and has lodged an appeal against the broadcasting regulator's efforts to set fair prices for the market in Premier League football coverage. In its case to the Competition Appeals Tribunal, the cabler challenges Ofcom's wholesale pricing regime set for BSkyB's Sky Sports 1 and 2 […]
Kabel Deutschland, Germany's largest cable-television operator, said its full-year loss narrowed as more customers added Internet and phone services to their TV subscriptions. The net loss for the 12 months through March 31st was E45.3 million compared with E144.3 million a year earlier. Sales rose 9.6 per cent to E1.5 billion. “We are confident that […]
In a rare win for Echostar in its long running patent row with TiVo, the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) has ruled TiVo's 'Time Warp' patent invalid. This has been at the heart of the dispute. “We are pleased the Patent and Trademark Office issued a Final Office Action maintaining its rejection of the […]
Australian telco Telstra has come under fire after pay-TV provider Foxtel made an application to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to allow its Internet television service to be available only to Telstra’s broadband customers. The move has led to calls of anti-competitiveness against Telstra, with the competition watchdog to review whether Foxtel can […]
The BBC has appointed former Viacom executive Herb Scannell to run its US commercial business, BBC Worldwide America. Scannell, a former president of Viacom-owned Nickelodeon Networks and vice-chairman of MTV Networks, will take up his new job as president of BBC Worldwide America immediately. He will sit on the executive board of the corporation’s commercial […]
ITV’s Managing Director of online and interactive, Ben McOwen-Wilson, is leaving the company along with the Managing Director of brand and commercial Rupert Howell – with former GCap CEO Fru Hazlitt arriving to fill both roles. Hazlitt’s most recent executive post was as CEO of radio giant GCap Media until its sale to Global Radio […]
Premium video content technology and services provider Sonic Solutions and digital media company DivX have jointly announced a definitive agreement that will see Sonic Solutions acquire DivX. Under the terms of the agreement, approved by the boards of directors of both companies, Sonic would acquire all the outstanding shares of DivX and merge DivX operations […]
SES Astra, an SES company, has appointed Norbert Hölzle to succeed Alexander Oudendijk as Chief Commercial Officer of SES Astra. Norbert Hölzle who is currently CEO of the SES Astra affiliate ND SatCom will take over the sales and marketing responsibility for the media business across all markets served by SES Astra. Before joining ND […]
LOVEFiLM, the movie rental service, has appointed Five chairman and chief executive Dawn Airey as non-executive director. She will take up the role with immediate effect. Prior to Five, Airey was managing director of global content for ITV, where she oversaw the broadcaster’s production and content business. She has also held the position of managing […]
A proposed code of practice which implements legislative measures aimed at reducing online copyright infringement has been published by Ofcom for consultation. The Digital Economy Act 2010 requires that the code of practice is implemented no later than eight months from Royal Assent, including approval from the European Commission. Subject to consultation and approval, Ofcom […]