UK Intellectual property minister David Lammy has defended the government's revised plans to disconnect the most persistent illegal file-sharers against growing criticism from ISPs, consumer groups and now some content representatives. Speaking to the Motion Picture Association of America in Washington he said the new proposals "send a clear message: when it comes to piracy […]
The European Commission is to investigate Spain's new funding model for state-owned broadcaster RTVE. The new model will see Spain compensating falling advertising revenues with taxes paid by private broadcasters and telecom companies. Private broadcasters will have to allocate 3% of their revenues to public broadcasters, a figure that will be reduced to 1.5% for […]
The chairman of BBC Worldwide, Etienne de Villiers, is to step down at the end of the month after almost three years in the role. De Villiers, who served on ITV’s board as a non-executive director from 2004 to 2007, was appointed as chairman of the BBC’s commercial holdings board in September 2005 with a […]
Arqiva has confirmed the appointment of former UKTV Controller and COO John Keeling to the role of Platform Controller for its new VOD service. Keeling will be responsible for overseeing all programming and marketing functions including brand development and content supply. He will also be responsible for appointing key programming and marketing staff for the […]
The UK government's revised, tougher plans to tackle online piracy have been dismissed as "grossly unfair" and "misconceived" by the leaders of ISPs who warn against creating an "extrajudicial kangaroo court" to cut off persistent P2P offenders. The CEOs of BT, and TalkTalk and Orange UK, wrote to The Times calling for a re-think on […]
Bids for a majority stake in the US Travel Channel have come in substantially ahead of initial expectations, with unexpected private equity interest adding to demand from media companies in the resilient cable television industry. Second-round offers indicate that a sale of the 65 per cent stake that Cox Communications put up for sale in […]
News Corp is said to be in talks to take a stake in Arab media and entertainment group Rotana, owned by the Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Reports say News Corp is looking at a 20 percent stake. Rotana owns a film production company, a magazine (Rotana Magazine), television (Rotana TV), and seven music channels […]
News Corp has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Prime Minister Berlusconi's Mediaset broadcasting group. News Corp's Sky Italia is suing two units of Mediaset, RTI and Publitalia its sales house, alleging they refused to let it buy advertising time. “News Corporation believes these companies have violated EC rules governing free competition, as well as Italian […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset has for the first time surpassed RAI in terms of turnover thanks mainly to revenue from pay-TV. In 2008, Mediaset's turnover was up 9 per cent to E3.27 billion, while the public broadcaster saw a drop of 0.7 per cent to E3.21 billion. Additionally, RAI is […]
Aksh Optifibre plans to raise up to $20 million through a private placement to grow its IPTV and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business in India. The amount will be used to part finance Aksh's capex requirement as it plans to ramp up its subscriber base from 35,000 to 650,000 by March 2013. The company, […]