BBC Studios and ITV have confirmed that Reemah Sakaan, currently Group Director ITV SVoD, has been appointed as BritBox International’s new CEO charged with steering the roll out of their joint venture SVoD service to up to 25 countries worldwide Sakaan will start in April 2021 and will lead a team of around 100 content, […]
There are unconfirmed reports that TPG (the former Texas Pacific Group) is to take a significant but minority stake in AT&T’s DirecTV business. Reuters reported that discussions were at an advanced stage some weeks ago, and the stake is understood to include AT&T’s TV NOW and U-verse offerings. CNBC and Bloomberg are both reporting on […]
FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has shared with her colleagues a draft Order that would make much-needed mid-band spectrum available for 5G. If adopted at the Commission’s March 17th Open Meeting, 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band would be made available for auction and 5G deployment across the contiguous US. The […]
Clare Sumner, Director of Policy at the BBC, has called for a radical reappraisal of the role the Corporation plays in shaping the wider broadcast market to inform the debate about its future. Delivering a keynote speech – The evolving role of the BBC – to the Westminster Media Forum policy conference on ‘The future […]
LG Electronics has announced the availability of its popular webOS TV platform ecosystem to other TV brand partners, disrupting the status quo in an industry known for its proprietary operating systems across different manufacturers. LG is now expanding its expertise beyond TV manufacturing to encompass webOS TV software platform development and adoption by other TV […]
South Africa’s telecommunications regulator ICASA is facing criticism for not releasing the names of bidders who have qualified to participate in the nation’s 5G spectrum auction. ICASA had planned to release the names on February 22nd but then delayed the publication for a month, until March 23rd. The reason given was that there had been […]
Covid-related production problems have hurt the planned launch of EchoStar and Hughes Network’s giant Jupiter 3 satellite. It has now slipped to H2/2022 after originally being scheduled for some time this year. EchoStar 24/Jupiter 3 is a large, multi-spot-beam Ka-band craft and described as one of the world’s highest capacity broadband satellites. It is being […]
Cross-platform media evaluation specialist Comscore has been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on its ‘System and Method for Analyzing the Effectiveness of Content Advertisements’. This covers Comscore’s process of determining the effectiveness of Connected TV (CTV), over-the-top (OTT) and other video advertisements by correlating exposure to presented advertisements with […]
Italy’s Antitrust Authority has imposed fines totalling €2 million on Sky Italia for unfair commercial practices. The case relates to the behaviour of the pay-TV broadcaster during the Covid-19 health emergency and the consequent suspension of live broadcasting of sports competitions. One of the “unfair practices” was that Sky Italia did not automatically refund the […]
Facebook has announced it will restore news content to its users in Australia. Last week, the social media platform blocked news to Australians on its platform amid a dispute over a proposed law which would force it and Google to pay news publishers for content. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg had […]