Vivendi’s Canal Plus pay- television unit faces a continued probe by France’s competition authority into exclusive deals, the regulator has confirmed. The investigation focuses on Canal Plus’s distribution practices for its ‘in house’ channels, certain deals for linked channels, and contracts between Canal Plus and independent channels, the regulator said in a statement on its […]

Neelie Kroes the European Commission’s Vice president for the Digital Agenda says the EU won’t pass laws for net neutrality. Speaking at a Net Neutrality Summit in Brussels, Kroes said: “In general, providers have upheld the principle of open access and end users may access most of the applications and services of their choice.” She […]

Federal regulators in the US have told Comcast and NBC Universal that they have concerns the proposed merger will harm competition.  The Justice Department’s antitrust division and Federal Communications Commission are expected to approve the merger on the condition the companies agree to allow competitors – such as Time Warner Cable, Dish Network and even […]

Former Ofcom partner and ITN CEO, Stewart Purvis, has called for quick action on ITV, a reversal of European regulation, and relaxation of advertising and impartiality rules, in a speech delivered for the RTS (Royal Television Society) Fleming Memorial Lecture 2010. Entitled ‘Calling Time on Analogue Regulation – an agenda for the next Communications Act,’ […]

Mediaset’s Tele 5 and Telefonica have been cleared to take a 22 per cent stake each in the digital DTH platform Digital Plus but with limited voting rights in the management of the company. Media group Prisa will retain a 56 per cent stake. Spain’s competition watchdog the CNC has shelved the legal proceedings, giving […]

The president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks called on the media, entertainment and CE communities to agree on a single, unified platform for the delivery of Web video to the television. At a conference in San Francisco ActiveVideo’s Jeff Miller outlined how “Platform Chaos” – the fragmentation of countless video devices and technologies — must […]

The president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks has called on the media, entertainment and CE communities to agree on a single, unified platform for the delivery of Web video to the television. At the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, ActiveVideo’s Jeff Miller outlined how “Platform Chaos” – the fragmentation of countless video […]

Hot on the heels of last month’s decisions to drop more than a dozen Arabic channels from Nilesat comes news that some 25 Iraqi channels are threatened with closure because they are unlicensed. BBC Monitoring is reporting that a senior Iraqi official in the Communications and Media Commission has threatened to shut down the channels. […]

BT and TalkTalk have won a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act that paved the way for content owners to police online piracy via ISPs – the so-called ‘3 strikes’ solution. BT and TalkTalk, two of the UK’s biggest ISPs, mounted their legal challenge to the Digital Economy Act in July, warning that it […]

REAL Digital, the ‘alternative pay-TV provider’ which says it will launch a DTH service in January next year, has won a case before the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal meaning it must, in principle, be included in the wholesale pricing offer imposed on BSkyB in respect of Sky Sports 1 and 2. This means Real, a […]