ITV has welcomed a Government U turn on product placement. Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, is expected to propose this week that commercial broadcasters and TV producers will be able to receive payment to include brands in their programming. The move will bring the UK into line with Europe and the US, where product placement […]

From Davie Del Valle in Madrid Spanish competition watchdog the CNC has launched an inquiry into media group Mediapro and its pay-TV football channel Gol TV over possible anti-trust practices. The CNC argues that Mediapro may be breaking the competition legislation, damaging the pay-TV market by not reselling its football TV rights to the Spanish […]

The Open IPTV Forum (OIPF) has published the Architecture Specification for IPTV infrastructure elements and services to be included in Release 2 of the OIPF Specifications. The Architecture Specification is freely available for download from the Publications section of the Forum website www.oipf.tv. Release 1 of the OIPF technical specifications was published early in 2009, […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

In contrast to rival ISPs Sky has backed the content industry's calls to introduce suspension of service for suspected file-sharers. In response to this week's government request for proposals about how it should tackle file-sharing, Sky said it would apply technical measures to file-sharers' internet accounts provided they could be proved guilty. "It makes sense […]

Italian public broadcaster RAI risks being fined up to E90 million, or about 3 per cent of its annual turnover, for irregularities in procedures following the exit from DTH platform Sky Italia. Under examination is the continued encryption of its programmes on satellite which is prohibited by the rules of public service. At the moment, […]

Following up James Murdoch's contention that the BBC's ubiquity online will threaten the pluralism of available news, Five CEO Dawn Airey has said the BBC should charge viewers for iPlayer and other online content otherwise commercial rivals will be crippled. Airey said, "perhaps the BBC should go back to having a couple of big broadcast […]