From David Del Valle in Madrid The two largest pay-TV groups in Spain, Sogecable (more than 2 million subscribers) and Ono (over 1 million subs) have issued appeals against the Government’s Royal Decree bill that will allow pay TV services through digital terrestrial TV. Both argue that it breaks competition rules. For Ono, the bill […]

The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has announced a new direction in the battle against pay-TV piracy in the Philippines. A breakthrough settlement by Turtle Cable, an infringing cable operator in Camarines Sur, is underpinned by a legally binding undertaking to refrain from broadcasting unauthorised TV programming and exclusively distribute legally authorised […]

European media commissioner Viviane Reding has set out her vision for a "Digital Europe", with four key points including a plea to resolve the legislative impasse caused by opposition to "three strikes" plans. On speeding the DSO she says: "The United States as a whole switched to digital TV last month. I call therefore on […]

Plans to merge the three former Deutsche Telekom cable nets in Germany are shelved admits Kabel Deutschland CEO Adrian von Hammerstein. The German monopoly commission Bundeskartellamt has outlawed the proposal. Kabel Deutschland will turn its attention to buying Level 4 operators that are distributors for the KDG product. The operator has also expressed interest in […]

From Colin Mann in London David Cameron, leader of the Conservative opposition party in the UK, has suggested that the role of comms regulator Ofcom be considerably slimmed down. Cameron, who hopes to lead his party to power in the General Election likely in 2010, has suggested that a number of quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations […]

The European Commission has adopted a new Communication on state aid for the funding of public service broadcasters. The new Communication replaces the Commission's 2001 Broadcasting Communication. The main changes include an increased focus on accountability and effective control at the national level, including a transparent evaluation of the overall impact of publicly-funded new media […]

Trading blows over Ofcom's plan to regulate pay-TV market prices has started. Mike Darcey, the chief operating officer at BSkyB, has accused public service broadcasters, industry regulators and politicians of breeding a “culture of dependency” that has failed to allow the UK TV industry to explore new business models. Darcey told the Institute of Economic […]

U.S. Supreme Court handed Cablevision a victory in its remote storage DVR fight when as expected, it refused to hear arguments in the case, instead deferring to a lower court’s decision that the DVR service does not leave cable providers liable for content owners’ copyrights. Cablevision called the decision, which paves the way for a […]

As both sides await a judge's ruling over the legality of RealNetworks’ DVD copying software RealDVD, the major studios have filed a new complaint, charging that RealNetworks lied in court about circumventing DVD copy protections. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) asked the Judge to include in the court record five patent filings by […]

Tiscali director of television Simon Hunt has backed BT's recent call for broadcasters to pay for the online distribution of their content. “The example I always come back to is the BBC and satellite. The BBC spends a lot of money on Sky so we can watch its programmes at home. It also spends a […]