Mark Thompson, the BBC's director general, has accused a small group of "ideologically focused" people within the UK government of trying to undermine his organisation's financial security. The BBC chief directed particular attack on the government and Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, listing a series of causes – including the funding of Channel 4 and the […]
Germany’s federal cartel office has confirmed it won't be changing its mind on banning the merger of the main three MSOs KDG, Unity and Kabel BW. It also made it clear it would also disallow a merger between any two of them. In a swipe at the companies now struggling investors, the president of the […]
UK communications minister Lord Carter has defended plans to levy a £6-a-year tax (E7.1) on every phone line to raise up to £1.5 billion to help pay for the next generation of super-fast internet networks, as the most transparent way of investing in a critical part of Britain’s infrastructure. Having looked at the investment plans […]
Sci Fi has been found to be in "serious and significant" breach of its licence conditions after the channel failed to produce a recording of its output. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a viewer complaint over the volume levels of commercials on Virgin Media feed. The ASA brought in Ofcom when Sci Fi admitted […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset has requested that the European Court in Luxembourg annuls the decision of the European Commission regarding the illegality of state subsidies for the acquisition of DTT decoders. At question is the European Commission's decision of 2007, that subsidies awarded by Italy for the years 2004 and […]
UK media regulator Ofcom is proposing to crack down on the amount of “sustained sex scenes and sexual language” shown on TV immediately after the 9pm watershed, to better protect younger viewers from explicit content broadcast free-to-air by so-called “babe channels” such as Playboy TV and Babeworld TV. ….
Japan’s upper house has approved a revision to the Copyright Law making downloading of pirated content illegal. The revision will go into effect on January 1st. Uploading of pirated music and video content is already proscribed, but downloading has been tolerated as long as it is for personal use. Legislators have prescribed no penalties for […]
From Colin Mann in London The UK government has published its Digital Britain report, which sets out the importance of the Digital Economy to the nation's economic future, and how it will drive future industrial capability and competitiveness. It makes the case that the United Kingdom's communications infrastructure and increased Digital Participation are key to […]
The communications minister Lord Stephen Carter is to leave his job after this week’s Digital Britain report is published. It is being reported that Carter will leave the government by the end of next month to return to the private sector. Carter has been in the role 18 months after a fraught spell as Downing […]
The European Commission is recommending that rules governing the emerging next-generation broadband services – specifically, those around competitor access to infrastructure and wholesaling of broadband access – should be developed through a "common approach" across the continent. If national telco regulators find that a dominant telco has significant market power over the faster lines, they […]