The Netherlands has become Europe’s first country to enshrine network neutrality in law by banning its mobile telephone operators from blocking or charging consumers extra for using Internet-based services like Skype . The measure, which was adopted with a broad majority in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament will prevent KPN, the incumbent telco […]
The European Commission has expressed a number of concerns on proposals by Belgian broadcasting and broadband regulators. In particular, the Commission is asking the Belgian regulators to take full account of market developments in both markets and to further substantiate and justify its reasoning with regard to the broadcasting market. The Commission believes Belgium hasn’t […]
As Britain steels itself for a potential fortnight of ‘Murray-mania’, which will see the British Number 1 tennis player once again attempt to become the first ‘Grand Slam’ winner of the modern era, research suggests that millions of employees could tune in at work, with employers decreeing ‘business as usual’ during the Wimbledon tournament. However, […]
The US Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a measure that would make illegal streaming of video over the Internet a felony offence in some cases, and has sent the proposed legislation to the full Senate. The Bill, S. 978, would make illegal video streaming for commercial purposes a felony punishable by as much as five […]
Italy’s plans to raise $3.5 billion by selling off its analogue TV spectrum are in chaos. There are more than one hundred local TV channels involved who say they will not release their spectrum unless they receive better compensation terms. Worse, Italy’s cellular phone operators, the likely buyers of the spectrum, say they will not […]
The Chairman of the Canada’s broadcasting regulator has called for a rethink of the entire regulatory system, including the status of his own organisation. Delivering a welcome address at the Banff World TV Festival, Konrad von Finckenstein, Chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), outlined a number of media industry activities that are […]
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the BBC have held talks about changing the “public value test” – a lengthy consultation the corporation must undertake if it wants to launch or close a service, perhaps the clearest indication the corporation could close a channel to save money. According to reports, the BBC wants […]
Amidst growing political calls from senior UK government figures for all UK-employed interns to be paid a minimum wage it has emerged that the BBC has ‘employed’ more than 6,000 unpaid interns since 2007. The BBC terms them as “volunteers” and admits that they have zero rights, and that there is no available budget to […]
A UN expert has suggested that provisions of the UK’s Digital Economy Act and similar legislation in France that could see music and film pirates cut off from the Internet are disproportionate. The comments came in a report produced for the UN Human Rights Council on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom […]
UK culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has confirmed the major policy shift in his plan for a new generation local TV services, virtually scrapping plans for a national network spine in favour of “more financially secure” individual stations. Hunt admitted that “a series of individual stations could be more feasible and faster to deliver” than launching […]