Disney has acquired kids social network Togetherville. The purchase follows the restructuring of Disney’s digital division Disney Interactive Media Group, which saw focus shift away from games consoles and expand its offering across online, mobile and social media. Togetherville launched last May as a social network for children under ten. Its purchase is viewed as […]
Figures released by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) show that global box office receipts for all films released around the world reached an all time high of $31.8 billion, an increase of eight per cent over 2009. The US/Canada market repeated its peak performance from last year, but remained flat at $10.6 billion. […]
The Kudelski Group, owner of Nagravision and Open TV, announced its 2010 results with total revenues revenues flat but EBITDA up 25 per cent at CHF173 million (€135m). There was strong organic growth in the Digital TV division, posting a sales growth of 6.8 per cent. This was in contrast with weaker growth rates in […]
A group of 34 movie studios has lost its appeal against an Australian Federal Court judgment involving Internet Service Provider iiNet. A 2010 ruling found it was impossible to hold iiNet responsible for its users illegally downloading movies and television shows. The studios had tried to prove iiNet not only failed to take steps to […]
CBS and Netflix have announced a two-year, non-exclusive licensing agreement that will allow select TV shows from CBS’s library as well as full seasons of classics to be streamed instantly from Netflix. CBS retains an option to extend the agreement for up to two additional years. Beginning in early April, dozens of shows from CBS […]
Harmonic has announced that Captain TV, a 24-hour news and entertainment TV channel based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, has installed an Omneon media storage and processing platform to support its file-based broadcast operations. The new channel broadcasts movies, daily soaps, awareness programmes, news, and other entertainment programming, including Tamil movies, as well as English […]
A father and son who run a number of pubs in the northern UK city of Kingston upon Hull are liable to fines and costs of some £116,000 (€138,000) for allowing streaming of Premier League football over the Internet in 11 of their establishments. Alister Darroch and his son Charles (who coincidentally share the same […]
Middle East pay-TV operator Arab Radio & Television (ART) has just added Bahrain to its anti-piracy crack-down. ART’s Pehla bouquet of Asian channels introduced the Viaccess encryption system on Saturday, in place of Irdeto. The change means the widespread usage of Dreambox set-top boxes can no longer use the internet to exchange codes which in […]
KidsCo, the international children’s channel, has confirmed it will launch in Finland on leading IPTV and cable TV service provider, Super Head End Finland Oy (SHEF). From March 2011, KidsCo will be available to Finnish broadband and cable TV customers across the country.
The US House of Representatives has voted to overturn the FCC’s proposed rules barring ISPs from blocking legal content but do allow certain rationing of downloading. The vote would block funds to implement rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission in December. The measure had been added as an amendment to a sweeping spending bill […]