CBS Studios has signed a programming deal with Chello Media. The joint venture, the first of its kind by CBS outside the US, will put thousands of hours of classic television on Chello's Zone channels, including Star Trek and Dynasty. The terms of the joint venture have not been released, but they will see Chello's […]

Nearly a year after the BBC first offered its iPlayer to rival UK broadcasters, none of which have joined, now, at IBC, Erik Huggers has declared open door for international TV companies. Huggers told the conference: "It is not a concept of aggregation, but federation. It's about making sure each of the broadcasters around the […]

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 English Premier League's latest efforts to block unauthorised streaming of matches in Israel have failed, following a court ruling in favour of free coverage. The EPL was hoping to put a stop to online piracy. However, Israel's Tel Aviv District Court ruled that the website in question was functioning under the principle of "fair […]

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 […]

News Corp is launching a global service that will make all its news stories and videos instantly available to its entire network of TV, print and online news outlets. The service, called NewsCore, will operate like a global wire service for all the company’s newspapers, TV networks and websites. News Corp is describing the venture […]

AT&T has publicly launched the beta version of a video portal — which serves up free TV shows and movies to any Internet user, and promises even more to U-verse TV customers — with content from more than a dozen programming partners. The site, http://entertainment.att.net/tv, promises U-verse TV customers “bonus content” if they log in […]

YouTube is reportedly in negotiations with major Hollywood studios for a deal that would see full-length movies on the service. It would put YouTube, owned by Google, in direct competition with services from Netflix, Amazon and Apple, which allow users to buy or rent movies online. YouTube, which already offers some older movies on its […]

PRS for Music and YouTube have signed a licensing agreement that covers music contained in videos streamed via the online video platform. As a result, premium music videos will be reinstated to YouTube in the UK. The deal will be backdated to January 2009, when YouTube's previous licence expired. As a result of the agreement […]

Bids for a majority stake in the US Travel Channel have come in substantially ahead of initial expectations, with unexpected private equity interest adding to demand from media companies in the resilient cable television industry. Second-round offers indicate that a sale of the 65 per cent stake that Cox Communications put up for sale in […]