French pay TV group Canal Plus has announced the launch of the new ‘Canal Ready’ label to be placed on new TV equipment. The label is intended to inform consumers about the compatibility of the product they are about to buy with the group’s services. Canal Ready will feature on satellite and DTT set-top boxes […]

Movistar and Vodafone are to broadcast race coverage of Formula 1 via mobile phones in the Spanish market. They will work with the rights-holder La Sexta and will provide practice and qualifying free, but will charge for the race coverage. Formula One has agreed similar deals in various other national markets but the services have […]

UK creative industries will fade into insignificance in five years unless the government rapidly steps up its anti-piracy efforts, a leading trade body warned today. In a survey of more than 30 directors of TV and film companies, the Industry Trust found that 94% believe the damage cannot be repaired without stronger support from government […]

RealNetworks has said it wants to help increase DVD sales by allowing people to copy their movie discs. Hollywood studios say that idea will only hurt their already struggling business. The two sides are now squaring off in federal court. The case is ostensibly about RealDVD, a $30 software program that allows users to save […]

One of the co-founders of The Pirate Bay website has said that the one-year prison sentences handed down by a Swedish judge are “weird and bizarre” and insisted that the defendants “can’t pay and wouldn’t pay” the $3.6million fine. In a press conference, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi held up a handwritten IOU to the camera and […]

The Motion Picture Dist. Association of India (MPDA), which is the local arm of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), is stepping up on anti-piracy initiatives across India. MPDA managing director Rajiv Dalal said that he launch of the Indian arm of MPAA reflected “the coming together of Hollywood and Bollywood in this drive […]

Virgin Media has confirmed that, following the departure of former CEO Malcolm Wall, Jonathan Webb has been appointed to the new position of Executive Director, Virgin Media Television. Webb will be responsible for leading the continued development of the company's portfolio of multiplatform entertainment brands, including Living, Virgin 1, Bravo and Challenge. Webb was appointed […]

Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger has told NCTA that cable must find an online model that works for both programmers and distributors, appearing to dismiss a subscription model proposal, TV Everywhere, made earlier this year by Time Warner. "Cable television is vitally important to our company. It provides us with a crucial connection with […]

Ignoring Bob Iger's dismissal of the online subscription model, Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes unveiled HBO Go, a broadband complement to the premium network only for subscribers to the linear service. “We’re all being too slow,” Bewkes said. “We should put up all our networks on the Internet, out on broadband right now. […]

Playboy TV’s UK operation has been fined £22,500 (E24,700) by Ofcom for broadcasting what it termed explicit adult content free-to-air. The fine applies to its Playboy One service, which broadcast as an unencrypted, free-to-air channel until September. Seven programmes broadcast between September 2007 and December 2007 were investigated by Ofcom and it concluded that “the […]