As US broadcasters prepare to launch robust mobile DTV programming, the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) has developed a set of comprehensive Device Profile guidelines to assist consumer electronics manufacturers in developing Mobile DTV products. The Profiles are baseline technical guidelines that give manufacturers details about how broadcasters will implement new services and the details […]
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced a new framework for large integrated companies that will allow them to innovate and respond to new opportunities in a fast-changing environment. The CRTC is also establishing measures to eliminate the potential for these companies to harm their competitors or restrict consumer choice. “Given the size […]
France’s Autorité de la concurrence (Competition Authority) has declared that the Canal Plus Group has not complied with a number of commitments – some deemed essential – made at the acquisition of rival pay-TV platform TPS in 2006. It has withdrawn the decision to authorise the transaction, obliging the parties to notify the operation again […]
A coalition of US film and television companies has written to every member of the Senate, urging them to pass online piracy measure the PROTECT IP Act (short for Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011). The letter was signed by the Motion Picture Association of America […]
Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Commission has decided to modify its Digital TV broadcasting transition policy first established in 2004, and is now backing a gradual analogue blackout programme, which is expected to be completed in 2016. The Commission estimates that about US$1.3 billion should be assigned to subsidise the transition to digital broadcasting. According to its […]
The long-awaited Brazil ‘Bill 116’ which sets out a new broadcasting regime for pay TV has received its final assent. Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff made only two minor veto amendments, but the rest of the Bill now passes into the rule book. The two minor exceptions cover call center activity, and content classification, which stays […]
Optus chief executive, Paul O’Sullivan, has urged the Australian government to create sharing provisions for digital content services provided over the National Broadband Network (NBN). He said that it was essential that rules were put in place so that “the guys with the biggest wallet” could not lock up content that allows telecommunication companies to […]
DTH broadcasters beaming programming over the state of Tamul Nadu must pay a 30 per cent entertainment tax, local reports state. The idea is said to ensure continued support for State-backed Arasu Cable. The tax will directly hit Sun Direct, the local DTH player, with a 17 per cent market share. Other media-related taxes levied […]
Politicians could be barred from making decisions on media mergers under measures to be included in a new communications bill, the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said. The proposal would end the arrangement under which the business secretary can block the acquisition of media companies on public interest grounds. Hunt told the Royal Television Society […]
UK culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has countered suggestions that tackling the problem of material that is being unlawfully distributed online is an assault on the “freedom” of the Internet. He told the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention that unlawfully distributing copyrighted material was “theft, and a direct assault on the freedoms and rights of creators […]