Vince Cable, the UK Business Secretary, has issued an intervention notice on News Corp’s bid to acquire the 61 per cent of BSkyB shares that it does not already own. The notice requires that Ofcom investigates the public interest consideration of media plurality and submits a report by December 31st. The European Commission will investigate […]
Sky has this morning served the formal notice of intent with the European Commission that signals the imminent tabling of a formal bid for the 61 per cent of BSkyB it doesn’t already own. The EC now has 25 days to decide whether further investigation is required on competition grounds. Meanwhile UK government will have […]
A Turkish court has reinstated a 30-month ban on YouTube days after it was removed, as a dispute continued over the video-sharing website’s refusal to remove content deemed illegal in the EU candidate country. Access has been blocked by the Turkish government since May 2008 after users posted videos Turkey says are insulting to the […]
Egypt is getting tough with some contentious channels and, meanwhile, there’s some highly vocal Arab criticism that ordering channels off Nilesat is directly linked to upcoming presidential elections in Egypt. ‘Not so’, implies Nilesat’s chief engineer Salah Hamza. “We have no formal regulator covering satellite transmission. There is no Ofcom, no FCC, no […]
Mobile phone users in rural areas could soon see their 3G reception improve after regulators allowed operators to repurpose their existing spectrum for mobile broadband services. The ruling by Ofcom that refarming of 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum would not harm competition in the UK mobile market settles a three-year row that has held back the […]
Neil Berkett, Virgin Media CEO, has used the company’s results announcement to attack Ofcom’s decision not to investigate YouView, the BBC-originated platform to bring VoD to Freeview and Freesat. Berkett said he surmised Ofcom had seen its 25 per cent budget cut coming and has wrongly ‘deprioritised’ the issue. “When you have less resources to […]
AEPOC, the European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services, has reported a breakthrough judgement against Pay-TV piracy. Belgian prosecutors, joined by AEPOC member Sky Deutschland, have won a lawsuit against pirates, who sold illegal viewing cards to Germany and Austria from 2006 to 2008. The First Instance Court of Tongeren, Belgium ruled […]
There have been plenty of headlines in the UK suggesting that Ofcom has “approved” YouView, the BBC-backed video-on-demand service. “Not so,” implies Tony Ballard, a media lawyer at Harbottle & Lewis. Ofcom has said that any investigation now would be “premature” because it was part of an emerging sector, its impact too unclear at this […]
Ofcom has confirmed that it will not open an investigation into YouView (formerly known as ‘Project Canvas’) under the Competition Act following complaints made by Virgin Media and IPVision. Chief Executive, Ed Richards, said: “Ofcom’s view is that consumers’ interests will not be served by opening an investigation. It would be premature at the current […]
Erik Huggers, BBC director of future media and technology, says ISPs shouldn’t traffic manage but if they do it must be transparent. He summarised key points made by the BBC in its submission to the European Commission review on net neutrality (being conducted in conjunction with Ofcom) which says the EC’s three targets should be […]