The Government has received the first salvo in what will be a long lobbying war over News Corp’s proposed takeover of Sky. Claire Enders of Enders Analysis, has bestowed a 20-page submission on Mr Business Secretary Vince Cable (assumed to be instinctively against the deal), urging him to step in or face media plurality in […]
The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, has reversed an earlier decision to seek a second term and is to step down in May next year. The former local government executive was the first chairman of the BBC Trust, which replaced the board of governors as the corporation’s governance and regulatory body in 2007 […]
The fifth complaint to Ofcom about Project Canvas has arrived from The Open Source Consortium (OSC), a group made up of comprising SME providers of services and support based on open standards. The OSC, which represent 25 or so mainly consultants, is unhappy that Canvas isn’t “open” in the same way Linux is regarded […]
The Digital TV Group (DTG), the industry association for digital TV in the UK, has announced that DTG Testing, the digital television industry’s test and conformance centre, is to provide manufacturers with a single facility for Connected TV, HbbTV, Freeview, Freesat and Digital Tick test and conformance. Additionally, DTG Testing is working with Project […]
The OIPF (Open IPTV Forum) has confirmed the publication of Release 2 of its global end-to-end specifications for IPTV. This is a major step forward for end-to-end interoperability within the IPTV ecosystem. Release 2 includes an evolution of functionality across many areas of the Release 1 Specifications, with notable enhancements of major functional areas. […]
Police have conducted a series of raids across Europe in the biggest crackdown yet on file-sharing. 48 sites were targeted in countries including the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Hungary. In Sweden, seven premises were raided including PRQ, which is believed to host Pirate Bay and the revelatory website WikiLeaks. Co-ordinated by Belgian police, the operation […]
Net Neutrality is, ironically, a matter on which nearly no one is neutral. When the Web was young the idea of equal access for all content and service providers was logical and easily accommodated. Then came video, which was magnitudes more bandwidth hungry than what had gone before. But there was still no question of […]
The hail of regulator references and appeals continues in the UK as Ofcom asks the Competition Commission to investigate its concerns regarding the sale and distribution of pay TV movies. Ofcom thinks the way in which first-run Hollywood movies are sold and distributed creates a situation in which Sky has the incentive and ability to […]
From Colin Mann in London Free-market policy research body The Adam Smith Institute is proposing that the TV Licence Fee should be abolished, and that the BBC should instead become a subscription service. The think tank makes its arguments in a report – Global Player or Subsidy Junkie? Decision time for the BBC – written […]
I wonder if Rupert Murdoch allows himself an ironic chuckle that while the UK government (in common with virtually all its counterparts) is preparing legislation to punish consumers and distributors for stealing content rights, its regulator is forcing Sky to handover those rights (or the product of them) for a discounted price. I imagine Murdoch […]