Advanced Television

Articles

Xbox TV still scheduled for this year

Microsoft is still hopeful of releasing Xbox Live TV before the year is through, Steve Ballmer, the company’s CEO has said. Balmer told a developer’s conference that, although the service continues to be in the planning stages, hopes are still high for a 2011 launch. He said: “Having all of that content is right on, […]

September 19, 2011

Downton latest ITV Player downfall

Viewers logging on to watch the popular costume drama Downton Abbey found only three ads on a loop in place of the WW1 upmarket soap. There was also an apology for ‘technical difficulties.’ ITV continues to plagued by glitches in its multi-screen strategy; the mobile stream crashed in the first England game of the Rugby […]

September 19, 2011

Netflix: Price hike has hit subs

Netflix has admitted the price hikes announced this summer have hit subs harder than it predicted. It said it now expects to have 24 million domestic subscribers at the end of the third quarter, below its earlier expectation of 25 million and the 24.6 million US customers it had at the end of the second […]

September 16, 2011

Cablevision Chief: OTT could help limit content costs

Over-the-top programming could help moderate rising programming costs in the future, Cablevision Systems chief operating officer Tom Rutledge has said. “The rich [channel] package we provide is extremely valuable to customers and there is pricing power in that package,” Rutledge said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch event. “On the other hand, you have […]

September 16, 2011

SeeSaw on brink

SeeSaw, the UK VoD service, has yet to receive the investment promised as part of its spin-off to Criterion Partners from Arqiva – and platform controller John Keeling, commercial director Matt Rennie and product director Richard Dines all quit yesterday. Criterion acquired a majority of SeeSaw from Arqiva this summer, but investment promised by Weston […]

September 15, 2011

RTL spurned Hulu over advertising dispute

The RTL chief executive, Gerhard Zeiler, explained that the broadcaster had not done a deal with Hulu because its US owners would not allow the company to sell its own advertising. Zeiler told the Royal Television Society that aggregators such as Hulu, which is owned by US media companies News Corporation, NBC Universal, Disney and […]

September 15, 2011

American Airlines to roll out Wi-Fi VoD

American Airlines has announced the expansion of entertainment on demand – the airline’s inflight streaming video product – to approximately 400 Wi-Fi enabled aircraft by the end of 2012. American, a founding member of the oneworld Alliance, was the first North American airline to offer inflight streaming video, which enables customers to wirelessly stream content […]

September 15, 2011

TBN launches online service

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the world’s largest religious broadcaster, has confirmed launch of iTBN, a new 24/7 online service that brings the best of TBN’s programming – past and present – to one convenient website. In addition, iTBN includes on-demand viewing categories for Christian music, shows for teens and much more. It even allows viewers […]

September 15, 2011

Canada: ‘We want level playing field for Netflix’

Canadian pay-TV producer Astral Media says foreign Internet competitors such as movie provider Netflix should be subject to the same rules as Canadian broadcasters, noting digital competitors don’t contribute to local programming or pay taxes. “They come here and don’t spend a penny,” chief executive Ian Greenberg said. “They don’t have any rules whatsoever. Taxes […]

September 13, 2011

KIT digital for Liberty Global streaming service

Liberty Global, the international cable operator, has selected KIT digital, a cloud-based software solutions and technology services provider, to design, build and host the platform driving its new IP-based VoD and live streaming service. The Horizon online service will see the creation of an ecosystem that provides a single and flexible, multi-lingual, multi-tenant, and multi-currency […]

September 12, 2011