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WD TV adds Hulu Plus

Western Digital, a specialist in external storage solutions and maker of the popular WD TV media player family, is making the Hulu Plus subscription service available to its WD TV Live Plus and WD TV Live Hub family of media players. WD TV customers can now watch hit TV shows, movies and catch up on […]

August 4, 2011

DVD sales slide, digital downloads rise

DVD sales have seen a 5.7 per cent fall in revenue to just more than £1bn for the UK video entertainment sector in the first half of the year. Spending on digital viewing via download and streaming services to portable devices rose 18 per cent year on year, according to figures from the British Video […]

August 1, 2011

BBC unveils iPlayer app for iPad

Following comments made earlier in the year by BBC Director General Mark Thompson that an international version of the iPlayer app would be made available later in 2011 for “a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than ten”, BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm, has confirmed that it is now offering audiences across […]

July 28, 2011By Colin Mann

ITV to launch TV micropayments in Jan, H1 up 4%

ITV has confirmed plans to launch its TV micropayment system in January, as the broadcaster forecasts an end to its summer advertising slump in September with television ad revenues expected to be “broadly flat”. “Our pay mechanism will launch at the turn of the year; we have picked our partners,” said the ITV chief executive, […]

July 27, 2011

Netflix warns subs will fall, rules out Hulu bid

Netflix shares have tumbled more than 10 per cent after the DVD and online video streaming service’s warning that a recent price rise would cause some customers to downgrade or cancel subscriptions. The company, which was reporting second-quarter results, also warned that revenues would “only grow slightly on a sequential basis” following the price change, […]

July 26, 2011

On-demand TV revenues set to climb

On-demand TV revenues from movies and TV programmes (and excluding revenues from other sources such as sports and adult and also excluding SVOD packages) will reach $5.7 billion in 2016, up from $3.6 billion in 2010 and $2.1 billion in 2006, according to the On-demand TV Forecasts report published by Digital TV Research (DTVR). By […]

July 25, 2011

Apple mulling Hulu bid?

Following midweek indications that prospective bidder Microsoft would not be pursuing its interest in buying online video service Hulu, reports now suggest that Apple could be considering entering the fray, according to “two people who weren’t authorised to speak publicly”. The two sources spoke with Bloomberg, describing the negotiations as “early talks that may lead […]

July 22, 2011

BigPond celebrates record downloads

Animation and family movies have driven a two-week school holiday record for BigPond Movie downloads in Australia. “We achieved our biggest ever two-week school holidays for BigPond Movies with more than 120,000 movies downloaded and had close to 13,000 movie downloads via the T-Box in one day,” Telstra’s Executive Director of Media J-B Rousselot said. […]

July 21, 2011

Private Media Group expands France VoD with XXL

Private Media Group, a provider of adult entertainment products, has announced that the company is expanding its VoD offering by signing a partnership with France’s AB Groupe to supply its VoD website XXL with Private’s premium quality content. Available to consumers via Free IPTV France, and launched in 2010, XXL is a dedicated adult cinema […]

July 21, 2011

Motive Television unveils ‘Video to Go’

Digital TV technology specialist Motive Television has revealed what it describes as a “major advancement” in its Television Anytime Anywhere platform enabling the seamless loading of recorded movies and other pre-recorded material to laptops, iPads and other tablet and mobile devices. The advancement – dubbed ‘Video to Go’ – allows viewers to transfer a recorded […]

July 20, 2011By Colin Mann