Advanced Television

VOD

Eros launches online entertainment portal

Eros International, the Indian film distributor, has confirmed the beta-launch of its dedicated online entertainment service, “Eros Now”. Eros Now will provide access to Eros’ Bollywood film library as well as music videos, audio tracks and original programming. With immediate effect, Eros Now represents the Group’s overall digital brand with all digital content branded as […]

March 16, 2012

BBC confirms Project Barcelona DTO service

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson has confirmed that the corporation intends to offer a download service of archive content over and above the seven-day catch-up service available via iPlayer. Addressing the Royal Television Society in London, Thompson noted that after the seven day public service window, a large proportion of what the BBC makes and broadcast […]

March 15, 2012By Colin Mann

Sky movies boosted by broader competition investigation

BSkyB’s position as a dominant provider of premium movie content in the UK, which had been criticised in provisional findings from the Competition Commission (CC), is to be reassessed following recognition by the watchdog that market dynamics had changed since its August 2011 announcement. These include, in particular, that Netflix has launched a stand-alone ‘over […]

March 14, 2012By Colin Mann

Movie revenue to rise continuously to 2015

Driven by strong increases in emerging markets, global consumer spending on movies is expected to rise for six consecutive years, expanding from $61.4 billion in 2010 to $68.9 billion in 2015, according to the IHS Screen Digest. As a group, consumers in the five key global economic regions are steadily increasing their movie spending, an […]

March 13, 2012

BBC launching DTO store?

The BBC is reportedly developing a new scheme under which UK viewers would pay to download new and old BBC TV shows from a service it hopes will compete with iTunes. BBC executive wants to make all its shows available as download-to-own (DTO) at prices including £1.89 per show, under a scheme called Project Barcelona. […]

March 9, 2012

Apple TV upgrade

As part of Apple’s San Francisco event for the new iPad, the company announced that Apple TV would get an upgrade. The system will support 1080p movies and TV shows. Navigation has been improved and movies and TV shows will be supported in iCloud so they can be accessed from iPads and iPhones as well. […]

March 8, 2012

Sky Store offers pay-as you go options

Following the suggestion made the previous afternoon by BSkyB’s Chief Finance Officer Andrew Griffith that the broadcaster’s forthcoming OTT service – to be available with no minimum contract and flexible pricing – could feature pay-as you go options, Sky has revealed its latest initiative to give Sky homes even more flexibility and choice over how […]

March 8, 2012

BBC’s Rivera: 2012 pivotal for TV’s evolution

As the BBC prepares a big push for its online coverage of this summer’s Olympic games, Ralph Rivera, the BBC’s director of future media, says this year could be pivotal for TV’s next evolution. “Our aspiration is that 2012 will do for digital and connected televisions what the coronation did for TV,” he told the […]

March 7, 2012

Netflix VoD outstrips pay-TV

According to a new report released by TDG, Making Ad-Supported VoD Work, video-on-demand services provided by PayTV operators should be generating significantly higher viewing and advertising revenue. The failure to accomplish this is a reflection of VoD’s inadequate advertising support and awkward programme guides that limit availability and viewing of ad-supported video-on-demand content. According to […]

March 5, 2012

Mediaset to launch Premium Play for iPad

Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset has announced that its Premium Play service will be available for the iPad from April. The service provides access to over 2,000 TV programmes that can be watched on a TV, a computer or an Xbox console. Launched in November 2011, the Premium broadband service has now been running for 100 […]

March 2, 2012From Branislav Pekic in Rome