Uruguay last week cancelled the DTH transmission licence of Claro. Claro is ultimately owned by telco giant America Movil. At the time of the cancellation Claro said it would fight the Uruguayan decision. It has now changed it mind. Claro’s general manager Roberto Alvarellos now says that his company will do nothing, adding that the business has always set out [...]
YouTube owner Google has sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist order to try and stop it distributing its new YouTube app for Windows Phone. Google demands that Microsoft “immediately withdraw this application from the Windows Phone Store and disable existing downloads of the application.” Google claims Microsoft’s app violates YouTube’s terms of service by, among other things, preventing ads from showing in [...]
Ofcom is to preparing to crack down on the poor standard of subtitling of it says is common on UK TV by introducing a six-monthly quality check that will name and shame broadcasters into improving their services. Gaffes include asking for a “moment’s violence” during The Queen Mother’s funeral. Viewers are able to switch on a subtitles option for most [...]
The French government is considering a 1 per cent tax on the sale of smartphones and tablets to help fund French film, music and images, it is estimated it could raise around €85 million. Broadcasters already pay fees to fund cultural projects but firms such as Google and Apple are currently exempt. The new proposal is in a study by [...]
The influential European Broadcasting Union, which counts Europe’s public broadcasters as its core membership, has severely criticised those governments which have or are planning to use some or all of the 700 MHz band for cellular services. The EBU also accuses the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG), an advisory group which assists the European Commission in the use and development [...]
The Italian Antitrust Authority (AGCM) has ruled that there is no evidence that Sky Italia’s acquisition of the UEFA Champions League TV rights (2012-2015) and FIFA World Cup TV rights (2010-2014) represents an abuse of dominant position. The Authority underlined that the exclusive TV rights for the Champions League were assigned through a competitive process and also that, subsequently to [...]
The financial model of the public broadcaster RTVE may collapse if the Luxembourg EU Court overturns the government-imposed tax on telco companies to finance the group. Telco companies and commercial and pay TV channels are obliged by law to dedicate 0.9 per cent, 3 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively, of their revenues to finance RTVE, with a budget [...]
Objective data and independent empirical research will better inform the debate surrounding copyright policy in the digital age, according to US research body the National Research Council. The Council notes that the roll-out of the World Wide Web and expanded use of digital technologies in the mid-1990s marked the beginning of a technological revolution that changed long-established modes of creating, [...]
Following the admission by John Whittingdale, Chairman of the UK House of Commons Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, that a Communications Bill was unlikely to feature in the government’s legislative programme for 2013-14, Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, has revealed that a Communications Green Paper – a tentative government report and consultation [...]
The Digital TV Group (DTG), the industry association for digital TV in the UK, has published the first status update of the government-backed Future of Innovation in Television Technology (FITT) Taskforce. Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey MP announced the publication of the update in his keynote speech to delegates at the DTG’s annual Summit: “It’s very [...]
