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 [...]
Ukraine has been named as a Priority Foreign Country (PFC) under the US’s ‘Special 301′ statute following the severe deterioration of enforcement in the areas of government use of pirated software and piracy over the Internet, as well as denial of fair and equitable market access through the authorisation and operation of copyright collecting societies. The action is contained in [...]
A fear that new advertising billing methods would not be approved by India’s taxation authorities ended up with many high profile TV channels not airing commercials during ad breaks on May 1st. Affected channels include most of the Star networks, Zee TV and Viacom-backed Colors. A rolling ticker was being screened on air by the Star channels, saying: “Ads are [...]
Leslie Moonves CEO of CBS has joined Fox Broadcasting’s threat to take their television network off the air and become a cable channel if courts don’t stop the Internet start-up Aereo from retransmitting shows without permission. “We’ve spoken to cable operators in New York. We can do it in a few days,” Moonves told the Milken Institute Global Conference in [...]
UTECA, the private TV Association formed by Mediaset, Atresmedia, Veo and Net TV, is taking the Spanish government to court over its decision to revoke nine DTT channels on the grounds that it puts the Audiovisual sector “in an unprecedented situation with no legal guarantee”. Last March, the Administration decided to revoke the licences of nine nationwide DTT channels awarded [...]
Barry Diller, founder of controversial online broadcasting service Aereo, has asserted that broadcasters who are currently seeking to have the operation outlawed are obliged to provide a signal, suggesting that their litigation is motivated by a desire to get relief from Congress in respect of carriage fees. Interviewed on Bloomberg TV’s Lunch Money, Diller described the ‘big picture’ of Aereo [...]
Arabic news broadcaster Al Jazeera is one of 10 channels banned in Iraq following a week of unprecedented violence in the country. The channels, including Al Shaqira which is backed by Iraqi media tycoon Saad al-Bazzaz The 10 channels have had their licences to operate revoked. Some 200 people were killed over a six-day period last week in clashes between [...]
Struggling South African pay-TV broadcaster TopTV has been granted permission to start transmitting 3 so-called ‘adult TV’ channels. TopTV, owned by On Digital Media which is facing some financial challenges, was given approval to broadcast Playboy TV, Desire TV and Private Spice by the South African broadcasting regulator (ICASA) provided the broadcasts do not take place before 8pm of an [...]
The European Commission has published a Green Paper inviting stakeholders and the wider public to share their views on the rapidly converging audiovisual world. The Commission notes that millions of Europeans catch up with their favourite TV series on a smartphone on the way to work, watch online content on their living room TV, or put their own user-generated content [...]
A federal judge has thrown out Viacom’s lawsuit accusing Google of posting its programmes on YouTube without permission, a year after a federal appeals court had revived the landmark copyright infringement case. A New York Judge agreed that Google and YouTube were protected from Viacom’s copyright claims by the “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom said [...]
