Chellomedia, the European content division of Liberty Global, and HIT Entertainment, independent children's entertainment producer and rights owner, have confirmed a joint venture to launch an international pre-school TV channel. At the same time, Chellomedia has separately acquired JimJam, the leading pre-school channel, which is currently available in Italy on the Sky Italia platform. Together, […]

NBC Universal International is to organise its digital efforts into two parallel strands: New Media Licensing and Digital Assets. New Media Licensing is led by Beth Minehart, based in LA, and will lead a regionally focused sales organisation responsible for licensing efforts encompassing all forms of international new media, including EST, VOD and SVOD, through […]

Virgin Media is aiming to position its channel as a destination for 'proper telly'. The launch campaign aims to promote the Virgin 1 channel on satellite, cable and Freeview ahead of its launch on 1 October.. The ads are interspersed with statements such as “No soaps”, “No makeovers” and “No nonsense”, which aim to create […]

Modern Times Group (MTG) is restructuring the Viasat DTH satellite pay-TV offerings in Scandinavia. Viewers will now have more than 20 different options of how they structure their pay-TV channel packages. Subscribers will be able to choose between three thematic packages of broad entertainment channels, international documentary and news channels, and children's and music channels, […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome A total of 83 million households, out of a total of 166 million in 20 Western European countries, receive digital TV services, according to the latest survey conducted by the Milan-based e-Media Institute. At the end of June 2007, the number of families capable of receiving digital TV services represented […]

Fox and Apple have reached an agreement to offer free downloads of the shows Fox is trying to promote for the widely covered US sweeps season. Episodes of five new shows including Back To You, Til’ Death and K-Ville, are currently available for free at the iTunes Store. The FOX shows are commercial-free, unlike the […]

UK Television could soon have longer advertising breaks under proposals being considered by Ofcom. ITV1, Channel 4 and Five are currently not allowed to show more than an average of seven minutes of advertising an hour. But Ofcom is discussing raising the limit. The watchdog said it was reviewing the rules at a time when […]

Within the next five years, Americans will be spending more than a third of their daily TV-viewing time watching on-demand programs rather than regularly scheduled shows and events, according to a new forecast by Pike Fischer. In a report on video-on-demand (VOD) usage, the market research firm says that the majority of households in the […]

Pudding Media, a start-up based in California has introduced an Internet phone service that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls. But unlike Internet phone services that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media offers calling without any call charges. The trade-off is that Pudding […]

From David Del Valle in Madrid An Interactive HD Consortium (Alta Definicion Interactiva 2006) is launching the first HD DTT channel in Spain, Campus HD, whose tests transmissions can be received through a MHP-enabled STB on 56 UHF channel (750-758 MHz) in the so-called University City in Madrid. The initiative is supported by a Consortium […]