Advanced Television

Business

Sport rights holder legal action on Sky price control?

The sport rights holders, who have benefitted greatly from Sky's determination to dominate pay TV sport, are considering legal action to stop Ofcom regulating the price at which Sky wholesales its channels – a move that will likely lead to lower bids for rights. Sports governing bodies argue that the move will “irreparably damage” investment […]

March 29, 2010

Leroy joins Eutelsat as Director of Strategy

Michel de Rosen, Chief Executive Officer of Eutelsat has announced the appointment of Yohann Leroy as Director of Strategy. Leroy joined Eutelsat from the office of the French Prime Minister, where he was technical advisor for Industry and Information Technology from 2007 to 2010. This followed four years as head of the industrial development department […]

March 26, 2010

Verimatrix and Widevine reach settlement

Verimatrix and Widevine Technologies have settled pending litigation involving Widevine’s US Patents. Widevine filed suit in August of 2007 alleging that Verimatrix’s VCAS products infringe both of Widevine’s patents. Under terms of the agreement, Widevine granted Verimatrix a license to the two asserted Widevine patents and the foreign counterparts. Verimatrix makes no admission as to […]

March 25, 2010

Canvas defence begins as Arqiva signs on

The day after the UK Office of Fair Trading announced a consultation process that may lead to a referral of the project to the Competition Commission – a move that would delay the Canvas launch by up to a year even if it got a clean bill of health – members of the consortium have […]

March 24, 2010

Competition probe for Canvas

The UK Office of Fair Trading is to consider a Competition Commission referral for Project Canvas, the video-on-demand service lead by the BBC. Critics including BSkyB and Virgin Media will now be able to formalise their concerns in submissions to the OFT. The outcome of a further review of the project by the BBC Trust […]

March 23, 2010

PM backs Digital tax and 'web institute'

From Colin Mann in London UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that he wants Britain to be the world leader in the digital economy which will create over a quarter of a million skilled jobs by 2020. “Underpinning the digital transformation that we are likely to see over the coming decade is the creation […]

March 23, 2010

KIT buys Multicast

The shakeout of the online video services space continues. KIT Digital, the online video tools player now based in Prague, has bought rival video player Multicast, for about $18 million, a week after it announced closing a $15 million equity offering. Of the $18 million KIT-Multicast deal, $4.9 million is in cash and the rest […]

March 17, 2010

UK piracy bill clears Lords

Legislation to combat Internet piracy in the UK, including Internet bans for persistent illegal file-sharers, has cleared the Lords and now goes to the Commons where it may be rushed through before the general election. Peers passed the Digital Economy Bill, which has cross-party support, after further concessions on a controversial the “catch-all” clause 17. […]

March 17, 2010

Spain puts an end to must-carry

From David Del Valle in Madrid The must-carry obligation traditionally imposed on nation wide terrestrial TV channels to open up their signals to cable and satellite platforms for free distribution is coming to an end in Spain. The new overall TV law (Ley General Audiovisual) frees private TV channels from the must-carry obligation and allows […]

March 16, 2010

Murdoch: governments must punish piracy

James Murdoch has called on governments to get tough on illegal downloading, which he said was no different from shoplifting. He made the call at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. Stressing that future growth would come from original content production, he said: “We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball. The idea […]

March 15, 2010