Advanced Television

Regulation

EU Parliament rejects digital content Single Market

The European Parliament has confirmed by 365 to 256 that the ability of users to access all their media across Europe will be restricted to news and current affairs – effectively upholding geoblocking on most content and flying in the face of the Commission’s Digital Single Market proposals. The EC’s SatCab proposals had been designed […]

December 13, 2017

Disney, Fox deal expected

The move by the Walt Disney Co to acquire much of the Murdoch family’s 21st Century Fox movie-to-TV empire very much looks like happening this week. The deal has been valued as costing Disney some $60 billion (€51bn). Comcast dropped out of the rumoured bidding process for Fox on December 10th. Various sources say the […]

December 13, 2017By Chris Forrester

Mediaset seeks ad cap for RAI

The vice president and managing director of Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, has proposed the introduction of an advertising cap on its main rival, public broadcaster RAI. In an interview for daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, he pointed out that RAI is a “hybrid” broadcaster, living off both the TV licence fee and […]

December 13, 2017From Branislav Pekic in Rome

Concern as Polish regulator censures US-owned channel

KRRiT, the Polish media regulator, has fined TVN24, a private broadcaster, 1.5 million złoty (€352,000) for coverage of anti-government protests outside parliament. The regulator said the coverage “propagated illegal activities and encouraged behaviour threatening security”. US-owned TVN SA said it would appeal the decision and defended TVN24, which covered demonstrations last December over government proposals to […]

December 13, 2017

Open standards key to boosting IoT value chain

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) must adopt an open standards approach if they are to make the most of the revenue opportunities presented by Internet of Things (IoT) applications that use Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks. A common IoT service layer will result in increased cost-effectiveness, improved scalability and greater confidence that today’s IoT deployments […]

December 13, 2017

EU agencies claim IP enforcement success

Intensive cooperation and coordination between enforcement authorities at EU level has led to the seizure of millions of fake and possibly harmful products and has helped to take down several transnational criminal networks. At the forefront of this cooperation is the Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC3), set up within the current structure of Europol, […]

December 13, 2017By Colin Mann

Analyst: Net neutrality repeal is revenue risk

As expectations build for the repeal of net neutrality, business information provider IHS Markit has released a report that examines the history of the topic and explores the relevant data on competition that defines the outlook for the Internet should current protections be removed. If as expected the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in its next […]

December 13, 2017

Cox reaffirms commitment to Open Internet

In advance of the December 14th FCC vote expected to overturn existing laws governing Net Neutrality, broadband communications and entertainment company Cox Communications, the third-largest US cable MSO, has reaffirmed its commitment to what it describes as “the Open Internet”. “Cox has always been committed to providing an open Internet experience for our customers, and […]

December 13, 2017

CASBAA calls for India broadcast policy reforms

Speaking at the India Satcom 2017 forum in New Delhi, Joe Welch, Chairman of regional Pay-TV industry association CASBAA, applauded the Indian government’s emphasis on improving the ease of doing business in the country. A great deal of attention has been paid to the power and infrastructure sectors, Welch noted, but “the key to […] […]

December 13, 2017

DVB-T2 households to reach 72% by 2022 in Europe

Dataxis research sheds light on the importance that DVB‐T2, the extension of the television standard DVB‐T, will acquire in the upcoming years. This system was devised to enable a better signal compression to broadcast digital television. It became the widespread standard of all recent DTT deployment and is currently being rolled out to replace DVB‐T […]

December 12, 2017