Ofcom has come out in favour of ‘plurality checks’ of the UK news media every four or five years. And it believes the reviews should include the BBC and online news. So far, so interesting. But Ofcom doesn’t regulate the BBC – it would like to as this policy suggestion indicates – and certainly someone […]
Global, cross-media project the Linked Content Coalition (LCC), launched back in April to address challenges of managing Intellectual Property in the digital age, is holding its first Plenary meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, 20 June. Technical work is being undertaken by executives from news media, publishing, TV, film, music, IT and internet media businesses (including […]
The UK government should review the media landscape “every four or five years” to check that there is a plurality of voices, and this review should include the BBC, says a new report by Ofcom. Alongside the BBC, Ofcom also wants online news to be included in the periodic review, which would aim to prevent […]
Zimbabwean TV viewers are about to lose some of their most popular TV channels. The signals come from neighbouring South Africa, and are broadcast onto satellite by Sentech, South Africa’s state-owned signal carrier. Zimbabwe is claimed to have Africa’s highest broadcast piracy rate. A 3 month transmission ‘grace period’ ended in May following a Johannesburg […]
Controversial TV channel Press TV has had its broadcasting ban lifted by a German court. Press TV had been banned by Munich’s BLM Regulatory office. Press TV had applied to the court to get the ban lifted. Munich’s BLM had applied the ban in early March ruling that Press TV did not have a valid […]
The US Department of Justice is to probe cable providers’ power over how and where consumers can access television over the Internet, according to the WSJ. The investigation has been sparked by cable cos control of the last mile, which will be enhanced if Verizon ceases to be a fixed line competitor in the deal […]
India’s broadcasting regulator has ruled that all TV channel must reduce the number of ad-minutes per hour, and trim the ‘screen clutter’ of scrolling ads during mainstream programming. One popular all-news channel (Hindi TV News) shows 20-24 ad-minutes per hour. The new rules limit the total number of advertisements in any hour to 12 minutes […]
The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Italy to pay €10 million for the non-allocation of frequencies to Europa 7. The Italian broadcaster, owned by Francesco Di Stefano, has for 10 years been deprived of the frequencies to which it was entitled, in violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights […]
The UK Government has outlined the next stages in its review of communications policy. The announcement follows recent speculation that the process was being delayed as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the position of Media Secretary Jeremy Hunt, whose continuation the post had been called into question amid suggestions that he had expressed support […]
O2 and Be Broadband are the latest UK ISPs to block The Pirate Bay. Be Broadband has already started blocking access to the bittorrent tracker, with O2, which owns Be’s network, starting its blocking measures today. O2 and Be Broadband, along with BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Everything Everywhere were issued a court order […]