A New Zealand judge has ordered Kim Dotcom, the founder of online file-sharing site Megaupload.com, to be held in custody for another month, saying the suspected Internet pirate posed a significant flight risk. Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, was remanded in custody until February 22nd ahead […]
Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, has supported the decision by US legislators to put a hold on the contentious SOPA and PIPA bills and seek a better anti-piracy solution. She also confirmed that the Commission would present a European ‘Cloud’ Strategy, as well as issuing a paper on […]
Channel 4 is to boost its programming budget by about £50 million (€60m) in 2012, as the broadcaster struggles to address a fall of almost 10 per cent in viewing by 16- to 34- year-olds. David Abraham, the chief executive of Channel 4, is set to announce that the broadcaster intends to boost its programming […]
FremantleMedia Enterprises has announced a digital licensing agreement with Netflix to bring a raft of classic comedy and drama titles to Netflix members across the UK and Ireland. Netflix has acquired 115 hours of FME’s extensive programming catalogue including Australian crime series, The Strip; and popular drama, Falcon Beach.
The BBC has announced an extension of its deal with SFR across its satellite, DSL and fibre offers. The international news and information channel is now available on SFR satellite neufbox TV offer (channel 221). Formerly included in the package le Bouquet Sélection, BBC World News became available last month on SFR’s neufbox and neufbox […]
The USA’s Weather Channel is looking to expand overseas. On January 24th it announced a new CEO, David Kenny. Weather Channel is owned by a consortium led by Bain Capital, Blackstone Group and NBC Universal. Kenny is already a director of Yahoo, and most recently held a senior position at Akamai. He said he’d like […]
ES3 and Pace have formed a partnership for intelligent customer care and self-service TV applications for Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV Operators. Under this new partnership, ES3 and Pace will work together on utility-based TV applications leveraging the intelligence of Pace’s hardware, Customer Care and service management programmes. Jonathan Cobb, SVP Services at Pace commented, “This extended […]
Bouygues Telecom and cloud gaming company Playcast Media Systems have announced the launch of Bbox games, a cloud gaming service for France. For the first time in Europe, Bouygues Telecom triple play subscribers will be able to play console-quality video games on their TVs without requiring additional hardware. Bouygues Telecom’s Bbox IPTV subscribers will have […]
News Corp is making a play for the 50 million-strong Hispanic market in the US with plans to launch a free-to-air Spanish-language television network this autumn in partnership with RCN Television Group, the Colombian broadcaster. Branded ‘MundoFox’, it will go up against Univision, the private equity-owned market leader in Spanish language television in the US, […]
BBC Worldwide has selected Comcast Media Center (CMC) to deliver programming from CBeebies, its Spanish-language TV channel for pre-school children, via the CMC’s VoD content distribution platform, the two companies have confirmed. CMC’s VoD distribution encompasses cable systems across multiple MSOs serving more than 56 million VoD-enabled households in the US and Canada.