French independent labels collecting society SPPF has filed a lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement. The producers’ body said that more than 100 music videos from its catalogue, which had been taken down by YouTube in 2008 following SPPF’s request, were again available on the service in some form. SPPF is now seeking E10 million […]
The Broadband Forum has published the latest broadband and IPTV statistics, which show impressive growth in the face of the global economic downturn. Its report, prepared for the Forum by industry analysts Point Topic, shows that global broadband grew by 16.6 million lines in the first quarter 2009 alone, while IPTV subscribers approach 24 million, […]
Australia's free-to-air TV networks have called on the federal government to impose tough new regulations on future Internet TV services to prevent them grabbing premium sport and other content. Free TV Australia, representing the Seven, Nine, Ten, ABC and SBS networks, argued the anti-siphoning content rules for pay-TV should include IPTV. In its submission on […]
From Branislav Pekic in Rome The “New Media: Challenges and Opportunities of Development for the Italian Market” study from Ernst & Young has revealed that IPTV penetration remains low, with only 600.000 users in Italy, compared to the estimated 5 million for DTH platform Sky Italian and DTT pay-TV operator Mediaset Premium. According to Ernst […]
The 'round robin' on the OpenTV non-takeover by its biggest shareholder continues. The Kudelski Group, has commented on Discovery Group's recommendation that OpenTV buys out Kudelski Group's stake in OpenTV: "The Kudelski Group confirms that it is not interested in selling its shares of OpenTV…Kudelski Group reiterates its commitment to remain OpenTV's controlling shareholder and […]
The chief executive of BT Vision, Dan Marks, has quit to pursue his own interests. IPTV service BT Vision is at the heart of the UK telco’s efforts to move beyond traditional phone services. But Marks warned that without an acceleration to Ofcom’s review of the pay-TV sector, enabling BT to access BSkyB’s premium film […]
According to UBS Research, AT&T is slowing the deployment of their “next-generation” VDSL IPTV service, U-Verse. UBS initially expected AT&T to pass 11 million homes in 2009, but has 're-guesstimated' that AT&T will pass just 4-5 million homes this year. That would be down from 9 million in 2008. AT&T admits there’s been a recession-related […]
The BBC Trust has delayed its decision on the go-ahead of the BBC lead Project Canvas as it calls on more detail from BBC executives and their partners BT and ITV. The Trust, which had decided there was no need for a commercial impact assessment, was due to make a decision in July, however all […]
Lionsgate said it will sell a 49% stake in TV Guide Network – which it recently acquired from Macrovision Solutions — to JPMorgan Chase’s private equity arm and TV producer Allen Shapiro for about $123 million in cash. One Equity Partners, the global private equity investment arm of JPMorgan Chase, will become a 49% equity […]
Italian telcos Fastweb, Telecom italia and Wind have partnered to launch a website providing consumer information on IPTV services, intended to fuel subscriber growth to their respective IPTV services. The site also provides information to Italian consumers in the run up to the digital switchover in 2012. The site offers information on IPTV platforms, the […]