News Corporation has become a strategic investor in online video company ROO Group, for an estimated $12 million (£6 million). Roo Group currently handles video distribution for the News Corporation’s The Times and The Australian online versions. Under the agreement News Corporation will receive up to a 5% interest of the current fully diluted shares… Continue reading News Corp Invests In Online Video Company

IPC has poached editorial staff from Grazia and The People‘s Take It Easy magazine for the launch of its new women’s weekly, Look.The editorial line-up for the new mag, which focuses on high street fashion and celebrity style, has just been confirmed, with Ali Hall leading a 40 strong editorial team.Hall, formerly editor of More,… Continue reading Look Poaches Staff For Editorial Team

Practical Parenting is marking its 20th birthday with a revamp that is intended to boost the magazine’s sophistication and cater further to its ABC1 readership.The new look is introduced in the March issue of the magazine, which goes on sale from February 1.IPC says that Practical Parenting‘s redesign will give the magazine a more stylish… Continue reading Practical Parenting Gets Birthday Revamp

Endemol has cancelled all the votes cast so far for Friday’s Celebrity Big Brother eviction, following an on-screen error which meant viewers were voting to evict Shilpa Shetty when they thought they were saving her from being kicked off the show.At the end of Wednesday night’s show, although the voice-over was correct and stated “To… Continue reading Big Bro Blunder Signals Further Woe For C4

Michael Grade, ITV’s new executive chairman, has hired Carolyn Fairbairn to lead the broadcaster’s corporate development and strategy team. Fairbairn was the former director of strategy at the BBC, and previously worked with Grade when he was BBC chairman (see BBC Chairman Jumps Ship To ITV Top Job). He said her experience of “broadcasting and… Continue reading Grade Hires Fairbairn To Boost ITV

Over 55s are set to be at the forefront of Freeview takeup in the UK over the next two years, with channels such as BBC4 and ITV3 set to benefit the most. A new report from media analyst DGA says that digital switchover has so far occurred at an uneven rate, with viewers aged 55+… Continue reading UK Digital Platforms Set For ‘Grey Boom’

Nielsen Analytics has released a new report which reveals that advertisers and television programmers are finding new and more lucrative advertising opportunities with broadband video. The study also determined that the use of broadband video actually extends the reach of traditional TV, and that broadband consumers are young, affluent, highly educated, and tend to have… Continue reading Ad Opportunities To Grow With Broadband Video

According to a new study from ABI Research, micropayments for consoles alone will account for over $833 million by 2011, as console vendors and their publisher partners look to monetise both in-game and game-related assets beyond initial game purchases. ABI says that as increasing numbers of gamers participate in multiplayer gaming and community features enabled… Continue reading Gaming To Be Increasingly Monetised

With digital terrestrial television (DTT) subscriber numbers forecast to expand from less than 36 million in 2006 to 89 million in 2012, and broadcasters preparing for digital switch-over, the market dynamics of local and regional over-the-air video transmission are quickly changing, according to a new report from ABI Research. ABI says that the result of… Continue reading Analogue Switch-off Dates Forcing Broadcasters to Think Digital

The latest consumer internet research from Point Topic shows that there is a high level of interest in mobile internet applications. BroadBand Consumer Survey 3 (CS3) was carried out in December 2006 by Ipsos MORI and YouGov. They interviewed a representative national sample of 6,500 households in the UK. Point Topic’s initial analysis of those… Continue reading High Level Of Interest In Mobile Internet