The BBC licence fee is expected to rise by 3% over each of the next two years, seeing the current price rise from £131.50 currently to a maximum of £151 by 2012.Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is also expected to announce today that a borrowing limit of between £220 million and £230 million will be set,… Continue reading BBC Licence Fee To Rise 3%

The Food Standards Agency last night launched a series of TV advertisements raising awareness of traffic light colour-coded front of pack food labelsThe ad aired for the first time last night at 7.45pm on ITV during Coronation Street. Other marketing activity to accompany the TV work will feature in the press, on poster sites and… Continue reading Food Standards Agency Launches Ad Campaign

Regulator Ofcom is to revamp its regulation of short-term radio licences, which could see a host of new stations able to cover events such as conferences.Following a consultation which showed backing for proposals to liberalise restrictions on 28-day restricted service licences (RSLs), Ofcom has decided to extend the number of short-term RSLs.Long-term RSLs will also… Continue reading Ofcom Reviews Regulation Of Short-Term Radio Licences

The Carphone Warehouse has pulled out of its sponsorship of the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother, apparently unhappy with the furore surrounding alleged racism and bullying.The Carphone Warehouse began its sponsorship of Big Brother two years ago with its TalkTalk brand before moving the sponsorship to its main brand last year.Complaints about the show… Continue reading Carphone Warehouse Suspends Celeb Big Bro Sponsorship

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is expected to announce today that the BBC will be set a borrowing limit of between £220 million and £230 million, a figure far less than the £400 million the BBC had sought. The licence fee is expected to rise by 3% over each of the next two years, following which… Continue reading BBC Borrowing Limit To Be £230 Million

Shares in Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times have reached a five year high, amid speculation that the FT could be sold off or that there could be a US buyout of the entire group. Shares had reached 835.5p as of 9am today, a five year high following an increase of 24.5p yesterday. The Financial… Continue reading Pearson Could Sell FT

There were over 4 billion text messages sent in the UK during December 2006, according to figures announced today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). It is the first time that text messages have broken through the 4 billion mark, and this huge total takes the overall figure for 2006 to 41.8 billion, beating the… Continue reading Record 4 Billion Texts Sent In December

A new report from eMarketer estimates that there will be 136.1 million Europeans online in the five largest European Union countries and advertisers will spend $7.5 billion to reach all Western Europeans, up 25% from $6.0 billion last year. The Europe Online Advertising report analyzes the many, diverse factors driving internet advertising growth throughout the… Continue reading Western European Online Advertising To Reach $7.5 Billion

By 2010 more than half (55%) of all the video content consumed online in the US will be user generated, representing 44 billion video streams, according to a new forecast from Screen Digest. Screen Digest says that the user generated online video market (UGOV) exploded in 2006 and by the end of the year, user… Continue reading US User Generated Content To Grow

The founders of VoIP service Skype, entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, have named their new social-networking meets TV-programming internet venture Joost.Previously code-named the Venice Project, Joost is currently undergoing testing. It is described by its creators as putting together the “best of TV and the best of the internet” by creating a piracy-proof online… Continue reading Skype Founders Launch New Internet Project