More Industry News articles

Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, has received a letter from consumer campaign group, the Consumer Panel, urging the watchdog to step in to solve the spat between Branson’s Virgin Media and Murdoch’s BSkyB.While in theory the three million Virgin customers who are now without Sky’s flagship channels can switch, the process is too complex and… Continue reading Consumer Pressure Group Wades In To Virgin/Sky War

A high definition access group has started a campaign to make the television technology available to everyone in the UK.The push, which has been labelled HdforAll, has come from a group of broadcasters, retailers and manufacturers, who say that plans to auction off the airspace required for HDTV to work on the Freeview platform means… Continue reading Campaign Group Applies Some Pressure For HDTV Access

BBC One’s time travelling cop drama, Life On Mars, was watched by almost 4.9 million adults last night, giving the channel around a 22% audience share between 9pm and 10pm.The conclusion of ITV1’s crime drama Fallen Angel, also set in the 70s, failed to gain as many viewers, with a little over 4.6 million adults… Continue reading ITV1 Crime Drama Falls From Grace

GCap Media is launching DAB multimedia adverts across its portfolio of radio stations, including Classic FM, Capital Radio, Planet Rock and The One Network from March 19.The service will see radio commercials accompanied by synchronised messages (known as ‘DABverts’) which appear on the DAB radio screen whilst the ad is playing.The initiative follows successful trials… Continue reading GCap Launches DAB Text Ads

Richard Bacon, presenter of the Xfm drivetime show, is to leave the station at the end of the month, moving to BBC Radio Five Live.Bacon moved to Xfm in August last year (see Drivetime For Bacon In Xfm Reshuffle) having presented the drivetime show on Capital Radio.The presenter of the BBC Three Castaway spin-off, Castaway… Continue reading Five Live Gets Bacon

More than one million households converted to digital television in the three months to the end of December last year in the UK, according to a new report from Ofcom.According to the communications regulator, growth has been driven by another strong quarter for digital terrestrial television (DTT), with total sales of DTT equipment reaching 2.4… Continue reading More Than A Million UK Homes Switch To Digital TV In Q4 ’06

Viacom, owner of MTV, has filed a $1 billion (£520 million) lawsuit against Google concerning the activities of its video-sharing website, YouTube. Viacom has accused Google of “massive intentional copyright infringement” on YouTube, which the search engine giant bought last year for $1.65bn (see Google Acquires YouTube For $1.65 Billion). Viacom claims that around 160,000… Continue reading Viacom Files $1 Bn Lawsuit Against YouTube

ITV Play, the quiz channel which has been under the spotlight recently because of concerns about premium rate phone-lines, has been axed and will be replaced by a new channel, ITV2+1.The channel was taken off-air last week as ITV carried out an internal review of its interactive services.Deloitte, the auditors carrying out the review, cleared… Continue reading ITV Axes Quiz Channel

Viacom Media is to sue search engine giant Google and its website YouTube for $1 billion, for illegal use of its shows.Viacom says that around 160,000 unauthorised clips have been uploaded to the video-sharing website YouTube and have been seen more than 1.5 billion times, meaning that the company has been deprived of advertising revenue.In… Continue reading Viacom Sues YouTube For Copyright Infringement

Flagship BBC One children’s programme, Blue Peter, has joined the ever-growing list of shows to be immersed in the premium rate phone-in scandal.It has emerged that the classic TV format faked the winner of a viewer competition to raise money for the Blue Peter Appeal in aid of Unicef, after the phone lines failed.A technical… Continue reading Blue Peter Fakes Winner, Joins Phone-In Blacklist