BBC licence fee should be scrapped, says thinktank | Media | guardian.co.uk

The 3.5bn annual BBC licence fee should be scrapped and replaced with a voluntary subscription service, initially charging 145 a year, according to a report by the thinktank the Adam Smith Institute. An interim annual fee of 145 the current level of the licence fee would be charged up to 2015, the report proposes, after which BBC services would become subscription-only. Core public service content would include news, but not entertainment genres or most documentary and factual output. - guardian.co.uk

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Head of BBC ALBA Reported to be Seeking More Public Money

He further quotes Esslemont Last year in our own company, MG Alba, we cut everyone else's budget, we put all of our money into the schedule. We're all the time looking to show that money that comes to us will be money that is very well spent. I don't think you'll find a channel that does originations at the cost that we are doing and quality we are doing. - allmediascotland.com

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The new government is the least of the BBCs problems | Media | The Guardian

Truth be told, and Hunt and the BBC know this, cutting the licence fee at this point in time would be relatively easy. The current settlement is stuffed to the gunnels with cash for digital switchover and the move to Manchester, most of which will not be needed post-2012 when the next five-year settlement kicks in. What's more, while greater efficiency is clearly in the public interest, cutting the licence fee will not help Hunt or the government with their spending reductions the licence fee is not in that sense government spending and the BBC is not a government department. - guardian.co.uk

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ITV turns the corner but still needs direction for the future | Business | The Observer

Though it may seem like only yesterday City investors were calling for management scalps at ITV as the share price plunged and advertising all but dried up that's all changed. Interim figures to be published by the company this week should make good viewing advertising is expected to have increased by about 20 on a year ago. Richards believes ITV should do what it does best and focus on improving its offering on ITV1. - guardian.co.uk

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Fear of Mono

Around and about radio enthusiast sites and mass debating pits I notice there continues this horror and fear of mono. Why are radio anorak type people so scared of mono Just because you can broadcast in stereo on FM it doesnt mean you have to, does it - christopherengland.com

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Surfing under the radar to access restricted content online

We are constantly being told there are no barriers to communication with the internet - but in practice that is not strictly true. How are the content providers responding to the challenge of virtual private networks - news.bbc.co.uk

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Richard Desmond eyes pulling Channel Five out of West End | Media | guardian.co.uk

Richard Desmond outside Channel Five's headquarters in London's Covent Garden. Five posted a loss of 41m 34m last year with operating losses of 10m. The terms of Five's lease in Long Acre are not known, but there are likely to be massive savings if a deal can be engineered to locate both operations at one site. - guardian.co.uk

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ITV prepares pay-TV strategy | Media | guardian.co.uk

Elements of the strategy are understood to include the launch of a new channel and a deal relating to high-definition versions of its channels. According to industry sources, ITV intends to launch a new standalone channel brand that would be bundled as part of a package through pay-TV operators' subscription deals. It is believed that the channel would target men. - guardian.co.uk

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Grant Goddard : radio blog: DAB radios slow consumer take-up: lessons not learnt from FM radio 50 years earlier

Efforts to turn dreams into reality come a lot easier if we learn from what has gone before us, what has gone right, and what has gone wrong. This is as true in radio as it is in any human endeavour. The introduction of FM was itself no straightforward matter of replacing its AM forebear, and neither have innovations in radio technology in the half century that followed been unproblematic. - grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com

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Murdoch under pressure to pay more for Sky -Business News, Business - The Independent

Mr Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns close to 40 per cent of Sky, last month expressed its intention to launch a full bid valuing the company at 12.9bn, and is currently undergoing regulatory clearance for an offer. The independent board members evaluating the deal called for an offer closer to 800p. Shares in Sky yesterday closed down 8.5p at 713p. - independent.co.uk

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Media Talk: Wikileaks, HBO and Five

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BBC Trust - Trust finds coverage of the devolved nations significantly improved

Please visit the BBC Trust homepage to find the information you want. you may have typed the web address incorrectly - please check the spelling, or that there are no spaces or capital letters. Alternatively, please try the other links and search box on this page. - bbc.co.uk

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BSkyB profits rise as HD takeup soars | Media | guardian.co.uk

BSkyB's Jeremy Darroch admitted there would be a 'pause for breath' after massive HD growth. Operating profits rose 10 year on year to 855m. BSkyB said that 30 of its 9.86m customer base now had SkyHD and the 429,000 customers who signed up in the quarter represents a 47 increase over the same period last year. - guardian.co.uk

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Iona Jones, chief executive of S4C, quits | Media | guardian.co.uk

The television channel faced growing criticism for its low audience figures. The channel has been warned by the Department for Culture, Media Sport that it faces a potential 24 cut to its annual grant of 101m from October. The S4C authority's chairman, John Walter Jones, said last week he had asked Jones and her management team to assess the implications of cuts, potential changes to its public service content, and the knock-on effect for programme suppliers. - guardian.co.uk

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Which? Tech weekly podcast 29 July 2010 - TV, music and radio - Which? Advice

Sometimes pages move or become out of date and are deleted, so older bookmarks may no longer work. It's possible that the page you were looking for has either changed name or is no longer available. To find what you are looking for, you might like to try one of the following You may like to view our latest videos - which.co.uk

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60 Second Spot: Richard Halton, Project Canvas - Media news - Media Week

RH Project Canvas is an open internet-connected TV platform that will combine broadband and broadcast content and deliver it to consumers through digital terrestrial television. RH Over the summer, all six partners will sign the shareholders agreement to constitute a formal Joint Venture and so become an independent business. Were submitting new specs to the DTG at a rate of three or four every month, with the last set due to be published on 19 August. - mediaweek.co.uk

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BBC Media Show: 28 Jul 10 Channel 5, Ed Richards, Ed Vaizey.

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Ofcom: ITV subsidising channels licensees by as much as 15m a year | Media | guardian.co.uk

Analysts at Liberum today noted that if the way costs are calculated are overhauled in ITV's favour it could prompt mergers and consolidation among the holders of the Channel 3 licences. It is thought that Ofcom's analysis identified a disproportionate payment of about 15m per year. However analysts at Liberum reckon that ITV could benefit by as much as 25m per year in overall savings if there was a restructure. - guardian.co.uk

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Ofcom scraps must sell rule for TV ads | Media | guardian.co.uk

Ofcom has scrapped rules that force ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel Five to sell all their advertising minutes in a move that theoretically could make the broadcasters millions of pounds of extra ad revenue each year. However, since the rule was introduced in 2003 digital TV channel proliferation has reduced the impact of such a strategy. Ofcom's ruling could still benefit Channel 4 and Five to the tune of millions of pounds by giving them more scope to control their TV sales deals. - guardian.co.uk

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Humax to announce portal services at IBC 2010

Humax is to announce new portal services for its internet-enabled set-top boxes, at the IBC conference in Amsterdam, in September. The web portal provides access to online TV services and other content. - techwatch.co.uk

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Channel 4 axes channel controller role in management shakeup | Media | guardian.co.uk

The boost in budget, which will take Channel 4's programming clout back to 550m, follows a series of cuts aimed at protecting the broadcaster's profitability. The increase follows a blistering performance in terms of TV ad sales with Channel 4 recording double-digit year-on-year increases in ad revenue each month so far in 2010. Separately, the Channel 4 chief executive, David Abraham, has announced that the broadcaster's channel controllers will be removed. - guardian.co.uk

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House of Lords launches TV ad market inquiry | Media | guardian.co.uk

The Lords committee will investigate the recent decline in revenues of commercial television companies from the sale of advertising. It will examine the various changes to the regulation of television advertising, which are currently under discussion, and will look at the CRR mechanism. To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editormediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. - guardian.co.uk

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Sky+ Remote Record app hits Android | Electricpig

Sky subscribers with an Android phone in their pocket can finally record shows on the go. The Sky Remote Record app which landed on iPhone last year has migrated to the Android Marketplace. The nifty little app lets you set recordings on your Sky box wherever you are. - electricpig.co.uk

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Channel Five chief reassures staff as experts question strategy | Media | guardian.co.uk

Dawn Airey told Channel Five staff it was 'business as usual'. However, given Desmond's history of cost-cutting, media analysts have already raised the prospect of job cuts among the almost 300 Five staff. Five posted a loss of 41m 34m last year, while operating losses were 10m, with 22m in programme writedowns. - guardian.co.uk

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Ofcom - Increase in UKs average actual broadband speed

The UKs most comprehensive broadband speeds research reveals that the UKs average actual fixed-line residential broadband speed has increased by over 25 per cent over the past year. It reveals that nearly a quarter 24 per cent of UK fixed-line residential broadband connections had a headline or advertised speed of above up to 10Mbit/s in May 2010, compared to just 8 per cent in April 2009. Growing gap between advertised and actual speeds However, the move to faster headline speeds has led to a growing gap between the actual speeds delivered and the speeds that some ISPs use to advertise their services. - consumers.ofcom.org.uk

consumers.ofcom.org.uk

Ofcom: Broadbands broken promises

In fact, he resisted pressure from journalists to be a little more black and white, but that was certainly the regulator's message as he took us through the latest study of the broadband speeds consumers are actually getting. The survey shows there has been a small increase in average speeds but nearly all of that is due to a doubling of what cable customers are getting. Customers still getting their broadband down a copper wire from BT or one of the firms using its Openreach network have seen their average speeds nudge up just a tad from 3.7Mbps to 4.0Mbps. - bbc.co.uk

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Broadband speed gap widening, says Ofcom -Business News, Business - The Independent

The gap between the broadband speeds advertised by internet service providers and the actual speeds customers receive has widened in the past year, the communications watchdog revealed yesterday. The actual average speed of 5.Mb in May was less than half that of the 11.5Mb headline speed, Ofcom reported. A year earlier, the actual speeds were 42 per cent lower than the figure advertised. - independent.co.uk

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Jana Bennett says "we will see more of the UKs nations and regions on the BBC"

I believe there is more we can do to unlock the creative potential that exists across the UK and reflect its communities to our audiences. The BBC will now sharpen its focus on ensuring its content reflects the nations and communities of the UK accurately and authentically. There has been a 50 per cent increase in the level of network production in the nations in the past twelve months, from 7.9 per cent of total network programme spend in 2008 to 11.7 per cent in 2009. - bbc.co.uk

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Transmitter changes will offer partial Freeview service

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Councils in Wales offer services via digital television

26 July 2010 Last updated at 0814 ET Councils across Wales are trialling a digital system for people to contact them via their television. Using their remote control, people can report faulty street lamps, uncollected rubbish or update council tax or benefit details. Cardiff council is the latest to launch a Looking Local service but the Welsh Assembly Government is funding a trial for all 22 councils in Wales. - bbc.co.uk

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The BBC may be a global force but needs to be championed at home | Media | The Guardian

His thesis rested not on the power of the BBC's international reach so much as a potential resolution to the current crisis in American journalism. For someone who is now employed by Bollinger but has spent a large part of my career as a media journalist trying to fathom the contradictions of the BBC, it seems like a very apposite subject for this week. The idea that the BBC is a template for a public presence in a converged media world should make us all feel proud. - guardian.co.uk

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Richard Desmond has big plans for Channel Five | Media | The Guardian

It didn't take long for Richard Desmond, a man whose photo is regularly published in the newspapers he owns, to make an appearance on Five. Desmond will be barred from promoting his newspapers on Five under European rules, but he can give as much free publicity as he chooses to Five's shows in his papers. Digital age Despite the interview in which he committed to keeping news and current affairs, the mood at Five's London offices in Covent Garden is one of anxiety, tinged with regret that a terrestrial channel launched at the dawn of the digital age just 13 years ago has failed to take off in the manner its owners had intended. - guardian.co.uk

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Stephen Glover: Why the kid gloves for Mr Desmond? -Stephen Glover, Opinion - The Independent

Last Friday, Richard Desmond bought the television channel Five for 103m and there was barely a murmur of protest in the media. Yet his purchase of the Daily Express in December 2000 created a terrific hullabaloo. Many thought that a man whose fortune was founded on pornography might not be a proper person to own a national newspaper. - independent.co.uk

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Culture Secretary wants BBC to be open about star pay

Earlier this month the BBC Trust said details of star pay would be revealed in bands, but not individual salaries. The BBC recently announced it would reduce the pay of its top executives and slim down its senior management. - bbc.co.uk

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Vow to fight digital dictatorship From Daily Echo)

Housing bosses want to make sure TVs in council homes dont go blank when traditional analogue signals are switched off in 2012. The council handed a lucrative 2.3m contract to Firstline Digital to install new communal aerials and satellite dishes so that every home to will be able to get Freeview channels or subscribe to Sky or other channels. One new TV socket will be fitted into every home. - dailyecho.co.uk

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Richard Desmond buys channel Five owner for 125m euros

RTL said a recovery in the UK TV advertising market meant now was a good time for it to sell. Last month, Mr Desmond indicated that he wanted to buy the Sun newspaper. Continue reading the main story Analysis Channel Five has always struggled to establish a clear identity - and in the digital world, where advertisers, and most viewers, have dozens of channels to choose from, its place is even less secure. - bbc.co.uk

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Media tycoon Desmond buys TVs Five -TV Radio, Media - The Independent

Newspaper and magazine proprietor Richard Desmond has bought TV channel Five, it was announced today. This might include a revival of Big Brother, which is in its final series on Channel 4. Today's Times newspaper said Mr Desmond had had direct discussions with Endemol, the owner of the programme, about broadcasting it next year. - independent.co.uk

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Desmond: Ill spend on shows and keep Airey | News | Broadcast

It takes just 2 minutes and offers full, instant access to the Broadcast website along with a copy of the magazine delivered every week. - broadcastnow.co.uk

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Richard Desmond promises Channel Five investment, drive and leadership | Media | guardian.co.uk

Sources close to Desmond say that was a statement of intent, with further acquisitions to come. RTL announced its deal with Northern Shell, the private company which controls Desmond's newspaper and magazine titles, to the stock market this evening. Desmond's bid is believed to be twice what his closest rival offered for the company, which made an operating loss of 41m in the last financial year. - guardian.co.uk

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Richard Desmond buys Channel Five for 103.5m | Media | guardian.co.uk

The disposal is in line with RTL Group's strategy of being number one or two in each of our markets. Desmond, who still owns a raft of porn channels, also spent money on OK magazine which lost money for the first six years of his ownership but is now highly profitable. It is unclear what chief executive Dawn Airey's position will be although she is rumoured to be able to move to RTL following any departure from Five. - guardian.co.uk

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TV ad spend recovery stronger than expected | Media | guardian.co.uk

Fears that the recovery in TV ad spend could run out of steam after the World Cup appear to have been unfounded, with expectations for September running as high as a 13 year-on-year increase. However, Channel Five is predicted to post a fall in ad revenue. Current predictions by media agencies forecast total UK TV ad spend for September will be up by about 11 year on year with gross spend at 358m, a 37m increase over last year. - guardian.co.uk

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Feedback: 23 July 2010: 5Live's Men's Hour

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Channel Five: a timeline | Media | guardian.co.uk

1987 The idea of a fifth television channel is placed on the political agenda after two government studies identify spare frequencies. 1988 Booz Allen Consultants recommend a fifth channel, saying it will reduce ITV's monopoly power and reduce advertisers' costs. Fifth channel formally included in broadcasting white paper. - guardian.co.uk

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BBC Mobile Apps go live

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BBC concludes Public Value Test not required for mobile apps

Please visit the BBC Trust homepage to find the information you want. you may have typed the web address incorrectly - please check the spelling, or that there are no spaces or capital letters. Alternatively, please try the other links and search box on this page. - bbc.co.uk

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Richard Desmond shakes hands on Five buyout | Media | guardian.co.uk

Richard Desmond reached an agreement with the owner of Bertelsmann in the early hours of this morning, according to sources. The deal is still to be ratified by the board of parent company Bertelsmann in Germany later this afternoon but few insiders expect a hitch. Desmond, who still owns a raft of porn channels, also spent money on OK magazine which lost money for the first six years of his ownership but is now highly profitable. - guardian.co.uk

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BBC News iPhone and iPad app to launch in UK

The free-to-download apps for Apple products were originally due to be made available in April 2010. The UK launch was delayed while the BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, assessed the proposals and their impact on the rest of the industry. Similar apps for BBC Sport and iPlayer will also be coming soon. - bbc.co.uk

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Richard Desmond to bring back Top of the Pops if Five bid successful | Media | guardian.co.uk

If he does press ahead with plans for a music show, Desmond may simply dust down the format and choose a different name. To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editormediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. - guardian.co.uk

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S4C faces 24% cut in grant | Media | guardian.co.uk

Sources close to the channel and to the DCMS say that they expect S4C to face a 24 cut overall, phased in with a 6 reduction for each of the next four years, starting in 2011. The level of annual grant is announced in November, and under the format established in 1996 has traditionally been tied to the RPI. The channel initially received a grant of 101.647m for 2010, and also benefits from free programmes, including Welsh news and Pobol-y Cwm, its soap opera, worth an extra 25m. - guardian.co.uk

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Richard Desmond to face MPs if he wins Channel Five bid | Media | The Guardian

Desmond is likely to be named tomorrow as the preferred buyer for the company, according to industry sources. The deal is unlikely to be blocked by regulators because there are no competition issues. Desmond's combined share of the UK media market will still be relatively small if the purchase goes ahead. - guardian.co.uk

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