Thursday 26 February 2015, AM
BBC strategy chief: people would pay more and get less with subscriptions
The BBC's strategy chief has said everyone would lose out if the BBC became a subscription service, which he said would hit Sky revenues and advertising on ITV and Channel 4. In response to a select committee report into the future of the BBC which called for the abolition of the BBC Trust and an exploration of other funding models, James Purnell championed the BBC's Hilary Mantel adaptation, Wolf Hall, which has just finished on BBC2, which he described as quotOne of the best programmes for generationsquot. - www.theguardian.com
www.theguardian.comBBC future report: no long-term licence fee; end of the trust; less content is more
The public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, must be given quotUnrestricted accessquot to the BBC's accounts, something which has been fiercely resisted by the BBC. Ofcom's regulatory powers over the BBC should be extended to include accuracy and impartiality. BBC services have quotStood up remarkably wellquot during the explosion of choice in the digital era with new services such as iPlayer and BBC Radio 6 Music. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comStarting gun fired in BBC charter battle
Daily Mail headlines last year may have sounded the death knell for the BBC licence fee, but it has taken a group of MPs headed by a Thatcherite to decide that the compulsory levy is going to be difficult to replace any time soon. Thursday's report by the culture, media and sport select committee is simply the firing gun in the charter renewal battle that will wage all the way through to the end of 2016, when the current charter governing the BBC ends. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
BBC's licence fee should be decriminalised then scrapped, MPs say
quotThe principle of the licence fee in its current form is becoming harder sustain. We conclude that a degree of subscription could be a possibility in future if the BBC moved to a more personalised ervice, but as a minimum the licence fee should be amended to cover catch up TV as soon as possible. A BBC spokesman said quotThis report confirms the importance of the BBC in national life and recommends maintaining and modernising the licence fee, something we have said is necessary. - www.telegraph.co.uk
www.telegraph.co.ukWednesday 25 February 2015, PM
Media: Can BBC Three be bought?; how BARB measures TV audiences; 'FIFA Files' journalists win award.
downloads.bbc.co.uk
5G researchers manage record connection speed
The speed is more than 65,000 times faster than average 4G download speeds. The regulator said it expected 5G mobile to be capable of delivering between 10 and 50Gbps, compared with the 4G average download speed of 15Megabits per second. - www.bbc.co.uk
www.bbc.co.ukBBC3: Danny Cohen's letter to Jon Thoday and Jimmy Mulville
The media behaviour of these six- to 12-year-olds needs to shape the future of BBC3. The BBC needs to change now so as to learn how to serve them best not just for the sake of BBC3 but to help secure the long-term relevance and strength of the BBC overall. Nor would the BBC be willing to allow a third-party company to decide the editorial direction of a BBC branded channel in the UK. We would also not wish to risk invalidating the BBC trademark by splitting it. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comWednesday 25 February 2015, AM
BBC Trust probes potential EU rule breach over local TV
The BBC Trust is investigating whether EU rules may have been breached after £25m of licence fee funding was ploughed into launching local television. A report by auditor KPMG, commissioned by the Trust last year, has raised concerns that EU state aid clearances may have been misinterpreted when the broadcasting network for local TV was put in place. The Trust plans to discuss the issues over the coming weeks with the Department for Culture Media and Sport and Comux (DCMS), the organisation in charge of the network’s roll-out. KPMG’s concerns are understood to focus on around 8% of the £25m of licence fee spend and whether certain infrastructure costs formed part of the EU state aid clearance. - www.broadcastnow.co.uk
www.broadcastnow.co.ukTuesday 24 February 2015, PM
Danny Cohen aims to rid BBC of 'addiction' to overnight ratings
Danny Cohen will attempt to wean staff off their “addiction” to the overnight ratings by introducing sophisticated internal data, which will also how reveal how the BBC is reaching underserved viewers. The BBC director of television has invited his division to sign up to two distinct daily emailed reports, which will be grounded in Barb data but offer a more rounded picture of how the corporation’s shows are performing. The first email, titled the Live+7 Report, will offer commissioners and producers a total audience figure encompassing four sets of data: live and viewed on same day as live, consolidated, narrative repeats and iPlayer viewing. - www.broadcastnow.co.ukwww.broadcastnow.co.uk
Ofcom announces trials to help small stations join digital radio
If the trials are successful, UK radio listeners could benefit from more local and community radio stations on DAB.Currently, the cost of broadcasting on DAB is beyond the reach of many small radio stations. Digital radio in the UK. Almost half of UK adults say they now own a digital DAB radio set and 37.9 of all radio listening is digital. - media.ofcom.org.ukmedia.ofcom.org.ukMonday 23 February 2015, PM
Younger Americans generally watching less
According to Nielsen they watched 17 hours 34 minutes a week watching television, 1 hour and 43 minutes watching time-shifted television, and 1 hour 46 minutes watching video online. Back in the third quarter of 2011, Nielsen reported that those aged 18-24 watched 24 hours and 11 minutes of traditional television, 1 hour 39 minutes of time-shifted television, and just 46 minutes of online video. - informitv.com
informitv.comMonday 23 February 2015, AM
Ofcom probes London Lives local programming commitments
Ofcom has held talks with London Live to assess whether the local television station is meeting its commitments to first run local programming. The media regulator has “sought further information” from the Evening Standard-backed station about its content line-up and is now in the process of deciding whether to launch a formal investigation. Ofcom’s approach earlier this month was prompted by questions over the number of repeats in London Live’s schedule - which was reported in The Guardian - and Broadcast’s analysis of the channel’s January output. London Live has a commitment to broadcast an average of eight hours of “first run local programming” a day, three of which must be between 6pm and 10.30pm. It was these pledges in its 12-year licence that London Live attempted to radically reduce last year. - www.broadcastnow.co.ukwww.broadcastnow.co.ukSunday 22 February 2015, AM
Channel 4 could be sold for ?1bn by a new Tory government - TV Radio - Media - The Independent
It warned quotChannel 4's not-for-profit status means it can take risks on the content it commissions,quot it concluded. The discussions come after the Liberal Democrats vetoed a proposal by Tory ministers to examine the case for selling off Channel 4 last autumn. - www.independent.co.uk
www.independent.co.ukSaturday 21 February 2015, PM
Big Centre TV set to go live in Black Country ? Express Star
Freeview viewers may need to re-tune their Freeview TVs, boxes or recorders if they wish to watch Big Centre TV. Ofcom's broadcast licensing committee awarded the local TV licence to Kaleidoscope TV, the holding company for Big Centre TV, following the collapse of City TV last year. The commitments include an initial 41 hours of local programmes a week, including a 90-minute breakfast show, news at noon and a half-hour programme of news at 6pm and 10pm. IT also plans to show 40 hours of repeats. - www.expressandstar.com
www.expressandstar.comFriday 20 February 2015, PM
#23B - BBC World Service's Owain Rich on Drones - Media Podcast with Olly Mann
feedproxy.google.comFeedback: coverage of the Dresden bombings: 20 Feb 15
downloads.bbc.co.ukFriday 20 February 2015, AM
Consumers TV-Viewing Habits Detailed In New Study
Nearly half of SVOD subscribers have found new programming through streaming that the then watch on live TV. More than seven in ten viewers say networks that they already watch are an important source of information about new programming. SVOD subscribers are more favorable toward program quality than nonsubscribers with 60 percent saying, quotThere are more high quality programs availablequot and 70 percent say there is a quotGreater variety of programs than in the past. - www.hollywoodreporter.com
www.hollywoodreporter.comSir Hugh Greene, BBC radical, dies at 76: from the archive, 20 February 1987
Sir Hugh Greene, the former director-general of the BBC who presided over the radical transformation of the corporation's output in the 1960s, died in a London hospital yesterday, aged 76. Mr Alasdair Milne, who recently retired as BBC director-general, said last night 'Hugh Greene was a great liberalising influence in the BBC. With his background as a foreign correspondent in Germany and Poland before the war and his command of the BBC's German service during the war, he had a unique experience of the journalistic side of the BBC. 'He was therefore a natural choice as director-general in 1960. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comWar on the BBC: the triumphs and turbulence of the Thatcher years
Papers in the BBC archives dating from the late 50s show her bouncing on to the BBC stage as a new MP. She was recognised straight away by the Corporation as one to watch. When Thatcher intervened in the constitutional conventions that had guarded the Corporation's independence from government, Whitelaw cashed in his loyalty to the prime minister to protect the BBC. The Home Office often came to the BBC's aid. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comThursday 19 February 2015, AM
New HTTP/2 protocol to speed up the web is approved
18 February 2015 Last updated at 1909 A new web protocol that promises to speed up internet browsing has been approved. The Internet Engineering Steering Group has accepted the protocol, one of its senior members wrote in a blogpost on Wednesday. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukDTG :: News :: Internet access should be a basic right, House of Lords report says
Produced by the digital skills committee of the House of Lords, the report written for the incoming government stresses that a robust digital strategy is critical to the country's future. The report, called 'Make or Break The UK's Digital Future', says quotDigital technology is changing all our lives, work, society and politics. It brings with it huge opportunities for the UK, but also significant risks. This demands an ambitious approach which will secure the UK's position as a digital leader. - dtg.org.ukdtg.org.ukWednesday 18 February 2015, PM
Media: Advertisers and editorial; British drama; "Immigration Street"
downloads.bbc.co.uk
Save BBC Three petition delivered to BBC Trust
Campaigners against proposals to turn digital station BBC Three into an online-only channel in the autumn have delivered a petition, signed by more than 270,000 people, to the BBC Trust. After the protest they marched the short distance to the BBC's Trust headquarters to hand the petition to Jon Cowdock, the Trust's head of business strategy. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukWednesday 18 February 2015, AM
Why is the BBC just so bad at TV news?
Over on the BBC's dedicated news channel - formerly known as BBC News 24 - the lead item at 9pm was pensioner bonds, followed at a quick trot by reports on Prince Charles's fogeyish thoughts about Islamist militancy on the Ukraine on hospital trust finances on Labour promises and Tory rejoinders and on Tony Abbott's shaky majority in the Australian parliament. To spend any length of time with the BBC's rolling news is to be assailed, despite skilled presenters like Simon McCoy, by a terrible creeping blandness, because BBC News has its comfort zones where it dwells whenever possible. - www.independent.co.ukwww.independent.co.uk
Trust gets petition to save BBC Three
17 February 2015 Last updated at 1705 Campaigners have delivered a petition signed by about 271,000 people asking the BBC to reconsider the decision to axe BBC Three as a digital television channel. A BBC spokesperson said 'With the licence fee frozen we've had to make some difficult choices in order to save pound800m a year, including moving BBC Three online. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukTuesday 17 February 2015, PM
Listeners complain about lost streams
The problem stems from the BBC switching off certain old systems used to deliver audio streams to particular devices. 5 live listeners who now get their station stream as an international Shoutcast are finding it's missing the sport as the BBC does not hold the international rights. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukIndependent review into TV Licence Enforcement seeks views
The Review is looking at options for changing the current enforcement measures, including the decriminalisation of TV licence evasion offences, and whether these options would represent an improvement to the existing system. Reform of current system leave the current offence as it stands but reform the current criminal enforcement system. - www.gov.uk
www.gov.uk'Save BBC3' campaigners deliver petition to BBC Trust
Campaigners have delivered a petition signed by more than a quarter of a million people calling on the BBC not to axe digital station BBC3. The petition, signed by 271,222 people, was delivered to the BBC Trust, which has yet to rule on the plan to take the youth-oriented station online-only. quotJono Read, who set up the petition, saidquotOnly last month the BBC Trust claimed that they want to give power to the people rather than leaving important decisions within the hands of a 'small elite' management at the BBC. quotIf they genuinely mean this they will listen to the 270,000 people who have signed the Change.org petition against the closure of BBC3, and the views of key BBC3 talent who are dead set against the proposals. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comTuesday 17 February 2015, AM
World Have Your Say TV faces axe
Only a year ago, this same team - currently led by acting editor David Mazower - faced the prospect of losing their jobs as part of cuts announced to the News division the World Service radio programme would go to save money. WHYS presenter Tilley takes up the argument, explaining that if the team had been told it was about the editorial direction of the programme, they'd hold their hands up and respect the decision of the people in charge of the channel. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukDTG :: News :: Ofcom approves use of innovative 'TV white space' wireless technology
White space spectrum in the TV frequency band appeals to industry because it can travel longer distances and more easily through walls than the bands used by other wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. This announcement follows a series of successful industry trials, where TV white space was used to serve innovative purposes, from internet access for ships in the Orkney Islands to video streaming of animals at ZSL London Zoo. DTG Testing played a key role in this development, carrying out comprehensive tests on 50 TVs, the results of which were used to verify Ofcom's framework for the power levels at which TV white space devices can operate without causing interference to TV. Ofcom is also exploring how the white space from other frequency bands can be used in the future. - dtg.org.ukdtg.org.ukDisused Stations: Palace Gates Station
In an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the Palace as a tourist attraction the Great Eastern resurrected their line from Seven Sisters but this time it was a more modest scheme, terminating at a station called Palace Gates adjacent to the GNR's Wood Green station and avoiding the steep climb up to the Palace. The Palace Gates branch was at its height in the early 20th century with a 30-minute interval off-peak service to Liverpool Street with 41 up and 38 down trains between Palace Gates and Liverpool Street and an hourly weekday service to North Woolwich. - www.disused-stations.org.ukwww.disused-stations.org.ukMonday 16 February 2015, PM
Anger over BBC radio streaming changes
The BBC is also working with the radio industry and manufacturers towards using just one standard, known as Mpeg Dash, which will be industry-wide and open source, said Andrew Scott, the BBC's head of radio music product. Changes to the Shoutcast stream have left the owners of devices receiving it unable to hear BBC Sport content, wrote Henry Webster, the BBC's head of media services, on the BBC Internet Blog. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.uk
BBC and community reporters hook up
16 February 2015 Last updated at 1556 BBC local radio journalists will work with community reporters next week to tell new stories and bring new voices to each patch. The mentoring project is the first fruit of a new national agreement between the BBC and the Community Media Association, the UK representative body for the community broadcasting sector, that builds on earlier cooperation between the two groups at local level. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukVirgin Media to expand cable footprint
Virgin Media, with the support of parent company Liberty Global, plans to expand its cable footprint to a further four million homes and businesses in the United Kingdom, taking its addressable market to 17 million premises. Liberty Global has a total of 14.80 million digital video customers in Europe, and a further 7.49 million analogue customers, giving a total of 23.10 million video customers and 16.13 million internet subscribers across the region. - informitv.cominformitv.comMonday 16 February 2015, AM
SES BRINGS TOGETHER EXPERTS OF THE ULTRA HD ECOSYSTEM
While on the one hand, sales of UHD screens are expected to increase to two million by 2017, and the range of UHD devices is already widening - 75 models will be offered in 2015, on the other hand price erosion is also foreseen. Thomas Wrede, VP Reception Systems at SES, closed the event by stating that SES was very aware that the pace of innovation in UHD was challenging. - www.ses.com
www.ses.comSaturday 14 February 2015, AM
A time capsule of the BBC at Alexandra Palace?
In due course, most television production moved to Lime Grove studios in Shepherds Bush and then the BBC's new Television Centre. quotYou're brought through to Studio A, where it happened,quot he says, quotAnd Studio A is gradually revealed to you through a series of curtains, using sound and light and images and audio-visual presentation, dramatically using real characters to tell the story of the competing technologies, and the amazingly cobbled-together but dramatic moment when they began to broadcast, and beyond into colour television and all the things that happened here. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.uk://A time capsule of the BBC at Alexandra Palace
-Friday 13 February 2015, PM
Feedback: Do we need more good news? 13 Feb 15
downloads.bbc.co.uk
Audio Factory: update
We have retained a single SHOUTcast stream of each service using the mp3 codec to support devices that cannot support these protocols. We have been communicating our plans to manufacturers and aggregators for the last 12 months but we are aware that some devices will not be able to receive these new formats, or there may be gaps in service as manufacturers work to deliver upgrades to devices to make them compatible with our new streams. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.uk#23 - Premier League rights, ITV ratings, radio listening figures - The Media Podcast with Olly Mann
feedproxy.google.comDTG :: News :: DTG Testing hits 100 product milestone for Digital Radio Tick Mark
DTG Testing, the UK's only accredited house testing against the Digital Radio Tick Mark specification, has successfully tested more than 100 different DAB products. Ed Vaizey, Minister of Culture and the Digital Economy, recently announced the single biggest expansion of local digital radio coverage-182 new digital transmitters-which will provide eight million more people with access to their local radio stations by 2016. - dtg.org.ukdtg.org.ukFriday 13 February 2015, AM
NBC s opportunity BuzzMachine
NBC has a chance to reinvent television news without the plastic personality, the manufactured celebrity, the staged reality, the smarmy transitions, the bullshit BREAKING NEWS, the weather panic, the repetition, the predictability, the sensationalism, the insulting simplicity, the false balance, the lying anchor, and the single point of failure that has been its business model. The entire structure of NBC news is still built around Brian Williams The news is who reads it. - buzzmachine.combuzzmachine.comThursday 12 February 2015, PM
DTG :: News :: DTG welcomes Freeview Play connected TV brand update
The D-Book8 DTT Interoperability specification will lay the technical bedrock for a robust hybrid service as it evolves beyond traditional broadcast TV. Digital UK and DTG Testing have already signed an agreement to develop a test suite for Freeview Play, which DTG Testing is now building with leading CE manufacturers. The ongoing cooperation between Freeview, the DTG and Digital UK builds on the success and experience of Freeview HD, developing the technical framework and managing conformance of products entering the retail market, which has seen it become the UK's most-watched high definition TV platform. - dtg.org.ukdtg.org.ukSES BRINGS ULTRA HD DEMO CHANNEL TO THE UK AND IRELAND
Luxembourg, 12 February 2015 - SES S.A. announced today that its Ultra High Definition demonstration channel is now available in the UK and Ireland. SES is the world-leading satellite operator with a fleet of more than 50 geostationary satellites. - www.ses.comwww.ses.comFreeview Play takes on YouView, adds catch-up directly in EPG
Freeview has announced its newly rebranded service, Freeview Play. Guy North, Freeview managing director said quotFreeview has been built on a vision to make television available to all free from subscription. In the same way that we took the UK from analogue to digital, Freeview Play is the next step in that vision and it will put the viewer in control, without complexity, commitment or unnecessary cost - we want to keep television fair and open for everyone. That means giving consumers the freedom to choose the TV they want, the way they want it. - www.pocket-lint.comwww.pocket-lint.comThursday 12 February 2015, AM
Asia Radio Today
The overall figures 89 of the UK listens to radio once a week, and we listen to a total of 21.3 hours a week. Listening via DAB radio - the UK's kind-of equivalent of HD - is at an all-time high, at 25. And streaming of live radio via the internet actually dropped last quarter, though the trend continues to grow. - asiaradiotoday.comasiaradiotoday.com
BBC fights back after Sun splash
The Sun slammed the BBC on Wednesday for paying 65 MPs around pound200,000 over five years to take part in its radio and television programmes. The Sun called the fees a 'scandal', but the BBC said it was glad the paper 'enjoys holding the BBC to account and challenging us - it keeps us on our toes and makes sure the licence fee is well spent'. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukWednesday 11 February 2015, PM
Media: Protecting journalists' sources; American news anchors; football rights; Sports Radio
downloads.bbc.co.uk
PMQs: Cameron announces free train wi-fi from 2017
He was asked about improving communications for business people, commuters and students by former Tory cabinet minister Maria Miller, who claimed quotOur trains are stuck in the analogue agequot. BBC Politics Live - text and video updates through the day. - www.bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukBroadchurch fails to halt ITV's record January ratings slump
ITV's woes have been compounded by a run of poorly rating factual shows, including The Wonder of Britain, the first ITV series fronted by former Countryfile presenter Julia Bradbury, which was pulled last month after two episodes. Its share including ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 and its recently launched sister networks, entertainment and lifestyle channel ITVBe and premium drama channel, ITV Encore, had a combined 20.5 share of viewing in January, according to figures seen by MediaGuardian. - www.theguardian.comwww.theguardian.compick a page