Rural broadband: BT attacked on broadband costs

In response BT said that its initial cost estimates were quotBased on our initial view of how much it would cost to deploy fibre in rural areasquot. He felt vindicated by the findings, saying quotThirty-eight per cent excess costs have been confirmed in the cost models used to calculate the milestone payments. Those monies - and there will be more - need to be used to extend the fibre rollout further. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

it's time for a proper, factual inquiry

Are reporters nowadays confined to their desks, relying on phone and email contacts In a digital world, is the decline in shoe-leather reporting problematic Some suggest a readiness to sacrifice quality reporting by obliging reporters to churn out articles without adequate checks. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Two bidders for D2 here s what we know

If Sound Digital win, three stations would be removed from D1, allowing extra services to join the first national multiplex, or giving the remaining stations the opportunity to offer a stereo service. Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK is happy with the bids quotWe welcome both bids for the second national commercial DAB network - it's great news for radio and for listeners. The additional capacity on DAB will enable greater innovation, more competition and a wider choice of stations for listeners. We look forward to the launch of new stations in early 2016.quot. - radiotoday.co.uk

radiotoday.co.uk

BBC retains Premier League rights for ?204m | News | Broadcast

The BBC will keep hold of Premier League football until 2019 and launch a mid-week Match of the Day on BBC2 as part of a £204m deal. The corporation has retained the football highlights package for another three seasons, from 2016/17 to 2018/19, after it was reported that ITV decided against bidding. - www.broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

Children's TV and current affairs unlikely to be involved in BBC competition revolution

Senior sources at the BBC say that the business case is quotLess clear cutquot for childrens' production, a market the BBC dominates. The two BBC channels commission many independent producers as well as the BBC's own The Dumping Ground, Hackertime and Sam and Mark's big Friday Wind Up. Greg Childs, who headed the launch team for BBC Children's channels, CBBC and CBeebies, and is now director of the children's media foundation, said quotThe BBC is the only game in town, certainly the only big player in town. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Two bidders for second national DAB multiplex

Listen2Digital's bid also includes RTEacute Radio 1, which is the Irish public service broadcaster's speech and music station, Share Radio, the financial broadcaster that launched in London last year, two Christian stations from Premier Christian Radio, and a number of confidential partners including a new sports talk station, a top40 station, a modern rock channel, a specialist jazz/blues/soul station, and a channel devoted to food. The multiplex will also add national coverage to Sunrise Radio, UCB Inspirational and to Premier Christian Radio, the only station to publicly appear in both bids. - media.info

media.info

TV advertising needs to measure up to the challenges ahead

With smart TV advertising targeting, it means that not only is the consumer watching different things at different times in different places, they're also being served different ads depending on their demographic data and viewing habits. In the US, universal use of gross rating points is more commonplace, largely because organisations such as Nielsen measure multiple media formats, including press, TV and out-of-home TV. The main point is that planners need an effective way of combining the quotOverlappingquot media that fall between different media categories in a way that doesn't detract from the accountability their clients demand. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

#22 - The Future of News, Radio Academy woes, Page 3 - The Media Podcast with Olly Mann

feedproxy.google.com

Muddled thinking clouds BBC3 bid

So little of Avalon and Hat Trick’s BBC3 bid adds up. What’s their long-term goal, asks Stephen Arnell. So Avalon and Hat Trick are sticking to their guns with their proposal to buy BBC3. Unfortunately though, with each further detail they reveal, there are more questions than answers. - www.broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

UK Digital TV penetration falls

Among the old there has been a decrease in Freeview ownership and it is no longer the case that Freeview ownership is higher in rural locations. In 2014 there was a decrease in Freeview-only ownership among consumers aged 65-74 and also among those aged 45-64. - www.broadbandtvnews.com

www.broadbandtvnews.com

Radio 2 goes country with DAB station

The pop-up DAB radio service - Radio2Country - will air from March 5 to 8, midday to midnight, with a line-up of archive documentaries, live broadcasts and special shows, including coverage from the UK's largest country music festival C2C from London's O2. Artists scheduled to perform include Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Lee Ann Womack and Lady Antebellum. Sax Appeal Ivy Benson's All Girl Band is a sister programme to a documentary about the bandleader which aired on Radio 4 in October and is available on iPlayer Radio. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Sky News to merge digital and TV staff in newsroom shakeup

A Sky News spokesman denied the plans were about cutting costs quotSky News is reorganising its newsroom to fully prepare for its future in a fast changing industry. We believe the changes proposed will fundamentally transform our newsroom so we can continue to be a leading news organisation in a digital world. Sky's move comes as BBC News looks at how it and the industry will adapt to the changes in the ways news is viewed and gathered in its report The Future of News. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/01/heres-how-the-bbc-disrupted-by-technology-and-new-habits-is-thinking-about-its-future/

As part of that process, the BBC today released the first part of a report entitled quotFuture of Newsquot that examines the changing news industry and how the BBC plans to adapt to evolving technologies and new ways that the broadcaster's massive audience - both locally in the U.K. and globally - consumes the news. As many countries in the world limit free speech and press freedom, BBC News could seize on an opportunity to further position itself as an arbiter of independent news quotWe find ourselves increasingly reflecting on the position of the media in Russia and Turkey,quot the report said, adding that the BBC is looking at how it could develop a news service for North Korea. - www.niemanlab.org

www.niemanlab.org

Future of News

59 of UK online news users said they had glanced at the news headlines online in the past week, compared to 43 who said they had read longer stories online. Last year, an academic experiment looked at how Facebook had manipulated the news feed of 700,000 users for a week, to see how viewing different types of news might affect the users' moods. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Consultation on local DAB coverage published

The Local DAB Expansion Plan is designed to improve the coverage of local DAB multiplexes around the UK. The plan is funded by Government, local radio multiplex operators and the BBC and would see local DAB coverage rise from around 76 of homes at present to around 91 of UK households by late 2016, with a corresponding increase in road coverage. The proposed changes would allow the extension of local DAB coverage into some currently unserved areas and would not affect listeners' existing reception of local DAB services. - radiotoday.co.uk

radiotoday.co.uk

A guide to the Sky v BT Sport Ofcom investigation and Competition Appeal Tribunal Decision

Equally important to the way in which sports content is made available to TV viewers are the various quotOff the pitchquot legal battles that BT Sport and Sky have been fighting, in particular following Ofcom's decision to impose quotMust offerquot obligations on Sky to make available its Sky Sports 1 and 2 channels to other broadcast platforms. Three years later, Ofcom decided that Sky should be forced to make available its core sports channels to competing broadcast platforms, a remedy which has become known as the quotWholesale Must Offerquot or quotWMOquot.3 Ofcom's decision was based on the perceived importance of those channels in enabling pay-TV operators to compete for subscribers with Sky and the fact that, absent regulatory intervention, Sky might not necessarily be incentivised to make them available to its competitors on reasonable commercial terms. - www.lawinsport.com

www.lawinsport.com

BT Mini YouView Box review

BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX SET UP. Size-wise, the BT Mini YouView Box is a small square box that's a little larger than the Apple TV, although still small and discrete enough to tuck neatly out of the way. BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX TV. One of the main uses of the BT Mini YouView Box is for watching TV. Given that this isn't a PVR that may seem a little pointless, doubling up on the features that your TV no-doubt already has. - www.expertreviews.co.uk

www.expertreviews.co.uk

BBC boss Tony Hall questions TV watershed and The Archers

Radio 4 boss Gwyneth Williams recently denied the show had become too sensational, telling Radio 4 quotIf you look back, there have always been extraordinary things going on in The Archers - kidnaps, arsons, all kinds of things. quotA Radio 4 spokesperson saidquotAs Tony Hall says, The Archers is an extraordinary drama and, alongside other long-running shows, evolves with the times. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Catching up with online viewing figures

The most common screen for viewing catch-up services was the television, for 53 of respondents, followed by laptop or desktop computers at 33, with tablets at 22 and smartphones at 10. The report suggests that although young adults were most likely to have watched catch-up services quotThis cohort is turning away from the television as the preferred means of viewing programmesquot. For some reason the BBC does not publish figures for online viewing by duration, but usage of the BBC iPlayer across all platforms can still only amount to one or two per cent of television viewing at most. - informitv.com

informitv.com

Netflix accelerates global expansion

Netflix nevertheless faces increasing competition on all fronts, from standalone services and those associated with existing television services, as well as from unauthorised distribution. Cable companies lost television customers, but telco television services continued to make considerable gains. - informitv.com

informitv.com

Why It's Risky Business for Publishers to Build Their Own CMS

A new wave of publishers running custom software gained traction, while established news organizations continued to embrace open-source technologies. For startup news organizations, the primary way to get the money to build your own platform is venture capital, which is rightly skeptical of news startups regardless of their technology. - www.pbs.org

www.pbs.org

BBC3 bid: 'We're trying to say that there is another way'

What neither the trust nor BBC management acknowledged is that a pound100m windfall, for a channel the BBC plans to close anyway, would be remarkably good value for the public. Total budget, including distribution and overheads, 2013/14 pound109.3m. Content budget pound81 m. Share of linear TV viewing, 2013 1.48. Amount BBC says it can save annually by taking BBC3 online only pound50m. Amount BBC intends to reinvest into BBC1 drama pound30m. Amount bid by Hat Trick and Avalon to buy the BBC3 TV channel pound100m. Annual content budget predicted by Hat Trick and Avalon post-sale pound100m. Annual predicted ad revenue post-sale pound120m to pound150m. Annual predicted profit post-sale pound10m to pound30m.. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

BBC Trust launches consultation on independent production

A review and public consultation has been launched by the BBC Trust looking at the way that BBC programmes and content are supplied to the BBC by either independent production companies or BBC in-house production. At the moment, the Trust requires the BBC to commission at least 10 per cent of radio production from independent suppliers, with a further 10 per cent open to competition between the BBC and independent sector. - radiotoday.co.uk

radiotoday.co.uk

Scotland to get BBC charter renewal role

The UK government has published draft legislation which will hand the Scottish government and parliament a formal role in BBC charter renewal. The legislation, titled Scotland in the United Kingdom: An Enduring Settlement, is expected to make up the Scotland Bill which will pass through parliament following this year’s general election. It is made up of proposals recommended by The Smith Commission, which was established last year to devolve more powers to Holyrood following the Scottish referendum in September.. - www.broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Within website DASH can be used via the HTML5 Media Source Extentions and JavaScript-based DASH players. - en.wikipedia.org

en.wikipedia.org

DTG :: News :: DTG's 4k Plugfests turn spotlight on HEVC streams

The DTG's UK UHD Forum has held its second 4k Plugfest with a focus on content streamed in 4k over satellite, IP and DTT to UHD TVs and set-top boxes. quotSimon Gauntlett, chief technology officer at the DTG, saidquotThe DTG would like to thank all the participants and observers who made our second 4k plugfest a busy and productive day. - dtg.org.uk

dtg.org.uk

Regulation of music in local radio to be reviewed

The radio regulator is wanting opinions from the industry to see if there should be a No change to Formats, b Simplification of the Formats of stations playing quotMainstream popular musicquot or c Ofcom could allow licensees to request to change the music element of their Format to be either Genre led or Audience led. Ofcom has a statutory duty to ensure a range and diversity of local radio services, and at the moment, a wide range of different descriptions are used in radio Formats to specify the selection of music from popular music, to specific genres and the target age range for the service. - radiotoday.co.uk

radiotoday.co.uk

Streaming overtakes radio use for US teens: but UK fares better

quotWhile AM/FM Radio listening leads by a significant margin among all other age groups, much of teens' listening time has shifted to pureplay Internet audio services like Pandora and Spotify and others,quot said Larry Rosin, President of Edison Research. Info from RAJAR, the UK's radio research body - above - give a different picture for the UK. Jerry Hill, CEO of RAJAR, points to the strong presence of the BBC and Radioplayer, as well as a lack of a strong Pandora-like service in the UK. Methods of measurement are different between the two pieces of research and the Edison figures are more recent but the UK has a number of strong national youth radio brands like KISS, Capital and BBC Radio 1, that are without a clear equivalent in the US. Additionally, services like Pandora are unavailable in the UK. Audiomonitor report that consumption via streaming overtook radio for the first time for 15-19s with 22.9 of all audio consumption ocurring on a radio receiver. - media.info

media.info

Media: End of Page 3?; Josie Cunningham's agent; Sir Alan Moses on press freedom.

downloads.bbc.co.uk

Running costs of BBC's London headquarters are triple UK average

quotNAO head Amyas Morse saidquotThe BBC has made good progress in upgrading its estate but it will need to press ahead with its plans to make better use of space to achieve value for money. quotBBC Trust value for money committee chair Nick Prettejohn saidquotThe BBC has reduced the size of the estate by almost a third while at the same time adding new TV channels and radio stations, and modernising its buildings. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

BBC Trust upholds NSS complaint

21 January 2015 Last updated at 0922 The BBC Trust has upheld a complaint from the National Secular Society about a news item on Asian Network Reports. The Asian Network's head of news, argued that the word 'white' was used to make it clear that the parents objecting to the school were 'not Asian'. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Best digital radios under £100 - Digital radio reviews - Audio - Which? Technology

See all the radios we've tested by reading our latest digital radio reviews. At Which we test digital radios from the big brands you know, like Roberts and Pure, as well as brands you may not have heard of, such as Magicbox and Revo. - www.which.co.uk

www.which.co.uk

Our 'impartial' broadcasters have become mouthpieces of the elite

After CBC tried to dismiss the scandal as quotHalf-truths based on anonymous sourcesquot, Kathy Tomlinson, the reporter who had broken the story about the bank, bravely spoke publicly to the website. A study by academics at the Cardiff School of Journalism examined the BBC Today programme's reporting of the bank bailouts in 2008. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

DAB splits in Herts, Beds, Bucks and Northants

The change means BBC Radio Northampton will be removed from the Herts, Beds and Bucks service whilst BBC Three Counties Radio is removed from the Northamptonshire multiplex. Commercial stations BOB fm and MKFM will no longer be available on DAB in Northants but Adventure Radio's Connect FM and Sunrise Radio will continue to broadcast across both areas. - radiotoday.co.uk

radiotoday.co.uk

BBC3 'not for sale' says corporation in response to planned bid for channel

The BBC initially declined to comment, but then put out a statement via its press office Twitter feed late on Tuesday morning quotBBC Three not for sale because it's not closing - proposal to move it online is part of bold move to reinvent BBC's offer for young people. Point one stated quotBBC Three is not closing and BBC Three is not for sale. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

BBC strikes deal with PBS to create factual programmes

The BBC has struck a deal with US public service broadcaster PBS to develop up to 10 factual shows a year, with Sir David Attenborough's Waking Giants one of the first to air. The partnership, struck between the BBC, commercial arm BBC Worldwide and PBS, will see eight to 10 specials created per year, with around 20 hours of programming content. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

news conferences streamed live

It's Democracy Day at the BBC, where the corporation will stream live coverage of its biggest morning news meetings, including the one chaired by its director of news and current affairs, James Harding. Perhaps it will be bought by these chaps for pound100m instead Want to save BBC3 Vote now Now that really would be a democracy day at the BBC.. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Derbyshire show gets BBC Two slot

19 January 2015 Last updated at 1554 Victoria Derbyshire is to host a new daytime news show that will be simulcast on BBC Two, the News Channel and online. BBC News is also preparing to launch a new breakfast business programme, presented by Ben Thompson and Sally Bundock. - www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Anne Mensah: Why Sky's drama supremo worries about her customers, not her viewers

With Sky's commitment to spending pound600m on original content and four channels to fill, Mensah now presides over one of the biggest drama budgets in British television. quotWith Fortitude, I thought that, although Sky dramas have dark moments, we tend not to be grim - our shows have colour and vibrancy. A little blue sky helps. - www.independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

DTG :: News :: Ofcom seeks industry views to lay 5G foundations

Known currently as '5G', these future mobile communications could use very high frequency spectrum above 6 GHz, as well as the current mobile spectrum from 800MHz-2.6GHz. According to Ofcom, this could support a variety of uses, ranging from financial trading and entertainment to gaming and holographic projections. The key issue for 5G services is developing the commercial use of the spectrum above 6 GHz without infringing upon the spectrum's current non-commercial uses, from scientific research to satellite broadcasting and weather monitoring. - dtg.org.uk

dtg.org.uk

Hat Trick and Avalon to make BBC3 bid

Hat Trick Productions and Avalon Entertainment are to make an audacious bid for BBC3 in an attempt to save it as a TV channel. The two production companies are preparing to team up to buy the corporation’s youth channel and have drawn up proposals to increase its budget from £81m to £100m a year. In a statement, a spokesman for Hat Trick and Avalon said: “Under the new ownership, BBC3 would continue to broadcast on all digital platforms, all current contracts would be honoured and the channel’s programme budget would be increased from £81m to £100m a year.- www.broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

Culture select committee report expected to back axing of BBC Trust

MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee are expected to join the growing chorus calling for the BBC Trust, the corporation's governance and regulatory body chaired by the recently arrived Rona Fairhead, to be scrapped. The committee, chaired by Conservative MP John Whittingdale, is expected to recommend that the trust be abolished in its upcoming report on the future of the BBC. It is understood that committee members have mostly been receptive to an idea for the BBC to be governed instead by a unitary board - a single board of directors comprising executive and non-executive directors, overseen by a single chairman. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

'The BBC has deep specialism, 50 or 60 years of heritage. Netflix can't buy that'

David Attenborough will start shooting a brand new natural history epic for the BBC in February three months after his latest landmark series, Life Story, came to an end on BBC1. quotIt's a huge scoop, a huge story, we are really excited,quot says Natalie Humphreys, controller of factual and daytime at BBC Production. Big questions remain, not least where the new entity will sit - one option is that it will go alongside BBC Worldwide as part of BBC Commercial Holdings, wholly owned by the BBC - and whether it will retain some sort of guaranteed programme quota, which would be fiercely contested by the independent sector. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Woody Allen, House of Cards what's next for the television revolution?

Streaming services have breathed fresh life into all manner of shows, from allowing British comedies such as The Wrong Mans and Peep Show to find a US audience to providing a UK home for everything from bloody epic Vikings to the computer drama Halt and Catch Fire, set in the 80s. quotIn the last five years we've seen a huge change in television,quot says Jane Featherstone, chief executive of Kudos. The new classical music comedy Mozart in the Jungle feels refreshingly different from most other shows on TV. quotI feel as though every good UK TV production company is either in business or going to be in business with Netflix and Amazon,quot says Featherstone. - www.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Scheduled and VoD can live harmoniously

Reports of the death of linear TV are greatly exaggerated, says Digital UK boss Jonathan Thompson Anyone reading the media business pages will be familiar with the stories declaring the imminent demise of television. Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings got the ball rolling by proclaiming that broadcast TV would be obsolete by 2030. Then Ofcom stated that children are watching half as much linear television as their parents, and that the number of homes with a TV set has fallen for the first time in decades.

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

BBC has greater responsibility than other broadcasters to recruit women in news and current affairs, report says

quotAlthough on the surface it appears that women are well represented, the facts tell a different story. We heard, for example, that men interviewed as experts outnumber women 4 to 1 on radio and TV.quot. quotLord Best said working in current affairs posedquotadditional barriers to women - for example, the fast-paced nature of news which can mean anti-social hours, and freelance work that can make it harder for women with caring responsibilities - the situation is simply not good enough. - www.independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

BBC uses RIPA terrorism laws to catch TV licence fee dodgers in Northern Ireland

quotA lack of transparency, accountability and oversight of how these powers are used has allowed the use of the powers to reach unacceptable levels. A BBC spokesman said quotLegislation explicitly grants the BBC the right to use these powers to detect unlicensed use of television receivers. We're regularly inspected by independent regulators and have always been open about using this power when there is no other option to help reduce evasion on behalf of the vast majority of the population who pay for their licence. - www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk