Thursday 26 April 2012, PM
DTG :: News :: Cambridge Consortium successfully trials TV White Spaces
I find the idea of using white space devices to deliver broadband to rural communities, or to expand the range and quality of urban Wi-Fi hotspots, exciting. This can form a significant contribution to our thinking as we consider how to maximise the value of the spectrum below 1 GHz. The trial analysis found Cambridge has significant television white spaces capacity - dtg.org.ukWednesday 25 April 2012, PM

Avaaz - Fire Jeremy Hunt
This is an outrageous breach of his public duties, and if we raise our voices now we can get him fired this week. Let'stake another massive step to clean up our democracy by ending the crooked collusion between our government and the Murdoch Mafia. Sign the urgent petition to remove Hunt, which we'll deliver with an action outside the Inquiry. - avaaz.orgWednesday 25 April 2012, AM

The future of TV isn t TV, it s broadband. Tech News and Analysis
As government strives to keep up with the broadband age, the Senates Commerce Committee held a hearing today covering the future of television, but midway through the hearing I realized that the Senate has it all wrong. The future of TV isnt to be found in deregulation its on the Internet. It danced around the problems of pipe owners also owning content providers and pay TV distribution businesses. - gigaom.comTuesday 24 April 2012, PM

ITV could have made even bigger history - Media - guardian.co.uk
Andy Allan, formerly of Thames, Tyne Tees, Central and Carlton, died relatively young he was only 68 but to say he lived life to the full rather understates the case. By modern norms it all looks desperately wasteful and inefficient 14 separate companies, each a producer/broadcaster in its own right, making shows for the network according to a system of guarantees designed to match contributions paid in according to share of advertising revenue with programming supplied. The big companies thereby got to make most of ITV's network shows, which made their programme controllers very powerful indeed. - guardian.co.uk
London gets extra digital radio reception : Radio Today
Olympic gold medal winner Dame Kelly Holmes and Colin Murray did the honours at a media gathering overlooking London. The new transmitter, along with three other recent additions, means 99 of the London road network within the M25 will be able to receive a listenable signal. The additional transmitters are a collaboration between the broadcasters, multiplex operators, Arqiva, and BT Wholesale, and is the culmination of a two-year programme of investment in digital transmitters around London. - radiotoday.co.ukSaturday 21 April 2012, PM

Kent prepares for digital switchover - News - Kent News
Digital switchover will take place countywide over May and June, giving the majority of households access to more than 40 Freeview channels free through their aerial. Parts of north Kent which pick up signal from a London transmitter began the switchover process this week. For the remainder of Kent, stages one and two will happen on June 13 and June 27 respectively. - kentnews.co.ukDigital TV switchover date for Tunbridge Wells looms closer... - Tunbridge Wells People
Homes in Tunbridge Wells will start the stage one process of the digital switchover on May 30, 2012, giving households access to more than 40 Freeview channels throughour aerials. Digital switchover date in Tunbridge Wells is getting closer. For the remainder of Kent, stages one and two will happen on June 13 and June 27 respectively. - tunbridgewellspeople.co.uk
Nordic region, Ireland adopt new 'connected telly' standard • The Register
Nordig, the parent broadcasting organisation for the Nordic countries, plus Ireland, has issued a new specification for broadcasting. The standard is already taking off in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain, and to this we can now add most of the Nordic countries. NorDig was constituted in 1997 and says the transmission and reception of digital TV in member countries should be open, standardised and support horizontal competition. - theregister.co.uk
YouView expands on EPG plans
Clarifications have been made in areas surrounding the search methodology, the genre structure and navigation and the population of partially filled UI pages. In itself the statement provides clarity that ISPs will use the YouView platform as the means to deliver content exclusively to their subscribers. No firm date has been given for the launch of YouView, though with small-scale trials underway, there had been some expectation that this might take place during May. nevertheless analysts have recently expressed concern that the launch might not take place before the London 2012 Olympics. - broadbandtvnews.comFreeview homes now exceed Sky in UK - Advanced Television
Freeview is now in more than 20 million homes in total when second sets are counted. There are now 2.1 million active Freeview HD homes. - advanced-television.com
Video: BBC Director General mark Thompson turns off analogue signal in London - Telegraph
- telegraph.co.ukSaturday 21 April 2012, AM

BSkyB's hold on pay-TV movies should be broken, says Ofcom - Media - guardian.co.uk
In March the competition regulator decided to take another look at the UK pay-TV market for films, to see whether the arrival of new digital services weakened the case against Sky. It provisionally concluded last summer that Sky was anti-competitive and needed to be weakened to allow rivals to flourish. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. - guardian.co.ukBBC - BBC Internet Blog: BBC Red Button Blog 21st - 28th April
Every Saturday press the Red Button during the show to pit your wits against our studio contestants. On weekends the tone becomes more conversational when Red Button viewers can watch a topical interview in 'Five Minutes with...' or a round-up of the week's weird and wonderful videos in OddBox. This has enabled us to offer the best games tailored to each system. - bbc.co.ukFriday 20 April 2012, AM

Digital switchover's tower of power - Media Monkey - Media - guardian.co.uk
Crystal Palace transmitter marks digital switchover Martian ships not pictured. Photograph Clayton Hirst Eat your heart out, Eiffel Tower. London's Crystal Palace transmitter transformed itself into a son et lumiere spectacular well, the lumiere bit anyway to mark digital TV switchover in the capital on Wednesday night. - guardian.co.ukThursday 19 April 2012, PM

Manchester's Channel M closes after 12 years - Media - guardian.co.uk
Stuart Taylor of GMG said the governments plans for local TV did not offer a viable future for the station. The on-air offering was cut back in 2010, with the loss of about 30 staff, to a mixture of archive material, traffic and networked news. Under culture secretary Jeremy Hunt's plans for local television, the government is expected to license the first local TV stations by this summer, with the first 10 to 20 services expected to be in operation by 2015. - guardian.co.uk
Freeview finds that 3D is not such a turn-on for viewers - Media - guardian.co.uk
Audience research for Freeview shows that TV viewers are not that keen on 3D maybe it's the glasses 3D ranked only sixth out of eight different new technologies in terms of popularity in a survey of 2,000 viewers published on Wednesday. Asked to pick three technologies out of the eight which they found most appealing, only 19 chose 3D. - guardian.co.uk
BBC to hand back almost £300m of digital switchover cash - Media - guardian.co.uk
Crystal Palace transmitter is to host an event marking the analogue switch-off in London. Around nine in 10 households have now completed the switchover process which began in Whitehaven in Cumbria on 17 October 2007. A total of 603m was allocated out of licence fee revenues to help the over-75s, the blind and partially sighted and with other serious disabilities get digital TV. - guardian.co.ukBBC - The Editors: From Ceefax to digital text
One of the effects of this is that they will no longer have access to Ceefax, which is broadcast via the analogue signal. For those of us who use their Tivo service, when we press the red button all we get is iPlayer, hence missing a lot of content. I am assured that by the time the Olympics come around we will have access to Red Button content I am not holding my breath given Virgin's history of delivering late. - bbc.co.ukBBC - Research and Development: Goodbye analogue telly, hello digital. Part 2
In this final image of the spectrum analyser output you can see the radio waves are now entirely devoted to digital television multiplexes, and no more analogue stations are seen. As we promised yesterday here's the final spectrum analyser shot, showing the spectrum over london now being entirely full of digital multiplexes of channels. - bbc.co.ukBBC - Research and Development: Goodbye analogue telly, hello digital! Part 1
It might be old news for most of the UK, but this week sees the final implementation of the big switchover to digital TV for the London area. Arqivas Crystal Palace transmitter that towers above South London, and is revered by most UK broadcast engineers / broadcast geeks, will complete its switchover in only a few days time. Spectrum Analyser output for TV spectrum in the London area on April 2nd 2012. - bbc.co.ukThursday 19 April 2012, AM
DTG :: News :: Report: Viewers rank catch-up most appealing TV technology
The survey of 2,000 people suggested that what consumers want most are technologies that enhance current television viewing behaviour and give the viewer a more personalised experience. When asked to rank eight different TV technologies in order of appeal, 62 put catch up TV in the top slot, followed by TV anytime 59 and an enhanced programme guide 51. 3D viewing and Mobile TV were considered less appealing to respondents but still nice to have, scoring 19 and 12 respectively. - dtg.org.uk
BBC News - Ceefax: A love letter
Living in deep country, I have been grieving for nearly two years now. Or, to be more precise, they will have stopped getting the message. One of the last major areas of population in the UK - London - has switched over to digital TV, enabling licence-fee payers to watch, without further payment, 40 channels instead of five. - bbc.co.uk
Ariel - More HD Olympics for Freeview viewers
A permanent use for the spare Freeview slot is yet to be decided. Similar deals have already been agreed with Sky and Freesat, while the 24 streams will also be available on the BBC Sport and 2012 websites. It's all about delivering more choice on more platforms, says Roger Mosey, BBC director London 2010. - bbc.co.ukWednesday 18 April 2012, AM
Tuesday 17 April 2012, AM

GMG Radio shuts Manchester TV station : Radio Today
The station went off the air yesterday, with the radio group blaming the unviable new government proposals for local TV. The station had been on the air for 12 years on analogue and latterly Freeview in the Greater Manchester area. Sadly, we dont feel they provide us with the framework needed to grow Channel M into a profitable business that delivers the quality service viewers and advertisers expect from GMG. - radiotoday.co.ukSaturday 14 April 2012, PM

For long-suffering Salford, the joke isn't funny any more - UK news - The Guardian
First, it emerged via a freedom of information request that the BBC had spent nearly 2m in two years ferrying staff and guests by rail and plane between London and the north-west. Then there were newspaper reports of a BBC email offering security guards to escort worried 5 Live staff to their cars and tram stops. The Salford-knocking coverage got a further boost when 5 Live presenter Rachel Burden was interviewing an athlete who had accidentally left her medals in the car. - guardian.co.ukBBC journalists face strike ballot - TV Radio - Media - The Independent
Journalists and technicians working for the BBC in Wales are to be balloted for strikes in a row over the dismissal of a producer. - independent.co.ukBBC - BBC Internet Blog: What's on BBC Red Button 14th - 21st April
The ceremony, including star-studded musical numbers, begins at 6pm. Tune in on Monday 16th April to watch highlights from the event. Every Saturday press the Red Button during the show to pit your wits against our studio contestants. - bbc.co.ukYouview You Blew It?
I have been following Youview through its various iterations - first Project Kangaroo then Project Canvas prior... and this it seems to have been a long torturous journey since 2010. As well as helping create more interactive TV for viewers, the introduction of the HbbTV standard is of benefit to both equipment manufacturers and content providers who at the moment have to produce hardware or content specific to each country to meet the de facto standard in that country. The establishment of a unified European HbbTV standard means content owners and application developers can write once and deploy to many countries. - appmarket.tvFriday 13 April 2012, PM

Interview: Nailing his colours to the mast, John Cresswell, the man behind a digital revolution - Analysis Feature
Arqivas chief executive John Cresswell still blanches as he recounts a windy day out in Sutton Coldfield. Having just arrived at the helm of the business that owns Britains 1200 TV masts, he knew he would have to inspect the estate at some time. What wasnt immediately obvious that day last year was that he wouldnt be taking the lift. - thisislondon.co.uk
Dyke's top tip for BBC director general: watch your back - Media Monkey - Media - guardian.co.uk
Get used to dodging friendly fire, advises former BBC director general Greg Dyke. Photograph Guardian Greg Dyke has a few words of warning for anyone foolish enough to be tempted to apply for the BBC director general's job he once had. To find out more information about driving traffic to your content or to place this widget on your site, visit outbrain.com. - guardian.co.ukWednesday 11 April 2012, PM

BT Vision adds FX News C21Media
- c21media.net
BSkyB to suffer as TV landscape changes, says Bank of America - Proactiveinvestors (UK)
Changes to technology and the way we watch TV will mean a less favourable set of outcomes for pay-TV giant going forward, a leading broker suggested today. Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its stance to underperform and its price target to 640p, even though it acknowledged the firm has a fantastic track record. The shift in consumer demand from broadcast TV to on-demand brings new competitors which, in turn, will increase competition for subscribers, said the broker. - proactiveinvestors.co.uk
Ariel - Trust posts DG job ad
Furthermore having made programmes or had journalistic experience is, in the Trust's view, 'desirable but not essential.' The closing date is May 7, and the advert sternly notes that 'late applications will not be accepted.' The job is categorised as 'business and support' on a continuing contract. As well as appearing on the Careers website the job will also be advertised in external publications in coming days. - bbc.co.ukMonday 09 April 2012, PM

BBC One - Panorama, Murdoch's TV Pirates
The investigation examines the role of former senior police officers in recruiting people to break the law - in order to bring down Murdoch's commercial rival. - bbc.co.ukPicture remains fuzzy on YouView - FT.com
Printed from http//www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6bca36c8-77f2-11e1-b237-00144feab49a.html Print a single copy of this article for personal use. - ft.com
45. UTV Media plc - Company List, Top 100 Companies - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
It owns the Channel 3 licence in Northern Ireland, making it part of the ITV network. Its portfolio of radio stations has made it one of the largest player in the radio market in Ireland with stations broadcasting from Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Dublin and Drogheda. UTV Media plc is also one of Northern Irelands few listed companies. - belfasttelegraph.co.ukMonday 09 April 2012, AM

Clarification of the 'public interest' defence is badly needed - Media - The Guardian
A Sky News reporter uncovered the extent of Anne Darwin's involvement in her husband's faked death by intercepting emails. The public interest argument runs fairly straightforwardly, after all. Darwin pleaded guilty to deception in March 2008 you will recall he went out to sea in a canoe and somehow paddled his way from the north-east to the Panama canal, suggesting he was not so dead after all. - guardian.co.ukBBC - BBC Internet Blog: What's On BBC Red Button 7th - 14th April
Some of the best live music from 6 Music's recent 10th birthday celebrations at Maida Vale and Southbank will be on the Red Button this week. This exclusive Red Button episode of Casualty will provide an insight into Sam Nicholl's troubled military past in Afghanistan. Every Saturday press the Red Button during the show to pit your wits against our studio contestants. - bbc.co.ukThursday 05 April 2012, PM

More people using TV and tablets at same time - Digital Media - CNET News
Do you check e-mail while you watch TV In the United States, 88 percent of tablet owners and 86 percent of smartphone owners said they used their device at least once while watching TV over the prior 30 days. Almost half 45 percent of tablet users said that they use their device in front of the TV on a daily basis. - news.cnet.com
Sky News email hacking - full statement - Media - guardian.co.uk
Like other news organisations, we are acutely aware of the tensions that can arise between the law and responsible investigative journalism. Material provided by Sky News was used in the successful prosecution and the police made clear after the trial that this information was pivotal to the case. In a separate investigation, a Sky News journalist bought an Uzi machine gun in 2004 to highlight the easy availability of illegal weapons in the UK. - guardian.co.ukBSkyB’s Sky News Channel Approved Hacking of E-Mails Twice - Businessweek
BSkyB shares fell to the lowest level in seven months yesterday as analysts say the revelations make it less likely that News Corp. will revive its bid for full control of the broadcaster. The timing with the Murdoch resignation is eerily coincidental, he said. BSkyB said yesterday executives at its Sky News channel cleared a reporter to access e-mails as part of his investigations into criminal activity, including the 2008 case of a British couple who faked the husbands death in a canoe accident to collect life and mortgage insurance. - businessweek.com
Ariel - Watch out, phishers about
Internally it meant staff were unable to access email or the internet. In this instance the staff member was telephoned by someone claiming to be from Microsoft, who asked him to visit a particular URL. The staff member refused, but in the conversation the phisher learnt that Atos is the BBC support service - so next time he rings he can claim to be from Atos. - bbc.co.ukWednesday 04 April 2012, PM

James Murdoch: the rise and fall of a News Corp scion - Michael Wolff - Comment is free - guardian.co.uk
On Tuesday, James Murdoch gave up his last claim to BSkyB, the company that most defined him. At 36, he was running a vast, successful, and rapidly growing media company. He need someone he could trust not least of all because, at 78, he wanted to travel a lot less and concentrate his attention on his pride and joy, the WSJ. - guardian.co.uk
News - SES.com
This live transmission will use ASTRA satellite capacity at the 28.2 degrees East orbital position. The company provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators and business and governmental organisations worldwide. The culturally diverse regional teams of SES are located around the globe and work closely with customers to meet their specific satellite bandwidth and service requirements. - ses.comWednesday 04 April 2012, AM
BBC - Roger Mosey: TV to stream 24 channels for digital Olympics
Since the start of our planning for London 2012, we've had two big thoughts about the way most people will enjoy our content. The second is that these are the first truly digital Olympics where we'll offer more choice than ever before, and the pledge we made is that you'll be able to watch sport from every venue from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. This represents four times more channels than in Beijing, and a total of around 2500 hours of live sport - which is at least double what we've offered in the past. - bbc.co.uk
Ofcom - Securing long term benefits from scarce spectrum resources - A strategy for UHF bands IV and V
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Report likely to accuse hacking witnesses of misleading parliament - ITV News
The committee has heard over the last few years from the main players in this phone hacking scandal. On James Murdoch, my understanding is the committee is split. The committee are considering another draft of their report - and will meet again after Easter. - itv.comTuesday 03 April 2012, PM
BSkyB announces Board changes
Tom Mockridge, who joined the Board in February 2009, has been appointed as Deputy Chairman. We understand his decision to step aside at this time and we both welcome and look forward to his continued contribution as a non-executive director. I have been privileged to serve first as Chief Executive and then as Chairman of this outstanding company and I am proud of what we have achieved over this period. - corporate.sky.com
BBC News - James Murdoch resigns as BSkyB chairman
The move is part of an effort to distance that company from the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, once a Murdoch title. He also stood down as chairman of the newspaper publisher, News International, last month. His father Rupert founded its parent company, News Corporation. - bbc.co.ukpick a page