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Consumers’ use of mobile devices whilst watching TV is becoming popular. But, with another viewing companion app due to launch next week, some in the industry are still debating the potential and the pay-back.
New technology can insert realistic branded 3D objects in to TV shows and movies. Channel 4 is getting the ball rolling with the first of several planned 2012 roll-outs.
Boxes for the UK’s big internet TV venture have finally gone on sale, priced a hefty £299, four years after it was conceived. But YouView may be the wrong service, aimed at the wrong market at the wrong time.
The industry-wide internet TV venture led by broadcasters and ISPs promises boxes in stores before August. But, four years on, can even YouView make in-roads to the burgeoning connected TV space?
For what its worth at this point, the much delayed big UK IPTV joint venture YouView may finally be ready to meet a version of its revised and somewhat arbitrary target of launching in time for the London 2012 Olympics.
Here is a round-up of some of the latest executive-level hirings and exits in the world of digital media business…
UK TV video news producer ITN is unifying its online ad sales platform as it expands into a burgeoning number of online destinations.
The much-delayed video-on-demand service YouView spent almost £20 ($30.89)m in its first nine months of operation and paid more than £1 ($…
More scrutiny of News Corporation’s UK tabloids by Ofcom… but this time with a good result for the media company. The UK communications re…
In the copyright case brought by UK broadcasters against the TV Catchup restreaming site, a UK High Court judge has handed the site some som…
Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) has made a takeover bid for Endemol, the debt-laden Dutch production company behind Big Brother and Deal or No Deal.
After years of effort and speculation, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has pieced together nearly 40 broadcast services from around the world to boos…
A report published today in the UK labels arguments against network neutrality as “myths” — and suggests that attempts by broadband providers to manage online traffic will end up doing long-term damage to the entire Internet industry.
Back in November, Channel 4 launched Film4oD, a web-based, on-demand adjunct to its Film4 linear channels that requires payment for movies.…
The new owner of SeeSaw has run into difficulty hitting a deadline to secure multimillion-pound funding and has lost a key content deal with…
GetGlue, the media “check-in” app that lets users share what they are watching, listening and reading with their social network, has inked a…
A look at some of the big stories in mobile today:
— iPhone 5: Another analyst’s view on what to expect with the next iPhone; this time, i…
Channel 4 is creating a new executive post to oversee the digital division of its movie production arm, Film4.
Channel 4’s multi-platform commissioner Matt Locke has left the broadcaster, NMA says.
Broadcaster Channel 4 is asking the UK government to rewrite the law so that online services would be barred from re-transmitting TV channel…
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and large media owners have submitted opposing responses to the digitally-focused review of the UK’s intellectual proper…
Channel 4 confirmed on Thursday that it had submitted an expression of interest in the proposed national TV network that underpins Jeremy Hu…
— AOP: GNM’s product development head Piers Jones (pictured) will chair the AOP’s product development committee, taking over from the FT’s…
It’s eight months since the BBC said it would link from out its iPlayer to commercial counterparts’ own TV catch-up sites. But it still hasn…
ITV (LSE: ITV) and Channel 4 shows such as Coronation Street and The Inbetweeners will soon be available to watch via Sony’s PlayStation 3 g…
A High Court judge has dismissed an application by UK TV re-streaming site TVCatchup to throw out a copyright case brought against it by Bri…
It may have been inevitable, with Channel 4 having chosen to pull its 4iP digital investment activities more closely in to its new online st…
Earlier this month, Channel 4 debuted Film4oD, a movie-centric extension of its 4oD TV catch-up brand.
The model – 48-hour rentals from 50p…
Channel 4 has teamed up with FilmFlex to launch a video-on-demand digital film rental service for Film4 with more than 500 titles available…
Channel 4 is axing 4iP, its £20m digital innovation fund, as part of a restructure that sees its online teams integrated into one departmen…
By Jemima Kiss: Where do you start with a website overhaul? For Channel 4 News, which has spent nine months revamping its web presence, the…
— Channel 4: Future Media & Technology is being split. Richard Davidson-Houston’s (pictured) new Online team moves to the Creative Division…
— Ovi browser: Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has launched an Opera mini-style web browser for Series 40 phones that compresses webpages before they rea…
— FT Alphaville: Tokyo-based reporter Tracy Alloway is becoming deputy editor of the Financial Times’ live analysis community and blog, wor…
Channel 4’s future media division is effectively being dissolved by that name as part of new CEO David Abraham’s restructure, intended to un…
By Mark Sweney: Channel 4 has struck a deal with UKTV, owner of channels including Dave and Gold, to handle its TV and online advertising sa…
— C4’s Gisby: C21 reckons Channel 4 new media director Jon Gisby is “considering his future” after his seeing his role split under new CEO…
By Josh Halliday: BBC Worldwide has appointed Daniel Heaf, the digital commissioner of 4iP, to the newly-created role of digital director.…
Online video investment is now paying off for Channel 4. The Future Media division turned in a £3.2 million operating profit during 2009.…
By Mark Sweney: Channel 4 is to cut 25% of its 48 senior managers and has appointed Julian Bellamy as acting chief creative officer, as new…
First the BBC told Swiss TV re-streamer Zattoo to take down its channels. Then ITV (LSE: ITV), Channel 4 and Five filed in court to have TVC…
Channel 4 had ditched the pay-per-view fees for VOD that it had launched with its original 4oD incarnation – but that doesn’t mean it won’t…
We’ve covered TV re-streaming services like Zattoo and TVCatchup for the last couple of years now and, regardless of any opinions those serv…
The Office of Fair Trading has taken two months to rule that… it is not supposed to investigate the BBC’s proposed Project Canvas connecte…
Hulu is abandoning its plans for a launch in the UK — that’s the latest from the Telegraph on the U.S.-based online…
— iPlayer dip: The BBC’s VOD service posted rare slow growth in March. Total monthly requests grew by only 1.2 million to 117.6 million, wh…
Big media events don’t come along every day, so when you’re betting the company’s growth on driving traffic to your web site from a single exorbitantly priced Super Bowl ad or a trail in a popular TV program, it pays to make sure that your IT infrastructure will handle the load. Broadcasters and advertisers alike are turning to cloud computing in order to anticipate, test for, and cope with these brief — but tremendously lucrative — spikes in demand.
Channel 4 is losing one of its key on-demand executives: Joel Stark, who has been the broadcaster’s head of business development, is plannin…
— Five: The broadcaster is tasking Red Bee Media with managing all its Demand Five VOD services, including transcoding, distribution, syndi…
Telegraph.co.uk’s sources have been promising the paper Hulu’s imminent UK launch for so long now that, now it’s reporting “further delays”…
Well, it still hasn’t revealed when it actually plans to launch service next month, but SeeSaw now says that it has some 3,000 hours of prog…
— Channel 4: David Abraham will replace Andy Duncan as the next CEO of Channel 4. Abraham is currently the CEO of the multichannel digital…
— BT (NYSE: BT) fibre: BT has launched a fibre-to-the-cabinet consumer broadband service, Infinity, offering up to 40Mbps starting at £19.…
4iP has made one of its biggest investments so far in Central Station, a community for artists, film-makers and designers to share tips and…
The BBC Trust today gave the provisional go-ahead for the BBC’s Project Canvas, opening the way for more Internet video being delivered…
BBC’s IPTV director Richard Halton now has C4 and TalkTalk to add to his Project Canvas partners BBC, ITV (LSE: ITV), Five and BT (NYSE: BT)…
So exactly what kind of level is Channel 4-led innovation fund 4iP investing at? An average £71,428-a-time, judging by its latest slate. C4…
How will you look in your later years if your drinking, eating and other habits continue? Channel 4-led innovation fund 4iP is investing a f…
Channel 4’s 4iP fund is continuing its pattern of investing in projects that “keep an eye on money and power” by funding Northern Ireland’s…
Two bits and bobs from Horseferry Road…
— “We need to look at charging,” content director Kevin Lygo told The Media Festival (via Guardi…
YouTube is now closer than ever to adding a proper UK TV VOD portal. Though it only has a full-length catchup deal with one domestic broadca…
Public service broadcaster Channel 4 doesn’t have to make money from its education content, but it’s still interested in bringing home reven…
— Sky-Xbox problems: The technical problems that beset the launch of Sky’s channels on the Xbox 360 have continued: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)…
— BBC Freeview HD: The good news from the Beeb is that Freeview is being upgraded to allow HD viewing. But the bad news is that as a result…
Channel 4 is planning a Come Dine With Me Facebook app that would let fans of the TV show plan their own dinner parties through the social n…
YouTube Gets Channel 4 Content; all of Channel’s VOD catch-up shows will be on YouTube shortly after their broadcast — but only…
YouTube has secured its first long-form on-demand UK TV content, doing a deal that sees Channel 4 add the same shows to the service that are…
— Spotify downloads: Promised since March, the streaming music app has streamlined its click-to-buy option, which had earlier been accessib…
TV on the iPhone isn’t anything new, but a new web site makes it much easier, more direct, and less expensive for…
As an entrepreneur, he formed restaurant chains like Pizza Express and Strada, but Luke Johnson, who steps down as Channel 4 in the New Year…
Channel 4’s financial future may remain uncertain, but its public online investment project 4iP keeps on funding. The latest handout is Phab…
— BBCWW Oz iTunes: BBC shows are now available for sale through Australia’s iTunes store, joining UK, US, Canada, Germany and France, at $2…
The creative seed fund backed by Channel 4 (£20 million) and regional media development agencies (£30 million) has picked its latest inves…
Channel 4 CEO Andy Duncan is stepping down in January, after five years in charge. It comes at a period of huge uncertainty for C4, which is…
With 12 months to go before digital TVs and set-top boxes powered by the BBC’s Canvas open IPTV standard are ready for general sale, the pro…
4iP sure likes little Twitter-based start-ups: Channel 4’s public service new media investment project has invested a small amount in FestBu…
— Channel 4: C4 has added former ITV (LSE: ITV) online group head Zoe Botbol as commercial manager in its future-media digital ad-sales tea…
Arqiva has begun with the UK’s main broadcasters and content providers to bring long-form TV shows to a new consumer-facing part-free VOD we…
It’s official: broadcast technology provider Arqiva has signed an agreement to buy the remains of the ill-fated Project Kangaroo VOD JV from…
— 4oD: C4’s VOD strand has beaten iPlayer to social recommendation. It’s testing Test Tube Telly – a combo of 4oD with Facebook Connect tha…
By Jemima Kiss: Channel 4’s first tranche of online television archive is likely to remain the only substantial online TV archive in the UK…
With no Kangaroo through which to push its long tail, Channel 4 is now resorting to giving away all its back-catalogue shows for free throug…
We’re toying with a new weekly feature, surfacing some of the key opinions and talking points from the last seven days in digital media (goo…
It seems you can’t turn on the TV these days without being implored to share your every reaction with your Twitter followers. Tapping into t…
The journalist who led the MP expenses investigation, an iPhone comic and a hyperlocal publishing network are amongst the beneficiaries from…
Q&A With Google’s David Eun; one of the key guys tasked with making YouTube profitable says, “I know that we’re monetizing more…
Ofcom and Sky may have recently warned Project Canvas could need Office of Fair Trading scrutiny – but the final terms of the Project Kangar…
Separately to the renewal of its partnership with BBC Worldwide today, YouTube has agreed to trial pre-roll ads, and not just the usual disp…
— BBC Switch: The Beeb’s teen strand is working on an online and TV soap opera, set to be broadcast weekly on BBC2 and in five-minute episo…
— BBC-Celebdaq: The BBC is resurrecting its online celebrity news-based stock exchange game Celebdaq. Though the game is still played by ar…
It’s taken a while, but broadcasters, online publishers and advertisers could be close to agreeing a standardised system to measure online v…
Channel 4’s 4iP grassroots digital media investment fund has added another outside agency to its roster of partners. It’s cosying with Londo…
— New 4oD Catch-Up: Channel 4 has now moved its 30-day catch-up VOD shows from its 4oD Windows app to a new Flash player on its Channel4.co…
US VOD website Hulu has acquired its first set of rights to UK TV shows. The NBCU/News Corp (NYSE: NWS) venture signed a deal for distributo…
By Jemima Kiss: Adam Gee, Channel 4’s resident digital creative wizard, has joined the board of web marketing firm Hot Cherry as non executi…
While many rave about the cut ‘n paste and landscape keyboard functionality, UK public service broadcaster Channel 4 is thinking bigger. It’…
While many rave about the cut ‘n paste and landscape keyboard functionality, UK public service broadcaster Channel 4 is thinking bigger. It’…
— Perform: Sports-rights distributor Perform has signed a three-year online-content deal with the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI…
News producer ITN has a new man at the top: John Hardie, EVP and MD of Disney (NYSE: DIS) TV’s operations in EMEA, has been appointed CEO. H…
— Telegraph Media Group: Former Handbag.com Nancy Cruickshank is taking her fourth job in four years, executive director of digital develop…
— Channel 4-YouTube: Channel 4 has struck a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube to sell advertising around its own content shown on the video…
Don’t expect an unlikely partnership between BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) and Channel 4 any time soon. C4 CEO Andy Duncan has issued a stiff rejection…
Lord Carter should write commercial, subscription-funded content in to public service TV’s future, BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) CEO Jeremy Darroch tol…
With its full-year earnings, coming this Wednesday morning, ITV (LSE: ITV) is expected to underscore its rapidly disappearing sales by annou…
— Channel 4: While it negotiates with BBC Worldwide and Lord Carter on its future, Channel 4 is still innovating commercially: the broadcas…
Channel 4 and S4C have applied to Ofcom to launch a new Freeview offering that would include a HD video on demand service. The service would…
BBC Worldwide and Channel 4 have reached agreement on the areas where the two could collaborate in an on-screen joint venture, the BBC has c…
Her departure was rather quiet after such a long service – BBC interactivity editor Vicky Taylor left the corporation after 23 years in Nove…
One sure sign that a sector is facing bad times is when executive bonuses come under the axe and for the media biz that time is now. ITV (LS…
Channel 4’s teen drama Skins, which proved so popular on MySpace initially, pulled in a sixth of its viewers online for the first episode of…
Update: C4 had already quietly launched embedded web catch-up a couple of months back, but only for Windows Media Player users. The new move…
More doom and gloom in the UK media on the snowiest day in 18 years…
— Channel 4: The broadcaster has frozen all staff pay for this year…
Will the kangaroo ever jump? That’s the question observers of the UK’s online media market are asking these days, where the BBC…
With no digital radio plans on which to pin a website any longer, Channel 4 is, unsurprisingly, closing Channel4Radio.com, which was to be a…
Channel 4 will slash its mobile offerings to save money, moving to automatic porting and away from bespoke mobile publishing. Channel 4 has…
Ofcom has recommended Channel 4 merge or partner with BBC Worldwide or Five to save it from financial ruin. But what does the broadcaster th…
— BBC: Auntie enlisted Virginia-based widget maker ClearSpring to widgetise its content, launching bbc.co.uk/widgets/. Only a mere four wid…
Stephen Carter’s upcoming Digital Britain report will force ISPs to give content owners info on illegal downloaders, will propose a part-pub…
— FT.com: FT news editor Robert Shrimsley (pictured) has been appointed managing editor of the site, taking over from James Montgomery, who…
Publicly-funded broadcasters in Europe say a proposal to introduce BBC-style “public value test” across the continent would straitjacket the…
Web video service Babelgum has called for the scrapping of the much-troubled BBCWW/C4/ITV (LSE: ITV) JV Project Kangaroo because any other o…
— Freeview: The DTT platform has launched a web-based TV guide for the channels it carries, with email programme reminders. Via TechRadar.…
We’ve known for some time that one way out of Channel 4’s £100 million annual shortfall could be some kind of combination with BBC Worldwid…
After Channel 4’s abrupt u-turn on its digital radio plans in October as a result of it’s on-going funding problems, now the remaining membe…
Ofcom is due to publish its recommendations on the future of public service broadcasting after hearing stakeholders’ views, with the BBC lik…
By Jemima Kiss: The first project in Channel 4’s 4IP scheme rolled out quietly today without much fanfare, but perhaps the broadcaster feels…
You’d think it could hardly turn its nose up at advertising of any kind at the moment – but the imminent Channel4.com relaunch will see its…
Channel 4 may alter its timetable for making investments from its 4iP digital fund, as it sits out the downturn and goes through its cost-cu…
More hurdles appear ahead for Project Kangaroo: the BBCWW-ITV-Channel 4 online video JV has come under heavy criticism from the Broadband St…
When there’s no one buying, you don’t need as many people to sell. Which may explain why NatMags’ online division Hearst Digital is restruct…
British broadcaster Channel 4 is shutting down its mobile ad sales operation as part of its £100 million ($157 million) two year retrenchme…
Channel 4 is shutting down its red button interactive TV ad sales business, as well as its mobile ad sales operations, as part of its £100…
Channel 4 CEO Andy Duncan is now squarely, if unusually, backing ITV (LSE: ITV) chief Michael Grade’s recent claim that Google (NSDQ: GOOG)…
These are lean times for Channel 4. In the same month it abandoned plans for a network of digital radio stations, the broadcaster is to clos…
Channel 4
Channel 4 has abandoned all plans to launch a series of DAB radio stations next year because of the economic downturn, report FT.com and Med…
The European Commission may put a stop to the £14 million in funding that Ofcom has proposed giving Channel 4 to help it pay for its switch…
— 4oD best quality: 56 percent of UK broadband users have viewed internet video in the last year, new Starcom research shows. Half of them…
Tom Loosemore is leaving Ofcom in October to head Channel 4’s £50 million 4iP digital investment project – his latest key role in UK public…
Online advertising spend has outpaced advertising on mainstream TV in 2007, surging 40 percent to £2.8 billion, Ofcom reported today in its…
So perhaps internet video isn
— Channel 4: The £50 million 4iP digital investment fund, to which C4 is contributing £20 million, has delayed its launch from the planne…
— Vibrant: Vibrant Media, ad ad company responsible for those double-underlined in-line text ads, has hired Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Advertis…
Channel 4 is on the hunt for Osama. Well, 500 Osamas, actually. The U.K. TV network has set two people off in…
British broadcaster Channel 4 is overhauling its mobile web site in time for the launch of latest series of the reality TV show Big Brother.…
Channel 4 will open the application process for its £50 million new 4IP digital investment fund at its own new “festival of ideas for techn…
Channel 4 Radio is talking to DAB radio makers about launching a £20 branded mini tuner for iPods and mobile phones, as it looks to build a…
— Trinity Mirror: The Gazette Live site, which Trinity Mirror’s (LSE: TNI) Teesside Evening Gazette launched two years ago with 20 hyperloc…
Uncertainty around DAB and the costs involved in launching digital radio operations persist…
— 4Radio: Channel 4 assures the multi-chann…
Some in the TV biz seem at odds as new TV-over-the-internet applications begin to re-broadcast their live channels around the world. A Bra…
From paidContent:UK: In UK, the alternative public broadcaster Channel 4’s new media losses grew from £6 million to £15.4 million in 2007,…
Channel 4’s new media losses grew from £6 million to £15.4 million in 2007, as the broadcaster swung to its first ever deficit, leaving it…
Add this to the file of BBC detractors. Former Endemol creative director Peter Bazalgette has called for BBC Radio 1 and 2 to be sold and fo…
As predicted yesterday on news of Ashley Highfield’s appointment as CEO, it looks like ITV/C4/BBC Worldwide online TV JV Project Kangaroo wo…
– BT: BT (NYSE: BT) CEO Ben Verwaayen will step down after six years on June 1, to be replaced by Ian Livingston, CEO of the BT Retail divis…
Channel 4 and others have invested “a six-figure sum” in School Of Everything, a pseudo-educational web network connecting mentors with peop…
The BBC and ITV (LSE: ITV) have sought the advice of lawyers to determine whether the deep-linking that online TV listings site TVguide.co.u…
– Virgin 50 Mbps: Nine million VMED customers will have access to 50 Mbps cable this year, the company said, considering best methods for ro…
– Orange TV: Orange’s UK IPTV service still shows no signs of emerging from testing. The service already operates in France, Poland and Spai…
Channel 4 and UK regional media development agencies will start a £50 million digital commissioning fund as the broadcaster looks to retain…
— Nokia Launches Music TV Program: Another content foray for Nokia (NYSE: NOK). The Finnish handset giant is launching a music TV program…
If ever there were proof Europe’s roaming data charges need to come down, see this Times story about the £11,000 cost of downloading four e…
It’s probably just one option amongst many, but the government’s department for culture, media and sport is examining a proposal that would…
Online and mobile amateur photography initiatives started by Channel 4 are clicking with budding creatives. A web community for Picture This…
Voice recognition telco firm Eckoh, one of the companies behind the recent premium rate call-TV scandals, said on Friday it had received a n…
– Current TV: The Al Gore-owned progressive video website and TV channel is doing a Bebo. Where the social network this month launched Open…
One of the execs behind the upcoming Kangaroo online TV service will quit his employer in the new year. As Channel 4 new business director,…
Channel 4 is buying a 10 percent stake in mobile ad tech firm Mobile IQ to boost its mobile advertising efforts (via NMA).
The two compani…
Kangaroo will gobble up 4oD, will leave iPlayer unharmed, is seeking more broadcast partners and will offer transfer to portable media playe…
The main strategy behind Kangaroo – the VOD online TV joint venture announced this morning by BBC Worldwide, ITV (LSE: ITV) and Channel 4 -…
BBC Worldwide, ITV (LSE: ITV) and Channel 4 have confirmed they are joining forces to launch a major new online on-demand UK TV joint ventur…
Channel 4 is appointing former Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) exec Jon Gisby as its first director of new media, paidContent:UK has learned. Gisby has p…
Guardian Unlimited is further staking out its non-core media credentials by joining the Radio Academy and the UK Podcasters Association. The…
Could TV networks’ desktop VOD platforms could soon begin paying their own way? Channel 4’s 4OD has now started running unique ads against s…
Broadcasters and measurement agencies, in a rare show of camaraderie, have joined together to form the Broadband Measurment Working Group (B…
We Brits are now spending nearly twice as much time watching TV, video and movie websites as we did last year. Nielsen Online data out today…
Channel 4 has struck a deal with with Disney-ABC International Television to distribute its shows online for free with advertising support,…
– Tioti Launch: Tape It Off The Internet (Tioti), a TV-centric web community where members post links to shows across a range of download an…
The fabric of Channel 4 is at risk from the migration of advertising revenue from TV to the net – but the rise in online video portends furt…
Internet TV is beginning to motor in the UK, this FT.com article points out, but Channel 4 and ITV have called for a single standard to unit…
– Joost: Joost has taken delivery of some 34 movies in a deal with Paramount Pictures UK (announcement). In April, the outfit hired former P…
