Great things to read about British TV from March 2008 to today

BBC iPlayer use, in beautiful graphics |Technology |guardian.co.uk

Want to get a visual version of BBC iPlayer use To find out more information about driving traffic to your content or to place this widget on your site, visit outbrain.com. We welcome your feedback at userhelpguardian.co.uk or feedbackoutbrain.com. - guardian.co.uk

Digital Radio sales reach 10m

radiotoday.co.uk

Monday 30 November 2009, PM

What should ITV do with GMTV? | Stuart Heritage |Television radio |guardian.co.uk

What would you like to wake you up on a dark and rainy winter's day Probably something a little more appealing than the current choice of breakfast television. Or there's Chris Moyles on the radio, but you're not an animal, are you But change may be afoot. - guardian.co.uk

Next gen receivers to be broadband gaming hybrids?

Richard Sambrook to leave BBC |Media |guardian.co.uk

Sambrook's move to the global news division later that same year was seen by some to be a direct result of the criticism in the Hutton report, but he and the BBC said the move was unrelated. I intend to build on his work by ensuring that Global News combines together, along with our colleagues across the BBC, to achieve our shared aims. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. - guardian.co.uk

BBC orders production company to pay compensation after misleading viewers |Media |guardian.co.uk

The company has also been told by the BBC Trust to offer an apology and reimbursement to competitors in the three shows who should have won challenges but did not. The BBC will also broadcast an on-air apology. The BBC Trust ruled that the three series breached editorial guidelines on misleading audiences and staging and re-staging events and banned them from being broadcast again. - guardian.co.uk

Monday 30 November 2009, AM

ITV suspends search for new GMTV programming chief |Media |guardian.co.uk

McHugh is retiring from the company on December 31 after 16 years, and a shortlist of replacements had been drawn up. This was thought to have included GMTV's long-serving executive editor, Martin Frizzell. ITV is understood to be looking for savings of around 10 by eliminating duplication between GMTV's editorial and commercial operations and its own, with some job cuts likely. - guardian.co.uk

Open Rights Group coverage: cubicgarden.com...

www.cubicgarden.com

BBC Worldwide was overdue to be thrown to the Lyons |Media |The Guardian

Last week it was the turn of the corporation's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and its chief executive, John Smith, to have the rug firmly pulled from under them. Smith and his colleagues, charged with doubling profits to better support the BBC through hard times, were last week apparently criticised for trying to do just that. Smith and some of his senior executives have played a part in their own misfortunes and the results of the BBC Trust's 18-month review of Worldwide's activities will bring to an end many of the practices that Smith has introduced and championed in his five years in the job. - guardian.co.uk

Sunday 29 November 2009, PM

DMGT :: REG-Daily Mail General: Re Teletext

- dmgt.co.uk

www.dmgt.co.uk

Saturday 28 November 2009, PM

BBC iPlayer October 2009 usage statistics [ppt]

Saturday 28 November 2009, AM

UK Film and Television News - Arqiva Prepares For DSO With Christie Monitor Wall Upgrade

Arqiva is one of the founding members of Freeview and currently owns the licences for two of the three commercial multiplexes. This fulfills the requirement for a 24/7 mission critical, fully redundant system. The quality that came our was very encouraging - the Christie system certainly appeared to deliver a superior image. - 4rfv.co.uk

www.4rfv.co.uk

Michael Grade: BBCs X Factor challenge was stupid - Telegraph

For the first nine months of this year, ITV's revenues were down another 11 per cent. The result was a resounding victory for ITV it has consistently won the head-to-head ratings battle, often by three million viewers or more. If they thought they could beat The X Factor, they were living in a dream world.'' This criticism is a bit out of character despite his family's commercially rapacious reputation, Grade has spent a large proportion of his career in public service broadcasting. - telegraph.co.uk

www.telegraph.co.uk

Jeremy Hunt: Tories will stand by BBC licence fee deal |Media |guardian.co.uk

In an apparent u-turn on earlier comments by Hunt and his Conservative colleagues about their plans for the BBC should the party win next year's general election, he said a future Tory government would not impose a freeze on the licence fee before it is due to be reviewed in 2012. He said it was important the BBC should not operate under the threat of its funding level being reviewed on a year-by-year basis, which he said would threaten its impartiality and ability to hold politicians to account. Hunt said he still thought it was wrong that the BBC should get an inflationary rise in the licence fee at a time when there was no inflation. - guardian.co.uk

I shant mourn GMTV, that smarmy, padded seat of power | Marina Hyde |Comment is free |The Guardian

I'm afraid the runes do not look good. There are suggestions ITV will replace it with something marginally more heavyweight a child reading the news, say, or a coma simulation programme. Naturally, none of us could bear to write GMTV's obituary prematurely. - guardian.co.uk

Friday 27 November 2009, PM

Michael Grade fires parting shot at BSkyB - Telegraph

A more likely pay-TV strategy for ITV, he said, was to charge people small sums of money to watch premium content on demand. - telegraph.co.uk

www.telegraph.co.uk

Beyond 2012 - The Future of the BBC

Friday 27 November 2009, AM

Moore: Further details needed on Borders regional news proposals - politics.co.uk

- politics.co.uk

www.politics.co.uk

BBC may axe some digital services |Media |The Guardian

Thompson, revealing more about the scope of his strategic review of BBC operations, said the corporation would be smaller in scale, reducing programme and content output in some areas, including its website. He also promised that, after the digital switchover in 2012, a higher proportion of the licence fee would be spent on original UK content and less on foreign imports. Thompson added that specialist services for small numbers of people, such as digital TV channel BBC Parliament, would always remain important. - guardian.co.uk

Digital TV advice From The Bolton News)

Some analogue signals broadcast from the Winter Hill transmitter were replaced by digital signals earlier this month and the remaining channels will be changed on December 2. Before then, viewers will have to ensure all their TVs can receive a digital signal. Freeview viewers will need to retune again on that date too. - theboltonnews.co.uk

www.theboltonnews.co.uk

Thursday 26 November 2009, PM

Will Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies have their names cleared if Iraq inquiry finds BBC was right over se

They lost their jobs after the Government objected to a Radio 4 report saying the Iraq Dossier had been 'sexed up'. If the inquiry finds the BBC was right, will Dyke and Davies be offered their jobs back 'After the men stopped dancing not everything stopped moving. - dailymail.co.uk

www.dailymail.co.uk

Digital Video Broadcasting - DVB-NGH

It is expected that by the 2015 timeframe, Rich Media content consumption will increase several-fold and the content will be consumed using a variety of devices. The first commercial NGH devices might then become available in 2013, as required for success in the market place. This call is intended to invite technology inputs that would facilitate an appropriate NGH physical layer on which a successful full NGH system could be built. - dvb.org

www.dvb.org

Bing and online newspapers: Web-wide war | The Economist

Media companies would thus get badly needed cash and Bing a chance to gain market share from Google. Although the discussions may come to naught, or prove a mere ploy in the media firm's ongoing negotiations with Google, the news caused a stir. It is a sign not only of how far Microsoft is willing to go in order to turn Bing into a serious rival to Google, but also of how the entire internet could well evolve. - economist.com

www.economist.com

Mark Thompson: BBC may shut some digital services after switchover |Media |guardian.co.uk

They were set by medium and spectrum scarcity the BBC offered two TV channels and a fixed number of radio stations. Thompson also entered the ongoing debate in media circles about charging for online content, placing the BBC firmly in the free-access camp. To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editormediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. - guardian.co.uk

ITV regional news replacement set for north-east, Cumbria and Borders |Media |guardian.co.uk

The government has selected the north-east, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders as the pilot-scheme locations for a replacement ITV regional news service. Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, announced the decision today, inviting bids from those wanting to form independently funded news consortiums to provide regional ITV1 news bulletins and other content for the area and other pilots in Scotland and Wales. The government hopes a more localised service can be offered under the new arrangement and wants multimedia news to be part of the offering. - guardian.co.uk

DVB issues next generation handheld Call for Technologies

The call is issued to industry, and responses are required by February 26th 2010. The call is intended to invite technology inputs that would facilitate an appropriate NGH physical layer on which a successful full NGH system could be built. DTG Staff 26.11.2009 Links open in a new window. - dtg.org.uk

www.dtg.org.uk

Channel 4 could charge for online TV show premieres

Why does Peter Mandelson favour the Analogue Economy over the Digital? |Technology |guardian.co.uk

There's a lot to hate about Peter Mandelson's controversial Digital Economy Bill, but there's one provision that perfectly captures the absolute, reality-denying absurdity of the whole enterprise. That titbit is the provision that holds the Bill's most drastic measures in reserve, only to be used if Britain's illegal filesharing doesn't drop off by 70 within a year of the main part of the Bill coming into force. The idea that, at some time in the future, the volume of unauthorised copying will somehow drop off at all let alone by an astounding 70, is, frankly, barking. - guardian.co.uk

Media Talk: Live-ish at the Guardian Student Media Conference

download.guardian.co.uk

Wednesday 25 November 2009, PM

Velocity of Media Consumption: TV vs. the Web (Jakob Nielsens Alertbox)

Jakob Nielsens Alertbox November 24, 2009 Summary The granularity of user decisions is much finer on the Web, which is dominated by the instant gratification of the user's needs in any given instant. Today, of course, we're in the opposite scenario everything we write competes with trillions of Web pages, all a few clicks away. As a result, most people actually read very few words on the Web. - useit.com

www.useit.com

Traditional tv channel has a brighter future | Opinion | Marketing Week

After all, with most of the developed world moving over to digital in the next five years more than 1 billion homes will soon be upgrading their TV receiving equipment and in the market for new television offerings. What they have come up with is a software system that appears to get round the limited capacity on DTT and makes it much easier to offer video-on-demand, catch-up TV such as the iPlayer, high definition and targeted advertising. It is downloaded in the form of data packages, rather like Teletext, and therefore does not affect the channel capacity of the DTT system. - marketingweek.co.uk

www.marketingweek.co.uk

BBC says Project Canvas could be delayed until 2011 - Telegraph

The BBC has already spent around 1 million building the platform. It had set a budget of 6 million over five years to develop the technology needed to support the service. Sky is worried that the BBC will use public money to finance a dominate position in the nascent video-on-demand market, squeezing out competitors and other broadcasters in the process. - telegraph.co.uk

www.telegraph.co.uk

Why I fear for the future of news on ITV | Business

It would be glib of me to say that ITV's regional news output nowadays is, by contrast, hopelessly inadequate. Under-funded regional newsrooms are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with their BBC rivals. In February this year, some 430 jobs were axed across the ITV regions, accounting for 40 of the total. - thisislondon.co.uk

www.thisislondon.co.uk

BARB wires up new audience panel to measure on-demand and PC viewing

BBC Media Show: BBC Worldwide; the Oprah effect; regional news - 25 11 09

downloads.bbc.co.uk

Wednesday 25 November 2009, AM

Mail letter-writer defends the BBC and the licence fee |Media |guardian.co.uk

I put the Daily Mail's Monday letters page to one side that evening and then forget to post it yesterday. Its lead letter was a spirited defence of the BBC, the licence fee and the director-general's salary plus a forthright attack on its media critics which, though it did not say so, include the Mail. I'm concerned at the salvos being aimed at the BBC, which I feel epitomises and fosters the Britishness of our youth and culture. - guardian.co.uk

Murdoch courts trouble if he blocks Google on news -Online, Media - The Independent

Microsoft would pay for the privilege, sources have told Reuters, but it was not clear how much. If Murdoch pulled this off, he will likely be followed by other newspaper publishers looking for ways to make money when all the old ones are waning in the digital age. Newspaper owners resent Google because the Internet company makes money from the advertisements that it displays next to news search results. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

BBC News - Digital switchover in north east

Every home in Wales should have a digital television signal by March 2010 Thousands of homes in Denbighshire and Flintshire will be affected by the latest stage of the change to digital broadcasting. The Moel-y-Parc transmitter is switching over on Wednesday and all analogue services will stop broadcasting permanently. Viewers who have not switched to digital will lose their TV service. - news.bbc.co.uk

news.bbc.co.uk

Tuesday 24 November 2009, PM

Sony Bravia KDL40Z5800: Sony joins the FreeSat revolution

www.unthinkable.biz

BBC Worldwide may plan a staged sell-off of some assets |Media |guardian.co.uk

BBC Worldwide has been asked to come up with a three-year action plan that could involve the staged sell-off of some magazines and its holdings in independent TV production companies, as well as a review of online operations. They're going to do more bench-marking and make it more transparent with more statistics. Lyons argued that the package of restrictions announced today would not affect BBC Worldwide's commercial goals. - guardian.co.uk

BBC Worldwide would be allowed to buy Virgin Medias UKTV stake |Media |guardian.co.uk

He said that he was hopeful that the protracted and fraught negotiations with BBC Worldwide might result in a deal now that Channel 4 was coming close to resolving uncertainty about senior management. Lord Burns, the Channel 4 chairman designate, has already started work with finding a replacement for Andy Duncan as chief executive his top priority. They have been complicated by different views in Channel 4 about their priorities. - guardian.co.uk

Is Ofcom lean? : | OfcomWatch |

www.ofcomwatch.co.uk

NPR doing everything right - blog - James Cridland

and a slightly odd West-Country sounding Dave Prowse telling me to be careful when crossing the road. NPR stations are all non-commercial, and revenue is raised by sponsor credits underwriting spots and listener donations, as well as grants from universities, state governments, and around 11 of its revenue comes via the CPB, which is mainly goverment funded. NPR reaches 27.5 million people each week thats 12 of the total adults in the US with expenditure of around 64million per year. - james.cridland.net

james.cridland.net

Trust announces new limits to Worldwide activity

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

Award wins for BBC Television

- bbc.co.uk

BBC News - European MPs votes on new telecoms law

Member states have until May 24 2011 to include the legislation in their own rules. It comes amid controversial laws being introduced in France and the UK to cut off persistent illegal downloaders. Protecting internet access and users' rights was a high priority for MEPs hammering out the Telecoms Package. - news.bbc.co.uk

news.bbc.co.uk

Tuesday 24 November 2009, AM

BSkyB in fresh attack on BBC over Project Canvas |Media |guardian.co.uk

This comes after BBC management submitted additional information on Project Canvas's proposed governance structure and costs to the trust. BBC management said that non-public service broadcasters could become partners, reversing a previous position, and revealed that the costs for each partner are likely to be in excess of 20m in Project Canvas's first four years from launch. However, Sky again argued that the BBC Trust should still not allow the project to go ahead. - guardian.co.uk

Is Rupert Murdoch really going to make news disappear behind a paywall? | Media | guardian.co.uk

Sarah Palin In 2012, her big moment could happen behind a paywall. Today, of course, such an interview would be broadcast and then retransmitted ad infinitum via YouTube, Twitter, blogs, websites. Other publishers think he might be right but are yet to decide whether to join the Long March. - guardian.co.uk