STV ready to tackle ITV again |Media |The Guardian

Good call a shrewd businessman, Roy Thomson launched Scottish Television in 1957. It has echoes of a tussle five decades ago, at the birth of the ITV network. Other potential bidders for the central Scotland ITV franchise were scared off. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Six months on and ITV is back to square one | Steve Hewlett |Media |The Guardian

A leaderless British broadcaster is hardly news these days. The company has been searching for a new chief executive since last April and has now, with the announcement that talks with the former Sky chief Tony Ball are off, drawn a complete blank. You just can't have chief executives choosing their chairmen. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

BBC Trust under siege - but what is the alternative? |Media |The Guardian

It is not yet three years old and already the government that created the BBC Trust has disowned it, calling it unsustainable. It has been attacked by commercial rivals for being too weak and by BBC insiders for being too tough, and the man who would take over as culture secretary in a Tory government last week said it should be scrapped. Set up to represent the licence fee after the former board of governors system was criticised in the wake of the Hutton inquiry, the trust has still managed to raise eyebrows with a role as both regulator and champion of the BBC. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Chris Tryhorn interviews Tom Bennie, chief executive of Arqiva |Media |The Guardian

Tom Bennie is probably the most important media figure you've never heard of. The chief executive of Arqiva admits the privately owned transmission company has been content with a pretty low profile until now. Despite being responsible for much of the UK's broadcast infrastructure with sales of around 800m a year, the Hampshire-based company is rarely mentioned inside the London media bubble. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Freeview shake-up means 25million have to retune | Mail Online

At the same time some 7.7million television sets that have the Freeview digital technology built into them will also have to be retuned. Electrical retailers say many customers are unaware that their Freeview equipment will stop working unless they retune it. These channels also show re-runs of popular series such as Poirot, Heartbeat and Cracker. - dailymail.co.uk

www.dailymail.co.uk

ITV faces shareholder revolt over chairman-paper| Reuters

A spokeswoman for ITV said the group was not commenting on any prospective candidates. IDnLP493693 The new non-executive chairman will then lead the search for a new chief executive and will appoint any interim executive management, allowing Grade to leave the company after three years in charge. - reuters.com

www.reuters.com

Charlie Brookers screen burn: Live From Studio Five |Television radio |The Guardian

I'm talking about actual vegetables carrots, potatoes, turnips, cauliflowers such is the target audience for Live From Studio Five Five, daily, 6.30pm. Clearly too stupid for human consumption, it is instead aimed squarely at cold, unfeeling lumps of organic matter with no discernible minds of their own. A show which, incredibly, boasts Melinda Messenger as its intellectual touchstone. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

ITV faces another mess of its own making after dropping Tony Ball |Media |guardian.co.uk

Michael Grade appointed to controversial position of ITV executive chairman in 2006. Not only has it terminated negotiations with the favourite to become chief executive, Tony Ball, but Grade has announced he will be leaving at the end of the year. With former BSkyB boss Ball out of the picture, the broadcaster will have to go back to the shortlist of rejected chief executive candidates or persuade someone who couldn't be enticed before that this chalice is safe to drink from. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

BBC Trust - Trust publishes its submission to Digital Britain consultation

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

www.bbc.co.uk

Sir Crispin Davis tipped to replace Michael Grade as ITV chairman |Media |The Guardian

Adding to the sense of crisis at the UK's largest commercial broadcaster, ITV also admitted that Grade, the executive chairman, had decided to leave the company altogether, abandoning his original plan to move to the position of non-executive chairman on the appointment of a new chief executive. He was backing by leading shareholders including Legal General and Fidelity despite initially calling for a pay deal worth 42m. After meeting Ball, Crosby is understood to have got the impression that Ball wanted a mere figurehead as chairman. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

BBC Red Button launches new CBeebies interactive service

There will also be new-look Birthdays and Star Of The Week interactive sections allowing parents to request that their child's name be shown on screen. Children can quickly find all their favourite CBeebies red button TV programming and games on whichever platform they are using, ie digital satellite, cable or terrestrial. It has allowed the BBC to provide audiences with access to the latest news, weather and other information, while also enabling the delivery of an enhanced experience across major sporting and entertainment events. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Trust plans to fund regional news by selling broadcasting spectrum |Media |guardian.co.uk

He added that the BBC's plan to share facilities with other outlets, as well as potential changes to media ownership laws, could also provide indirect financial support for commercial news providers. The BBC's proposals were set out in the trust's response to the government's Digital Britain report, which proposed setting up a new contestable fund using the slice of the licence fee currently reserved for the digital switchover help scheme to provide top-up funding for news consortiums. The trust said it believed that there needed to be other local news sources besides the BBC. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

BBC iPlayer goes high definition

It will mean improved picture quality on streams to web browsers. The iPlayer has been a runaway sucess, with more than 387 million requests to stream or download since it launched on Christmas Day 2007. User defined The player will now also allow users to customise the size of their viewing window, which the developers say, are now nearly twice as good as the previous high quality format. - news.bbc.co.uk

news.bbc.co.uk

Bristol digital switch: Having you turned of your analogue TV signal? | News | This is Bristol

TV viewers in the Bristol area who have not switched from analogue to digital will start seeing warnings on their screens from today. The move is part of a new campaign to target the 64,000 homes in the south west which have not converted to digital TV. The on-screen captions will only appear on analogue channels, and will increase in frequency as the switchover approaches. - thisisbristol.co.uk

www.thisisbristol.co.uk

South and Central Wales go digital

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www.dtg.org.uk

Project Canvas boxes to be available for Christmas 2010 - Media news - Media Week

If approved, the first wave of set-top boxes are expected to cost between 100 and 200 and will include a common electronic programme guide EPG that would allow users to flick freely between scheduled and on-demand programming. The broadcasters behind Canvas are already assuring potential content partners the ordering of the EPG will be purely democratic, based on the most popular, and not pre-determined. The products are also set to include a PVR recording device, so that users can store their own content, and will allow audiences to access the full range of digital without using an aerial such as Freeview, or a satellite dish. - mediaweek.co.uk

www.mediaweek.co.uk

Tony Ball and ITV end job talks

Mr Ball was opposed to proposed candidates to replace Michael Grade. It is understood that Mr Ball had set a deadline of this weekend to agree terms. Shares in ITV fell 1.2p to 45.3p on the news. - news.bbc.co.uk

news.bbc.co.uk

Media Talk podcast: Strictly Come Dancing, the Observer, and trouble in the political blogosphere

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Full text of David Elsteins Beesley lecture |Media |guardian.co.uk

That is the subject of my lecture tonight, launching the Beesley series. For over 30 years, from 1955 to 1988, the UK enjoyed a stable, managed broadcasting sector, built on spectrum scarcity. The advent of Channel 4 in 1982 was seamlessly integrated. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Tories will tell BBC to give up licence fee increase |Media |guardian.co.uk

A Conservative government will tell the BBC to give up its annual licence-fee increase next year if the party wins the general election and the economic downturn continues, shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said today. The Tories, who could be in government when the next fee increase is debated in parliament early in the summer, voted in May for the BBC to give up this year's 3 rise to the 139.50 fee, saying that it should be frozen because the country was in recession and that there was no inflation. The current six-year licence fee settlement, which was agreed in January 2007 and runs until the end of March 2013, handed the BBC a 3 annual rise for the two years from April 2007, a 2 rise for the following three years, and an increase of between 0 and 2 in the final year of the deal. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Wanted: TV news presenter. Must be female. Young need not apply - TV Radio, Media - The Indep

Mark Thompson, the director general, has ordered BBC News to find an older newsreader within a year and has also called on every director to look into recruiting more mature women presenters if they are under-represented in their department. The recruitment drive will be welcome news to campaigners who believe the BBC needs to do more to broaden the news reading pool, while others will no doubt argue the move is simply a knee-jerk reaction to appease some critics. The BBC has always strongly denied favouring younger people but a number of high-profile female presenters have complained that they felt forced out of the news organisation because of their age. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

BBC Trust - Trust launches its largest review of BBC TV services

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

www.bbc.co.uk

Astra to axe analogue TV in 2012

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BBC Media SHow: Political weeklies, STV and smart phones

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Devon24 - Time for TV re-tune in Torridge

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www.devon24.co.uk

PLEASE ADJUST YOUR SETS - Arbroath Today

Anyone who uses Freeview to obtain their digital television signal will be affected by the change which takes place next Wednesday September 30. Ailsa Redford, a partner of Hosies, told us that she was amazed how few people were aware of the change taking place that day. Freeview is also used by BT Vision and Top up TV. - arbroathherald.co.uk

www.arbroathherald.co.uk

The future of TV: technologies to watch - Telegraph

By the time the Olympics rolls into town, the analogue television signal will have been switched off across the country. All televisions, from the 40in set in your living-room to the black-and-white set in the shed, will need to be hooked up to a digital service, via, for example, a Freeview set-top box, the Freesat subscription-free satellite service, or paid-for services such as Sky or Virgin Media. Most televisions can be converted cheaply and easily to receive a digital signal, and DigitalUK, charged with overseeing the process, offers help to elderly people or those on low incomes digitaluk.co.uk. - telegraph.co.uk

www.telegraph.co.uk

Sky wanted top channels on DTT - Rapid TV News

Read more Louise Duffy 04-01-2013 A Pakistani parliamentary panel has asked the government to ban all foreign content in any language during prime time on television. Read more Iaki Ferreras 04-01-2013 Madrid's regional public broadcaster Telemadrid is going through the worst time in its history the company has serious financial problems and is close to shutting... - rapidtvnews.com

www.rapidtvnews.com

BBC to boost childrens spending by 25m and BBC2 drama budget by 50% |Media |guardian.co.uk

ITV has cut its children's TV funding from 50m a year to 10m. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Digital Radio - Just a Minute Reloaded

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www.bbc.co.uk

ITV network licence no longer sustainable in 2012: response to government sets out proposed delivery of regional news af

Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. 4G auction bidders announced December 20, 2012 Ofcom has today announced the bidders in the forthcoming 4G mobile spectrum auction the largest ever sale of mobile airwaves in the UK. npower fined for making abandoned calls December 6, 2012 The conclusion of an Ofcom investigation has today found npower, the gas and electricity supplier, to be in breach of rules on abandoned calls. - ofcom.org.uk

www.ofcom.org.uk

ITV and Tony Ball clash on scale of pay package - TV Radio, Media - The Independent

The favourite to land the top job at ITV is reported to be holding out for more money creating a stand-off that could force the media group to reopen the search for a new chief executive, five months after beginning the process. Tony Ball, who has already been offered the job of running ITV, is understood to be holding out for a five-year package worth as much as 30m. The company, which broadcasts shows such as The X Factor and which has been squeezed by the precarious state of the advertising market, is thought to have told Mr Ball that his demands are unacceptable a stance that could see the group withdrawing the offer of the job. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

More funding needed for ITV regional news, warns Ofcom - Business News, Business - The Independ

ITV's regional news services could be losing as much as 64m a year by 2012 as competition from digital rivals renders current business models unsustainable, the media watchdog said yesterday. Ofcom came out in support of plans for independent consortiums to provide the content. Pilot schemes are scheduled to go ahead next year. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

ITV launches 38m lawsuit against STV - Business News, Business - The Independent

The row has been rumbling for some time, since STV cut back on expensive programmes produced by ITV in favour of regional alternatives. After more than a year, it has now turned to the courts to settle the dispute. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

Why commercial tv has no more shots in the locker | Opinion | Marketing Week

That something is the BBC it is too big for its boots and must be cut down to size. Murdoch, it will be remembered, used the MacTaggart lecture last month to lambast the BBCs smothering Orwellian tendency, particularly in the sphere of online news journalism. The gist of his argument is that the BBC is perverting public subsidy by trespassing on what should properly be the sacred precinct of private enterprise. - marketingweek.co.uk

www.marketingweek.co.uk

Next-gen Humax Freesat receiver and PVR in 2010

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blog.wotsat.com

BBC defends Freeview HD copy protection - Digital Spy

The BBC has defended its plan to ensure that all Freeview HD equipment will be equipped with more stringent copy protection technology. We could have said no to the content owners' request and delayed the launch of Freeview HD, but we had to balance this with the fact that respecting the request for content protection should result in more programmes and hence a better viewing experience for our audiences. - digitalspy.co.uk

www.digitalspy.co.uk

Talking DAB and the future of radio - The Register

The Switchoff Scare that wasn't Recently there's all this scaremongering about switch-off. It says if you get digital listening to 50 per cent - and you've got to solve a lot of problems to get to that 50 per cent - you've got to think about switch-off. By the time you get to a switch off most people won't be listening on analog. - theregister.co.uk

www.theregister.co.uk

North West TV viewers urged to go digital before switchover From Lancashire Telegraph)

Analogue signals will begin to be switched over in the Granada region on November 4, with the total switch-off planned to be completed on December 2. John Askew, who is leading the North Wests switchover, said We dont think there are many people who have not already switched to digital. There are already millions who have transferred, either through Sky, Freesat or Freeview. - lancashiretelegraph.co.uk

www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk

Group test: 32in LCD TVs - AVReview Home cinema reviews

However, it's got a rather handy excuse for its costliness in the form of a built-in Freesat tuner, capable of receiving the digital satellite platform's free HD and standard definition broadcasts. Unfortunately, though, the L32G10's pictures don't really do all of its fancy technology proud. For starters, HD pictures from Blu-ray or the Freesat tuner don't look especially crisp and detailed. - avreview.co.uk

www.avreview.co.uk

Hybrid Internet-TV Makes Progress in Europe - NYTimes.com

Within several months, viewers in Germany with specially equipped televisions may be able to watch public broadcasters Internet television services, which let users catch up on the shows of the previous week, whenever they choose, via their computers. In Britain, the BBC and several partners are working on a more ambitious project to bring what is called catch-up TV and a variety of other programming and interactive services to television sets as soon as next year. Why would viewers, who can already get dozens of channels over the air, via cable or satellite or through their telephone lines, need yet another way to watch television - nytimes.com

www.nytimes.com

Duncan failed to deliver the big one for Channel 4 - Media news - Media Week

Steve Barrett editor of Media Week Duncan had some successes in his five-and-a-half years at the helm. With 4oD, C4 was the first major broadcaster to launch a fully fledged video-on-demand service. In 2005, it was the first UK operator to simultaneously broadcast on TV and PC. - mediaweek.co.uk

www.mediaweek.co.uk

Virgin Bingo Make TV Bingo History

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www.unluckyforsome.co.uk

SNP plan for telly on cheap | The Sun |Home Scotland|Scottish News

Arts Minister Mike Russell called for a mixed funding model like that used in Ireland. It means Scots would still be able to watch EastEnders and River City but might have to put up with ads in the middle. Mr Russell said the 4.6billion of programmes provided by the BBC would be replaced by a 300milion Scottish-based broadcaster. - thesun.co.uk

www.thesun.co.uk

Finally, Ofcom supplies an answer! (why local TV is problematic) : | OfcomWatch |

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www.ofcomwatch.co.uk

RTS Cambridge Convention: Trouble at the top |Media |The Guardian

Channel 4's chief executive, Andy Duncan, announced his departure on the eve of the conference while its chairman, Luke Johnson, will also be gone by the beginning of next year. His appointment is expected to hasten the departure of its chairman, Michael Grade. But, as its chairman, Michael Lyons, pointed out in response to Bradshaw's speech, the government could at least have given it until the next licence fee settlement in 2012 to call time. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Should Ofcom regulate the BBC? : | OfcomWatch |

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www.ofcomwatch.co.uk

For the record: 21/09/2009 - Press, Media - The Independent

Perhaps Anne has some memory loss or dreamt it. Staff at BBC Radio Sheffield or indeed Vogue have no need to reach for the lippy, it's strictly about media agencies. The winner will get 1,000 to spend in Banana Republic. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

Mobile broadband dongles up to speed? : | OfcomWatch |

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www.ofcomwatch.co.uk

Shiny Jeremy Hunt nearly stole the show |Media |The Guardian

Through a refining process of endless speeches, presentations, conferences, posturing, leaking and spinning, the British television industry is moving towards knowing its own mind in terms of what it would like. Now all it needs is an administration that can help this most heavily regulated of sectors achieve its nirvana. But, unusually, it was the shiny shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, whose presence on stage wasmost eagerly awaited. - guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk