More Sky agents blow whistle over doorstep selling claims - Money - The Guardian

Sky says it has rigorous training in place to prevent mis-selling. Last week a group of Sky salesmen, who came to the Guardian's offices to be filmed making their claims, said door-to-door agents frequently lie about broadband speeds and download limits, or promise services that are not part of their packages. They said agents then circumvent Sky's sales verification process by faking customer agreements. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

TV Networks, Advertisers at Odds Over How to Count Viewers - WSJ.com

ET Television networks and marketers spar every spring over the price of advertising for the coming season, but this year a potentially bigger fight looms over a different issue how many of the networks' viewers should be counted. Facing what is expected to be a lackluster ad market, TV networks hope to boost their revenue by changing the formula for how ad deals are structured so that it includes more viewers who use digital video recorders to watch shows after they air initially. Since 2007, television ad time has been sold based on the audience size for shows and accompanying commercials up to three days from the airdate. - online.wsj.com

online.wsj.com

Susanna Reid and Charlotte Hawkins on Good Morning Britain are losing viewers just as fast as Christine Bleakley and Adr

Good Morning Britain, the latest saviour of breakfast television on ITV is flopping just as fast as its predecessor, Daybreak, according to overnight viewing figures. - radiotimes.com

www.radiotimes.com

Scripps Networks 1Q profit rises 19 pct - Wire Business News - The Sacramento Bee

For the quarter ended March 31, Scripps earned 128.3 million, or 87 cents per share, compared with 107.8 million, or 72 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2013. Operating revenue rose 8 percent to 643.7 million from 594.4 million. Analysts, on average, expected earnings of 82 cents per share on 645.5 million in revenue, according to FactSet. - sacbee.com

www.sacbee.com

Sky News Launches Catch Up TV Service

It will allow customers to get up to speed with the very best of Sky News content by choosing the stories they want to watch when it suits them. Content will include key bulletins, specially commissioned programmes in the form of documentaries and the pick of Sky News archive. John Ryley, Head of Sky News, commented Sky News is committed to developing the ways in which customers can watch its content. - corporate.sky.com

corporate.sky.com

BBC News - BT confident about broadband and broadcast growth

BT has reported its first rise in consumer revenues for a decade after strong demand for fibre optic broadband and on demand TV. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Freesat claims momentum despite just 18,000 new users - seenit.co.uk

Free-to-air satellite service Freesat continues to hover below the 2m user mark more than six years after launch. In an update issued on Tuesday, the service announced the addition of 18,000 new homes in the three months to March 2014, taking total claimed users to 1.84m. In addition, Sky attracted 74,000 new homes to its TV services in the most recent quarter, many of which signed up to its low-cost, contract-free Now TV streaming service. - seenit.co.uk

www.seenit.co.uk

New PVR tops Which? tests - May - 2014 - Which? News

You can access a wide variety of shows on the free channels - including some in high-definition - with a free-TV box that uses the Freesat or Freeview TV service. You only need to pay a one-off fee for these PVRs as there are no subscription costs. If you're looking for a bigger selection of channels and can't wait to watch all the latest releases, you may prefer a pay-TV box. - which.co.uk

www.which.co.uk

ITV Agrees to Buy Leftfield Entertainment for $360 Million - Bloomberg

The acquisition, which will add to earnings immediately, has gained regulatory approval, ITV said. ITV shares rose 1.5 percent to 188.6 pence as of 902 a.m. in London trading, giving the company a market value of 7.6 billion pounds 12.9 billion. ITV has an option to buy the remaining 20 percent of Leftfield after three years and the maximum consideration for the entire company is 800 million, including the initial payment. - bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com

Gideon Spanier: ITV is sitting pretty, but problems lurk - Media - Business - London Evening Standard

ITV has been on a golden run since the ex-Royal Mail boss joined in 2010 with a five-year transformation plan, after Michael Grades exit in the recession. Annual profits have nearly doubled to 435 million during Croziers tenure. The dividend has been restored and keeps rising. - standard.co.uk

www.standard.co.uk

BBC News - BBC Cymru Wales chiefs concern over S4Cs peak-time figures

S4C said focusing on one performance measure created an incomplete picture. Mr Davies raised his concerns at a regular meeting of the Audience Council Wales in March, the minutes of which have just been published. However, S4C retains its operational and editorial independence as part of the funding arrangement. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Media: Patten; Paxman; Channel 5 sold; Sunday Herald.

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BBC Trust scandals may scare off new chair candidates, MP warns - London - News - London Evening Standard

Im sure there are lots of people who will say they would love to do it, but finding someone with all the necessary skills to do a job that puts him or her right into the firing line with be difficult. Lord Patten stepped down on doctors advice yesterday after heart surgery. Culture Secretary Sajid Javid will recommend the appointment, in consultation with Number 10. He said It need someone with experience of getting to grips with a very large organisation. - standard.co.uk

www.standard.co.uk

Chris Patten leaves behind a question for Trust at the BBC - Media - The Guardian

Patten had probably got the BBC through the worst of its recent problems, not least by appointing Tony Hall as Entwistle's successor. He had been due to go in April 2015, shortly before the general election now there will be a scrabble to find a replacement, an uncomfortable fact so shortly before charter renewal which must happen before January 2017. All the while, a debate about the governance of the BBC rumbles on. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

On average, Americans get 189 cable TV channels and only watch 17 - Ars Technica

In a blog post on Tuesday, Nielsen reported that on average, US homes receive 189.1 TVchannels, but viewers only watch 17.5 of those channels. Nielsen's blog post today showed that the number of cable channels in an average US household has grown dramatically over the last five years, but the number of channels that viewers actually watch has hardlychanged at all. In 2008, US households received an average of 129.3 channels but only actually viewed 17.3 channels. - arstechnica.com

arstechnica.com

Ariel - Lord Patten steps down after heart surgery

In a statement, he said he had experienced 'serious chest pains' on April 27 and had undergone bypass surgery the following day at a London hospital. 'These procedures have been successful and have ensured no permanent damage to my heart,' said Lord Patten, who was previously treated for a heart condition seven years ago. This is a position that requires and has received from me 100 per cent commitment, and has been my priority at all times,' stated Lord Patten, who has written to Secretary of State Sajid Javid to tender his resignation. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Lord Patten steps down after undergoing heart surgery - News - Broadcast

BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten is to stand down with immediate effect after undergoing heart surgery. The decision marks the end of a turbulent tenure for the former Hong Kong governor, who presided over the BBC’s Jimmy Savile and payoffs scandals after joining the governing body in May 2011. - broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

Court case on streaming TV threatens to cloud our online equality - Media - The Guardian

The American broadcasting industry is ferociously interested in its outcome, not least because it might change television forever. The lumbering case of American Broadcasting Services v Aereo is currently with the Supreme Court. For the low fee of 8 a month Aereo will stream broadcast television to your computer or tablet or phone. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Freesat to expand Freetime presence on smart TVs Digital TV Europe

Freetime is being rolled out across Panasonics current range of smart TVs, including its nine models with Freeview tuners only as well as those with tuners for both satellite and digital-terrestrial reception. Huntington said that the work done on the Panasonic integration was fully portable and that Vestel, which manufactures brands including Toshiba for the UK market, would add Freetime to its range in the near future. Previously only Panasonic and Samsung have provided TVs for the UK market with satellite tuners built in. - digitaltveurope.net

www.digitaltveurope.net

Here's Exactly How Much Time You've Spent Binge Watching Your Fave Shows

S We are, all of us, unrepentant, instant-gratification-obsessed binge TV-watchers. I think I've honest-to-god dedicated a significant portion of my adult life to 30 Rock. - gizmodo.com

gizmodo.com

Viacom to increase Channel 5 budget - Media - theguardian.com

In the US and elsewhere as we increase overall spending, we are also shifting the mix gradually to make more original programming. Viacom owns Nickelodeon, which airs some programming on Channel 5, while Channel 5 has the successful kids' strand Milkshake Many staff are understood to be concerned about job cuts and relocation to Viacom's offices. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Jamaica Inn: BBC strategy chief apologises, but blames varying TV types - Media - theguardian.com

Jamaica Inn BBC strategy chief James Purnell has apologised over sound problems. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Freeview faces threat from mobile companies, warns Digital UK boss - Media - theguardian.com

Freeview faces a threat from mobile phone companies, warned Digital UK's Caroline Thomson. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Roy Greenslade: Richard Desmond’s done well at Channel 5 but it’s not worth £700m - Media - Business - London Evening St

Underlying those questions, however, is a much more important one is it really worth the 700 million he is said to want for it There cannot be any doubt that Desmond turned the broadcaster around after his company, Northern Shell, bought it in July 2010 and relaunched it in February the next year. He injected a spark into Channel5 that had previously been lacking, not least through his gift for promotion and a willingness to ignore orthodoxy. - standard.co.uk

www.standard.co.uk

5 charts showing the rapidly changing face of UK content consumption

Weve picked out some of the key points relevant from the 2014 edition, which demonstrate how consumers are accessing content in new ways, via new formats and new devices. The report covers attitudes and understanding among UK adults aged 16 and covers TV, radio, mobile, games and the internet, with an emphasis on the latter. Ofcom's methodology involves quanititative surveys with between 1,000 and 2,000 adults in-home, and statistical significance testing to within the 95 percent confidence limits. - themediabriefing.com

www.themediabriefing.com

BBC News - Live TV subtitling is too slow, Ofcom says

The average delay between speech being heard and the corresponding subtitles appearing on screen is 5.6 seconds, according to an Ofcom report. Ofcom also raised concerns that some pre-recorded programmes did not have subtitles added in advance, resulting in the same delays. The three further reports will be published over the course of the next two years. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Richard Desmond to announce sale of Channel 5 to US broadcaster Viacom - Media - theguardian.com

Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star, is selling Channel 5. The deal is short of the typically aggressive 700m-plus target originally set by Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star. It is not clear what Viacom will do with Channel 5's 350m-a-year TV ad sales business. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Media: BBC Trust's review of News; Lachlan Murdoch

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Subtitles still need the human touch - Comment - Broadcast

- broadcastnow.co.uk

www.broadcastnow.co.uk

BSkyB faces fall in subscribers as competition from BT and Netflix grows - Media - theguardian.com

BSkyB has added satellite pay-TV subscribers with such reliability every quarter since the late 1990s that former chief executive James Murdoch successfully predicted in 2004 that it would hit 10 million customers by the end of the decade. Since then growth has sunk from about 100,000 a quarter to anaemic levels, as Sky has tapped out most of the households willing to pay for relatively expensive TV packages. Analysts put BSkyB's total TV customer growth in positive territory for the three months to the end of March, with total net additions between 40,000 and 60,000. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Ariel - BBC to bring in consultants about radio and TV archive

It's estimated that the archive - the largest of its kind in the country - has 11m items, which include radio and TV programmes, press cuttings, sheet music and photographs. The consultation will speak to staff who use the archive, finding out about their requirements and asking for ideas about how to go about the process of digitisation. The proposals will be used to decide on how the archive might be managed in future. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

DTG :: News :: Ofcom publish blueprint for next decade of spectrum

Ofcom has today published its Spectrum Management Strategy, setting out their strategic approach and priorities for managing radio spectrum. Six priorities for spectrum management Ofcom has identified six priority areas for future spectrum use. Future mobile data demands Ofcom will consider the potential impact these demands have on other users of spectrum. - dtg.org.uk

dtg.org.uk

BBC3 closure 'not a foregone conclusion', warns trustee - Media - theguardian.com

Looking at how to move Newsbeat as not just news provider on Radio 1 but something that works digitally and visually too. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Media Talk podcast: Marketing and advertising to children - a necessary evil?

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Freeview TV under threat as mobile phone companies eat up more of the airwaves - TV Radio - Media - The Independen

She said she feared an insidious slicing away of spectrum available to DTT because mobile is the sexy thing and the thing which is engaging policy makers and makes Government money from selling spectrum. Her comments come ahead of a meeting of the World Radio Conference next year at which an earlier decision is expected to be ratified, ensuring that the 700 Megahertz MHz spectrum band is reallocated from television to mobile. Ms Thomson said this would mean that in 2018, Freeview viewers would be required to make fresh adjustments to their sets. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

Ariel - BBC News appoints new senior posts

Mardell takes over from current presenter Shaun Ley, who will remain on the Radio 4 team and feature more often on TV news output such as Hardtalk. BBC News also recently announced that award-winning journalist Nikki Fox has been named as disability correspondent and will be based in Salford. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

Ariel - Trust: News faces fight for young audience

A new review of the Corporation's network news and current affairs points to a drop of around 14 in the number of youngsters watching BBC television news over the last decade. Only 41 of younger adults tune in - around half the number of older adults - while the reach of Radio 1's Newsbeat has fallen by more than 20 in the last five years. These decreases, said the report, are out of proportion with any overall news viewing and listening falloff and are likely to reflect the shift online that young people have embraced even more wholeheartedly than the rest of the audience. - bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk

DTG :: News :: STV HD launches on Freesat

DTG Staff 29.04.2014 Back Links open in a new window. - dtg.org.uk

dtg.org.uk

Fears grow that the BBC News Channel could become online only - TV Radio - Media - The Independent

In the article, published in The Guardian, Sambrook and McGuire argued that 24-hour news channels had been left outdated by social media and other technological developments and no longer represented value for money. The piece concluded Satellite news channels have played a hugely important role in the development of 24-hour news and information over the last 30 years. By moving the News Channel online the BBC would save money on transmission costs. - independent.co.uk

www.independent.co.uk

AM Radio: No Longer Practical? — Radio: The Golden Days and The Future — Medium

http//www.flickr.com/photos/trekkyandy/1971500675/ The problem is, however, that more and more electronic devices emit various type of noises on the same frequency spectrum which is used for the AM radio, from the power suppies. Modern power supplies use the technology called switching voltage regulation the power supply acts as a high-frequency automatic switch to control the energy flowing into itself,and sends the energy to the devices. The output voltage is controlled by the ratio of the periods of turning the switch on and off. - medium.com

medium.com

Media Monkey: ITN's Chris Shaw, Ian Katz, and David Dinsmore - Media - The Guardian

Chris Shaw, who also takes an executive producer credit, is assigned menial tasks as Kearney's bees finally produce enough golden goo to put into jars. Competent enough when asked simply to turn a handle to extract the stuff, Shaw looks much more uncomfortable later despite wearing a full protective beekeeper outfit when his job is to scrape buzzing bees off frames covered in honey. Junior ITN toilers and perhaps his former Channel 5 News team may find these scenes hugely enjoyable. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

BBC News review could be good for Lord Patten - Media - The Guardian

Lord Patten the BBC Trust's news review may not be enough to get its chairman a second term. However, the trust's review of BBC News due for publication this week will be the first of what might be regarded as a new era. At least that will be the hope of its chairman Lord Patten. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

The FCC changed course on network neutrality. Here is why you should care. - Center for Internet and Society

The proposal would allow providers to give preferential treatment to traffic from some content providers, as long as such arrangements are available on 'commercially reasonable' terms for all interested content companies. Do the proposed rules abandon earlier FCC policies on access fees Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to allow access fees. - cyberlaw.stanford.edu

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

Ofcom - Pay TV – Ofcom begins review of the wholesale must-offer

160414 Ofcom has a duty under section 316 of the Communications Act 2003 to ensure fair and effective competition in the provision of licensed broadcasting services. In 2010 Ofcom completed its review of the pay TV market. In order to ensure fair and effective competition we inserted a wholesale must-offer obligation under section 316 into licences held by Sky requiring it to offer to wholesale Sky Sports 1 and 2 to other retailers. - stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk

stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk

Sky exaggerated availability of content on Now TV, says ASA

Sky has been told it must stop overstating the availability of channel content on its Now TV online streaming service. Responding, Sky insisted all shows featured in the advert could be streamed by Now TV customers at the same time as they were being transmitted live via linear television. Furthermore, it said content that couldn't be viewed on live channels had not appeared in the ad. - cable.co.uk

www.cable.co.uk

Arqiva launches 24-hour community coverage on Freeview - IP TV News

Community Channel broadcasts original programmes that showcase the work of new directors and community filmmakers, as well as the very best of terrestrial TV. This new version of Community Channel, branded Community HD, is the first channel to benefit from Arqivas up-scaling technology. Community Channel was one of the launch channels on Freeview, airing initially from 0500 to 0800hrs in the news genre and more recently from 0200 to 0800hrs in the entertainment genre. - iptv-news.com

www.iptv-news.com

What are the options for radio in a digital age? - Technology - theguardian.com

With the topic of analogue FM radio turn-off in the news again, I would be very grateful if you could clarify the options, given the Quad aspiration. I have a rather fine, if old, hi-fi system into which any radio signal can be delivered. Where I live, the web is not an option, but it may be for others. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Local TV plan on the rocks as funding frozen, while London Live head quits - Media - The Guardian

Local TV station London Live's viewing figures average 2,400 for its breakfast show. Eight times it has broadcast to an audience of zero. London Live the biggest station to launch so far, which shares the same owner as the capital's Evening Standard newspaper has recorded close-to-zero audience figures for some of its news programmes. - theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com

Feedback: The Archers Editor: 25 Apr 14

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BitTorrent: Netflix should defeat ISPs by switching to peer-to-peer - Ars Technica

Klinker writes Many smart researchers are already thinking about this problem. Broadly speaking, this re-imagined Internet is often called Content Centric Networking. The closest working example we have to a Content Centric Network today is BitTorrent. - arstechnica.com

arstechnica.com