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Tuesday 29 April 2014, PM

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

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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

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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

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DTG :: News :: STV HD launches on Freesat

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

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Monday 28 April 2014, PM

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In the article, published in The Guardian, Sambrook and McGuire argued that 24-hour news channels had been left outdated by social media and other technological developments and no longer represented value for money.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

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Monday 28 April 2014, AM

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

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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

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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

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Sunday 27 April 2014, AM

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

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Saturday 26 April 2014, PM

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

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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

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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

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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

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Friday 25 April 2014, PM

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

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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

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Friday 25 April 2014, AM

Why Do So Many People Describe Aereo 'Complying' With Copyright Law As The Company 'Circumventing' Copyright Law? - Tech

We mentioned this briefly in our writeup of the oral arguments at the Supreme Court in the Aereo case, but I wanted to focus in on one particularly annoying issue that has come up repeatedly throughout this company's history the idea that its compliance with the law is actually the company circumventing the law. We'll fully admit, as that article does, that the setup of Aereo is simply insane from a technology standpoint. There is no good reason at all to design the technology this way. - techdirt.com

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London Live TV suffers terrible Barb ratings three weeks on from launch - Media - theguardian.com

London Live, the news-based TV channel launched on 31 March, has failed to win many viewers. For example, the key three-hour breakfast show, Wake Up London, is averaging 2,400 viewers while the early evening show is attracting just 4,000. Midgeley quotes statistics from the official ratings monitor, Barb, between 31 March and Tuesday 22 April. - theguardian.com

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Thursday 24 April 2014, PM

Hubris, chemistry and Susanna Reid: welcome to ITV's 'new' breakfast show - Life and style - The Guardian

Monday sees the launch of Good Morning Britain the last possible combination of jaunty, early-birdy words the channel has not yet strung together in its 900-year quest to render the slot something other than an eternally unlearned lesson in broadcasting hubris. Unless you devote yourself to recherche news concerns such as the Ukraine crisis, you will already know that drifting TV ghost ship Daybreak is finally to be broken up for scrap. In the event of nuclear holocaust she would still be there, linking gamely from an item about radiation poisoning to a ham-radio call-in on fallout fashion. - theguardian.com

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London Live's Disastrous TV Ratings: 2,400 Watch Breakfast Show In City Of 9million - Forbes

Id already been behind the scenes at the channel before its March 31 launch, to write a feature for Britains Radio Times magazine. Having seen one of its live programmes being piloted, I was skeptical that the channels news output could be a success. Almost nobody is watching London Lives flagship programmes the live news and current affairs that fill five and a half hours every weekday. - forbes.com

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Thursday 24 April 2014, AM

Media Talk podcast: Jamaica Inn 'mumbling' row

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Wednesday 23 April 2014, PM

Media: Royal video; IPSO; Adoption Docs; Peter Greste

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Wednesday 23 April 2014, AM

BBC iPlayer - Help - iPlayer Radio - Problems since 22 April 2014 on PC and Mac

Some users have encountered the error message, Content not working'. This is currently under investigation and when we obtain further information it will be added to this FAQ. Did this answer your question - iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk

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Tuesday 22 April 2014, PM

Aereo s Supreme Court case could catch TiVo and others in its crossfire Quartz

The word to listenfor in todays arguments is Cablevision, as in the 2008 appeals court decisionapproving that companys cloud-based DVR. Prolonged discussion of thecase would suggest the justices disagree with the ruling inCablevision, which would in turn raise questions that go way beyond Aereo. The publicly traded company recently started selling products that let peoplewatch recorded television on phones and tabletsover the internet.If the justices think Aereos service is a copyright violation, then TiVos might be, too. - qz.com

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Feedback: BBC iPlayer App: 18 Apr 14

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Monday 21 April 2014, PM

Aereo Supreme Court case: What happens if CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox lose? - Fortune Tech

By Peter Suciu Aereo is the brainchild of engineer and inventor Chet Kanojia. Aereo has been signing up subscribers in markets around the country since it first launched in New York City in February 2012. Should Aereo win the right to retransmit the OTA signals, other operators could use similar technologies to also avoid paying the retransmission fees, and that, say some legal experts, could undermine the entire broadcast business model. - tech.fortune.cnn.com

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Argument preview: Free TV, at a bargain price? : SCOTUSblog

ProtectMyAntenna.org At its core, this dispute is about the meaning forthe broadcast world of two words and variations thereon perform or performance and public or publicly.Those words appeared in the landmark Copyright Act of 1909, and have remained in that law ever since. That opinion established two concepts for broadcast copyright law the nature of the middleman in delivering the entertainment counts, but so does the identityof the end user, or listener. The Supreme Court decidedin 2005 that this was different from the Betamax approach, because the distributor of the software made significant efforts toactually encourage file-sharing of the copyrighted movies, and so wasa copyrightviolation enabler. - scotusblog.com

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Ofcom begins review of wholesale offer of Sky Sports 1 and 2 - UPDATED - Recombu

- recombu.com

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The making of an icon: Celia Chapman, co-designer of the BBC 2 ident, relives creating that fat, sharp-edged little nume

Controller Alan Yentob recognised that the existing identity was singularly unmemorable and commissioned Lambie-Nairn to come up with something new, different and memorable. Why was it chosen over all other 2s This provided space for things to happen to it, and things did happen to it it had paint thrown at it, it was dropped into paint powder, it was made from copper, paper, neon, and glass. - thedrum.com

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We dont all look to the Sky for the best TV Express Star

There I was at the last Saturday afternoon home match, minding my own interference and tucking into a particularly fiery chicken balti pie at half time, when a conversation struck up around me. Is it worth paying for satellite TV in these cash-strapped times, or does the ever expanding Freeview give you everything you need these days We just watch freeview through the dish and I listen to the footie on the radio. Hang on, replied small Bob Ive made that one up, but hes only about 5 6. - expressandstar.com

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Monday 21 April 2014, AM

Log In - The New York Times

Create an account Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account - nytimes.com

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Sunday 20 April 2014, PM

Media Monkey's Diary: BBC, Tony Gallagher, Ipso and Zai Bennett - Media - The Guardian

You've got Mail Tony Gallagher returns to the fold. I was watching a competing music show and some girl was murdering Get Here by Oleta Adams, and I thought, you know what I'd rather watch a singing dog. - theguardian.com

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Sunday 20 April 2014, AM

Concept for Live TV On-the-Go Was Around Long Before Aereo - Variety

The mantra for the digital age has been to give consumers what they want, anywhere and anytime they want it. Theres also a question of demand, and whether a standalone mobile TV service makes sense in an era of apps. The presumption, however, is that there would be a natural audience for live TV on the go, particularly for sports, news and weather. - variety.com

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Steady on Jeremy Paxman, Radio 1Xtra is music to my ears - Kieran Yates - Comment is free - The Observer

Photograph Sunday Alamba/AP Oh, that's novel a radio station specialising in black music being attacked by an older white male who doesn't listen to it. The odd lift encounter aside In case you missed the headlines, Jeremy Paxman has been having a go at his employer, the BBC, describing it, among other things, as too big. I started listening to 1Xtra as soon as it launched in 2002. - theguardian.com

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BBC2 at 50: The 50 facts you might not know - News - TV Radio - The Independent

The logo of a mother kangaroo with a baby emerging from her pouch was used to advertise BBC2 in the run-up to the channels first transmission, and a live animal was brought in for opening night. 2 The channel was the result of a recommendation in the Pilkington Committee review of broadcasting in 1962. 3 On launch night, 20 April 1964, a huge power cut in west London forced transmissions to switch to Alexandra Palace, where newsreader Gerald Priestland stoically delivered a news bulletin before the channel was cut off. - independent.co.uk

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Saturday 19 April 2014, AM

BBC Two - Celebrating 50 Years of BBC Two

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Comcast: Binge watching actually helps live TV ratings (exclusive) - VentureBeat - Media - by Tom Cheredar

The best way to hook someone into an existing series of stories is to make sure they can start from the beginning. The same is also true of TV shows, and Comcast has the data to back it up. As part of its seasonal Watchathon promotion, Comcast has added all current-season episodes for a handful of shows to its on-demand video library. - venturebeat.com

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Friday 18 April 2014, PM

Audio engineering pioneer John Meyer: Stop chasing the next big thing, and go with FLAC instead Tech News and

John Meyer may be making really expensive loudspeakers, but when it comes to high-end audio, the audio engineering pioneer prefers free. FLAC, the open source audio format developed by Grateful Dead fans to trade bootleg recordings, is the perfect format for music aficionados looking for higher-resolution audio, Meyer told me during a recent interview. Ordinary music fans may never have heard of John Meyer, but chances are, he has helped them to enjoy music at one point or another. - gigaom.com

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Thursday 17 April 2014, PM

ITN reports pre-tax profit of £6.6m - Media - theguardian.com

The news and multimedia company, which produces bulletins for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, posted its fourth successive year of operating profit growth despite turnover falling 3 to 105.8m. Revenues for the year to end December 2013 were down in part due to a small fall in news revenues and demand for archive clips from ITN Source which the previous year supplied footage from major events such as the Olympics and diamond jubilee. The rise in pre-tax profits was in part due to exceptional items including the sale of ITN's stake in digital education company Espresso Group for 2.5m in cash, which netted a 700,000 profit on disposal. - theguardian.com

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Aereo Launches ProtectMyAntenna.org To Explain Its Position Vs. Broadcasters - TechCrunch

Aereo is about to present its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but first it wants to present its case to you. Basically, Aereo maintains that each of its subscribers are using their own micro antenna, so in terms of the letter of the law, theres no difference between what it does and what users who own their own antennas and hardware them to their TVs at home do. Aereo says this new site is in part an answer to requests it has received from its users regarding how they might be able to help the startup in terms of spreading the word about the service, how it works and what its legal position is relative to the broadcasters who would see it shut down. - techcrunch.com

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BBC News - BBC and Sky catch-up apps experience iOS fault

Neither organisation was able to provide a full explanation at this time. Game of Thrones This is the second technical fault that Now TV has experienced this month. Sky's subscription service - which targets people who do not subscribe to its satellite TV channels - crashed during the first episode of the latest Game Of Thrones season. - bbc.co.uk

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Discovery withdraws bid for Channel 5 - Media - theguardian.com

US factual broadcaster Discovery made a bid earlier this week in the second round of the acquisition process, but in the latest twist in the long-running Channel 5 sale saga has now dropped out of the running, MediaGuardian understands. According to sources Discovery's offer was thought to be in the region of 250m to 300m, and was made in association with BSkyB. However, it is thought that BSkyB's involvement was limited to handling Channel 5's advertising sales on behalf of Discovery, rather than taking an equity stake in the free-to-air broadcaster. - theguardian.com

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Thursday 17 April 2014, AM

Barry Diller: Broadcasters Don t Own the Airwaves - WSJ.com

ET On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could alter the way Americans have used and benefited from broadcast airwaves since the dawn of radio and television. When radio and television entered American life in the 1920s, the government made a bargain with the nation's broadcasters They would receive free use of the nation's airwaves in exchange for providing free, advertising-supported programming in return. The deal has paid off handsomely for both broadcasters and citizens. - online.wsj.com

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Wednesday 16 April 2014, PM

Media: Oscar Pistorius TV; Sunday tabloids; BBC commissioning

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Media Talk podcast: Kim Shillinglaw to run BBC2

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Aereo Shows Off Their Rooftop Antenna Farm Ahead Of Supreme Court Ruling - TechCrunch

Exclusive Aereo Rooftop ArrayTour A lot has been said about Aereos technology so much, in fact, that there are hundreds of pages worth of legal documents discussing the matter as it relates to the law. That said, we thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at how Aereo actually works when it lets customers rent out remote DVR antennas and watch what amounts to live television on any device. Once Aereo establishes itself in any new market, the team brings in what they call an Antenna Farm, or internally, a Raz-12. - techcrunch.com

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BBC News - BBC Twos 50th anniversary: Disastrous launch remembered

In fact, a massive power cut wiped out the entire launch schedule and led to one of the most disastrous nights in broadcasting history. It was supposed to be a spectacular opening night for BBC Two. The channel was due to appear at 1920 on 20 April 1964. - bbc.co.uk

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Broadcasters Seek an Aereo Plan B - WSJ.com

They are suing for an injunction that would shut down Aereo, which pitches its product as a complement to online video services like Netflix. Aereo says it is merely facilitating consumers' rights to watch free-to-air broadcast TV. The high court takes up the case April 22. - online.wsj.com

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Murdoch’s BSkyB Said to Join Discovery in Channel 5 Offer (2) - Businessweek

Desmond, who initially sought more than 700 million pounds for the station, has also considered an initial public offering for the channel instead of selling, people familiar with the plan said this month. BSkyB and Discovery are close to buying Channel 5 for 350 million pounds 585 million, according to Broadcast magazine. Representatives at BSkyB, Discovery and Viacom declined to comment. - businessweek.com

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Wednesday 16 April 2014, AM

The BBC: there to inform, educate, provoke and enrage? - Charlotte Higgins - Media - The Guardian

The BBC is like the Greeks Hydra vast and many headed. Whatever qualities it has, it often seems to embody the opposite, too. I love the BBC in many ways, but at the same time it has made me loathe aspects of it, and thats a very odd state of affairs. - theguardian.com

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