Related news roundup - Mar-Apr

Posted by andrew pascoe on April 20, 2010 · View Comments 

It’s been a while since we’ve had a roundup of news from the worlds of IPTV & VoD that is related in some way to Project Canvas and its surrounds. Here are some things worth knowing:

  • 12 April: Another social TV startup has been announced. Starling was launched at MIPTV in Cannes. Contagious  has some details about the offering which is aiming to provide more structure than the current Twitter environment, but not as high entry costs as a more traditional walled garden of programmed content.
  • 26 March: The regulatory environment around VoD continues to be added to: VoD will be co-regulated by Ofcom and the Association for TV on Demand (ATVOD). The two bodies have come out and said 150 VoD services must between them pay the £375,000 needed to finance the regulation.  PaidContent:UK article.
  • 26 March: FIVE’s owner RTL has said that potential commercial tie-ups with Channel 4 are being discussed again, seeing that the latter is to have a new chief exec in the form of David Abraham. The Guardian article.
  • 18 March: ITV repeats its stance that it has no interest in syndicating its content to YouTube (like competitor broadcasters Channel 4 and FIVE have been doing for a while now). The Guardian article. There is also still no firm news about a ITV - Hulu deal of any sort for the UK market.
  • 14 April: As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post about pragmatic evidence against Canvas, Sky announced a deal with the biggest UK set top box manufacturer that will see Sky Player come to Humax boxes. The Guardian article.

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Tweet roundup from today’s DTG Summit

Posted by andrew pascoe on March 5, 2010 · View Comments 

Here’s the Project Canvas-related new & info that came out of Digital TV Group’s (DTG) Summit, held today in London, told via the medium of interpretive dance twitter:

  • “Canvas bloke* says he’ll have all docs available by May.” @WillStrauss - that tweet here
  • “Ooh, got a bit tense there. Canvas bloke* accused of not sharing his spec wit the DTG.” @WillStrauss - that tweet here
  • “There are between 2m and 3m Freeview main-set homes that will be interested in Canvas offer: Freeview’s Ilse Howling” - @GLovelace - that tweet here
  • “Relationship between Project Canvas and DTG is ‘critical’ and we need to get it right, says Canvas’ Richard Halton “ - @GLovelace - that tweet here
  • “Richard Halton acknowledges the role of Humax in the support of the development of Canvas.” - @Bobdvb - that tweet here
  • “Project Canvas’ Richard Halton: Cisco, Humax, Technicolor, LG, Sagem, Amino, TVOnics and others keen to make canvas devices” - @CanvasInfo -  that tweet here
  • “‘Free-to-air catch-up TV is here and can be in every broadband home via Freeview HD and Freesat’“** - @WillStrauss - that tweet here
  • “Futuresource predicting 9.5bn on-demand video views in 2013, 8% of total TV viewing, up from 2.3bn and <2% in 2009″ @GLovelace - that tweet here

And speaking of Twitter, don’t forget you can follow us, and say hi, @ProjectCanvasUK.

* presumably referring to Richard Halton, programme director for Canvas at the BBC.

** we’re not sure who Will was quoting here - likely it was one of the MDs of Freeview (Isle Howling) or FreeSat (Emma Scott)

Filed under DTG, Freeview, Humax · Tagged with