August 12, 2008

BBC lose kids’ data

by David Allen
The personal details of over two hundred and fifty children has been lost by a BBC production partner, adding to the ever-growing list of personal data that has been mislaid by large organisations. The details were held on flash drive and contained names, addresses, birthdays, contact phone numbers and what they were intending to do during the school holidays. The children had all applied to be on the brand new ...

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August 11, 2008

Swansea first place in Wales to switchover

by David Allen
After waiting for a while, viewers in Wales have finally been told how and when the digital switchover will take place. The first area to have the new digital signal switched on will be Swansea, and it is going to take place during August 2009. It has been anticipated that the old analogue signal will be turned off right across Wales during 2010, but the signal will be turned ...

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August 5, 2008

Top Up TV offer Setanta

by David Allen
The world of premiership football has been blown open this season and there are still two weeks to go before the season starts, but armchair soccer fans will have a hard time knowing which buttons to press to see their favourite team play. When Setanta won the contract to show more than forty live matches from the 2008/09 premier league season, there were eyebrows raised as this meant that ...

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August 4, 2008

Government cash for documentaries

by David Allen
The media regulator Ofcom is looking into claims that several hard-hitting documentaries, which portrayed the police and the army donating blood, and importing food & animal products into the country, broke sponsorship rules. There is a theme developing there! Ofcom has confirmed that they will be launching an investigation into one of the series, Beat: Life on the Street. This programme followed a group of police community support workers ...

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August 1, 2008

A surprise return to DTG

by David Allen
Having left the Digital TV Group to join the Freesat organisation, Richard Lindsey Davies is set to make a quick return to the position of Director General of the DTG. He started off as head of the PR department of the DTG back 2004, but within two years appointed the Director General, then suddenly he was off to Freesat and now he is back where he started off from, ...

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July 30, 2008

BBC guilty of deceiving viewers

by David Allen
The media watchdog Ofcom has been showing the broadcasters the red card again. This time the BBC have been under the microscope concerning the issues surrounding the phone ins on TV shows such as Comic Relief, Sports Relief and Children in Need, as well as several radio competitions too. Ofcom have decided that the BBC staff responsible for the organising of these competitions fooled many viewers into calling in, despite ...

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Pace see profits surge

by David Allen
With the digital switchover in full swing at the moment, it should be expected that a company whose business is directly related to digital TV would be doing well. For the West Yorkshire based set top box maker Pace their six monthly figures show that sales have been brisk. The company see nearly three million set top boxes go out of their doors in the first six months ...

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July 29, 2008

Battle for football fans begins

by David Allen
With the new football season only a matter of a few weeks away, the season has already started for the broadcasters looking to score with the fans who prefer to stay at home and watch their teams play. Sky has had the upper for so long that this new competition from Virgin Media and BT is new ground for them. BT Vision would appear to have the advantage over ...

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July 28, 2008

Future of TV leaked by Ofcom

by David Allen
There has to be suspicion when a document is leaked from an organisation the size the Ofcom, do people really leave papers in photocopiers? On the other hand, is this leak a plan to gauge the responses from all angles? Whatever the excuse, this document is a help for both ITV and Channel Four. On the one hand ITV have been looking to reduce their commitments to public services broadcasting ...

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BBC’s Trustees watch Sky

by David Allen
On the face of it, this is something that is to be expected. After all Sky TV is serious contender for most broadcasters, especially now that the digital switchover is underway. So top executives watching the competition occasionally might be considered alright, in fact it could even be part of their job. However, it seems that being a trustee of the BBC has some benefits, as the expenses claims ...

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July 26, 2008

Giant outdoor screens for London Olympics

by David Allen
The organisers of the 2012 London Olympics and BBC are planning to make sure that nobody fails to miss any of the action by bringing the London Olympics to the people of the UK. Olympic organisers have targeted sixty cities and towns throughout the UK, which will receive massive four hundred inch TV screens, and they will stay in place after the games have finished. This will mean that ...

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TV adverts could get longer

by David Allen
The media regulator Ofcom has relaxed the way that advertising appears on commercial television. This could mean that viewers switching on late at night or even in the daytime, could find themselves watching a whole hours worth of adverts in one hit, that’s about twelve minutes altogether. These changes will start in September and will apply to ITV, Channel Four, and Five. Other changes to advertising is that ...

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July 24, 2008

Broadcasters donate airtime to fight obesity

by David Allen
From now until the Olympic Games in 2012 there is going to be a government lead campaign, which is going to put the subject of healthy eating right in front of the nations TV viewers. All the main commercial broadcasters including Sky, Channel Four, Five, ITV and Virgin Media will be giving up millions of pounds worth of airtime, while large companies such as Tesco, Mars, Coca Cola ...

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July 22, 2008

Virgin Media a winner for the iPlayer

by David Allen
Allowing Virgin Media to be the first service to provide their customers with the iPlayer, which can be viewed directly through a TV with no computer connection needed, is a great idea especially for the BBC. The service was added to Virgin Media with three hundred and fifty hours of BBC programming available at the beginning of June. While on the BBC’s website the iPlayer had just over twenty ...

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BBC to scrap programme sponsorship deals

by David Allen
The BBC has been walking the line recently when it comes to crossing into commercial territory; the actual definition is subject to different views. However, for the BBC there is only one view that counts and that is the decision of the BBC Trust, which is final. These sponsorship deals centred on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2007, the programmed was sponsored by Britvic to promote ...

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July 21, 2008

Sky demanded cash for free set top boxes

by David Allen
There has been £630 million put aside by the BBC which is to be used to help those viewers who are over seventy five and the disabled to get a set top box for a one off fee of £40, while those viewers on benefits can receive the equipment for free under the scheme. In order to help everyone have a smooth switchover, a tender was put out for a service ...

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Sky ponders sale of ITV

by David Allen
It has been on the cards for long while now and no matter how hard they try BSkyB cannot keep hold of their stake in the rival channel ITV for much longer. However, holding onto the shares for a while has helped Sky see their stake rise in value slightly, although there is little chance of the price ever reaching what BSkyB paid for the 17.9% stake. The favourites ...

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BBC is the Top UK Brand

by David Allen
This may not be the Oscars, but Superbrands league table is everything to big businesses especially if they are in the top ten. The league table is compiled by the results from a survey of two thousand two hundred consumers making it quite important. Google may have been at the top for the first time, but the top UK based brand is the BBC, they managed to reach forth ...

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July 18, 2008

Licence fee to go down after switchover

by David Allen
The outgoing chairman of the broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, has hinted that as soon as the digital switchover is completed, then there is a possibility that the TV licence fee will be going down in price. According to Lord David Currie, the BBC received £800 million to help them with the costs of the digital switchover. However, by 2013 the switchover will be complete throughout the UK and therefore the ...

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Five VoD growth doubles

by David Allen
It may have been launched only three weeks ago, but the video on demand (VoD) service launched by Five has seen a terrific increase in traffic. Un fact the channel are saying that within a three week period traffic has more than doubled. Demand Five as the thirty day catch up service has been renamed, has the good fortune of having some popular TV shows on board such as ...

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