The Big Question: Is multi-channel TV damaging the quality of Christmas programmes?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-big-question-is-multichannel-tv-damaging-the-quality-of-christmas-programmes-766453.html

This is a very interesting article, the most interesting one i have found during this research. the is that the multitude of channels and services has seen a depreciation of viewing satisfaction, using the Christmas period as a prime historical example of a time when family TV viewing was a huge occasion and many shows were shown, it has become less of a big deal, as instead of a concentration of viewings of a particular channel, multi media has dispersed this, hindered by the fact that there are in excess of 30% - 40% repeats being shown on TV compared to the quality original hyped programming particular to the Christmas period of yesteryear. The bottom line is money. Making original and memorable programming is a very expensive business, and commercial TV is dependent on advertising, so a more dispersed viewership across a multitude of channels and mediums means individual channels lose out on revenue from it, meaning they lack the funds necessary to fund new and original programming.

The basic take home message is that more is less.

So is Christmas TV a shadow of its former self?
Yes...
* Quite literally, nearly half of all the programmes on offer have been shown before
* Television is an industry in crisis, it's nave to expect the bold programming of the past
* With plenty of diverting content online, the TV set no longer dominates Christmas entertainment
No...
* We will still be watching shows in tens of millions, just not in the same room, and not just on TV sets
* Only a generation ago we were stuck with three channels, now many homes have hundreds to choose from
* What's not to like about being offered classic shows and more of them than ever before?

DSG is first to ditch analogue televisions

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/dsg-is-first-to-ditch-analogue-televisions-772385.html

• DSG International, owner of the Currys, PC World and Dixons chains, said it would no longer sell digital TVs in preparation for switch-over in 2012
• Only 10 per cent of the 2 million televisions the company has sold over the past year have been analogue sets.
• DSG said however that a third of all televisions sold in the UK are analogue, a statistic the retailer described as "inappropriate" given the impending analogue switch-off.
• Currys MD said: "We are concerned at the high volumes of analogue TVs still on sale in the UK and we favour early transition to a digital-only range. Digital provides a better deal for customers and reduces waste by removing the requirement for soon-to-be-obsolete analogue tuners in our television range and the unnecessary purchase of extra digital set-top boxes."
• The price of digital television sets has fallen dramatically over recent years, with a standard set costing as little as £150.

BBC iplayer risks overloading the internet

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3716781.ece

• BBC iPlayer is estimated to be worth approx £831 million
• Viewers are now watching more than one million BBC programmes online each week.
• iPlayer accounts for between 3 and 5 per cent of all internet traffic in Britain, with the first episode of The Apprentice watched more than 100,000 times via a computer, according to the BBC
• There were 17.2 million requests to watch programmes last month, an increase of 25 per cent on February.
• The BBC is trying to increase the scope of the service by making its iPlayer service available via the Nintendo Wii, allowing owners who are unable to stop playing in time for their favourite programmes to catch up with them later (approx 2.5 million homes own a Wii)
  

4OD Ad-funded shows

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2007/10/channel_4_to_make_us_shows_adf.html

• Channel 4 makes money through the advertising on its 4OD version of on demand telvesion.QUOTE: "The shows will be supported by pre-roll advertising and sponsorship packages.The first advertisers include Dulux, sponsor of Ugly Betty, L'Oreal, Tourism Australia and Bodyform."We want Channel 4 viewers to be able to see our shows in a format, time and platform to suit them and to make the process as simple as possible," said Jeff Ford, director of acquisitions and Film4."

BBc 'opens floodgates' to iplayer hackers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/13/digitalvideo.television·

• Anti-piracy breach allows unrestricted downloads· Corporation says it is working to close loophole
• hackers are able to get through the BBCs anti-piracy systems to gain access to programmes on iPlayer. This causes problems with copyright protection.
• "One of the hackers responsible said it took him only 12 minutes to find the loophole and make it work - but that such a simple hack potentially opened up every programme on iPlayer for unlimited downloading."The BBC accidentally opened the floodgates and gave the world DRM-free downloads," said one hacker with knowledge of the breach. "If only it were down to something other than poor design, decisions and ineptitude."Also, the decision to incorporate anti-piracy protections has angered some campaigners, who believe that British citizens should have unprotected access to shows for which they have already paid with their TV licence fee.

Survey shows darker picture for the TV channel

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/15/television.digitalmedia

• Television remains people's favourite mass communications format but viewers are more loyal to a programme than a channel, according a survey of TV viewing around the world that will make worrying reading for traditional broadcasters.
• The vast majority of people watching more than three programmes a week watch them on more than three TV channels, according to a poll of 7,000 people across eight countries, including Britain and the United States. this "channel-hopping" trend showed that "consumers are more loyal to the content they want to watch rather than the branded distribution channel to which they may be accustomed".
• The survey showed 97% of respondents watched at least some TV in a typical week and a third watched eight or more programmes a week. But four in five respondents expressed "discontent" with watching broadcast and cable TV, citing annoyance at various features of traditional TV, including commercial breaks, not being able to rewind and not being able to watch programmes at their convenience, etc.
• At the same time, there was fresh evidence that discontented viewers were finding new ways to receive the programmes they like. One in three adults surveyed accessed programmes in a typical week via a device other than a traditional TV. That trend is more pronounced among younger viewers. In the US, for example, 46% of 18-24-year-olds watched shows on mobile devices.
• The under-35 group is also more likely to be familiar with on-demand services and is more willing to pay to download content
• television is rapidly shifting from its origins as a "clearly identifiable stand-alone medium".
• "People are experiencing new consumption opportunities and moving away from traditional, linear programming," he said. "Today's youth are more dissatisfied with the traditional television experience and increasingly excited by the availability of new choices."

Channel 4 and Global considering DAB link-up

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/16/channel4.globalradio

• Channel 4 and Global Radio exploring how to combine their digital radio transmission services
• Global will inherit the first digital audio broadcasting - DAB - multiplex of digital stations with its takeover of GCap Media, Channel 4 leads the consortium that won the Ofcom licence to launch a second multiplex.
• However, Channel 4 is not expected to launch its DAB multiplex for a year and needs to organise the transmission infrastructure, while Global Radio may be looking to fill gaps in its digital radio broadcasting spectrum.
• Global Radio is also preoccupied with the acquisition of GCap Media, which includes taking on the Digital One DAB multiplex.
• Channel 4 and Global are looking at ways of combining the two DAB multiplexes, however, no formal talks have yet taken place and the BBC, also a major DAB player, may be involved in any eventual deal, the FT reported.
• Any deal to combine the two DAB multiplexes would be subject to Ofcom approval.

Baftas watched by 5.6 million

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/21/tvratings.television

• The Bafta television awards had their best audience for four years on Sunday April 20, as 5.6 million viewers tuned into BBC1's coverage.
• the event drew a 22% audience share between 8pm and 10pm, according to unofficial overnight ratings up on last year's 5 million viewers and 21% share, and the best since 2004, when 6.4 million watched on ITV1.
• Despite the strong ratings, ITV1 triumphed with the final part of the wartime detective drama Foyle's War, which averaged 7.3 million and 28% between 8pm and 10pm. This was up from 7.1 million viewers last week, when the controversially axed programme drew the same share.
• On Channel 4, the second part of Bear Grylls: Born Survivor drew 1.3 million viewers and a 5% share in the 8pm hour, the same as last week, with another 66,000 tuning in an hour later on the digital-only Channel 4 +1.
• Then at 9pm, the terrestrial premiere of romantic comedy The Wedding Date was watched by 2 million and 8%, adding 174,000 an hour later on Channel 4 +1.
• The terrestrial premiere of the Martin Scorsese movie The Aviator pulled in 1.8 million viewers and a 7% share for BBC2 between 8pm and 10.40pm.
• Earlier in the evening, the result of BBC1's talent contest I'd Do Anything gained 5.4 million viewers and a 23% share between 7.30pm and 8pm.
• ITV1's new gameshow, Beat the Star, in which members of the public pit themselves against celebrities in a variety of challenges, started with 5.1 million and 23% between 6.45pm and 8pm.
• Channel 4's satirical show Bremner, Bird and Fortune averaged 1.7 million and 8% from 7pm to 8pm, with another 23,000 on Channel 4 +1.
• Channel Five's best ratings of the night came for film repeat The Goonies, which averaged 2 million and 9% between 6pm and 8pm.Five documentary Extraordinary People: Half Man Half Tree brought 1.2 million and a 5% share to the network from 9pm.
• Headcases, ITV1's animated satirical show, saw its audience dip on its third outing from 4 million viewers to 2.8 million and a 13% share at 10pm.
• BBC1's news at 10pm attracted 6.6 million viewers and a 30% share.
• Match of the Day 2 at 10.20pm, continuing in its BBC1 berth for a second Sunday, featured highlights from Newcastle United's 2-0 win over Sunderland and scored 3.3 million and 22%.

Why the industry is getting so jumpy about Kangaroo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/21/bbc

• New spotware called kangaroo is a joint venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, Kangaroo is designed to be a sort of commercial iPlayer, establishing a presence in the fast-developing internet video-download market and thereby raising revenues by selling programmes to stream or download direct to consumers with a rumoured 10,000 hours of content.
• software said to be launched this year as early as june 2008
• However there was trouble from the start e.g the BBC Trust has yet to give its approval to it being launched. main issue: - the need to "avoid distorting the market"
• problems about the issues of the holders of the rights to the content that kangaroo will distribute - not just content from the three joint venture partners (BBC, ITV, C4) , but independant producers of content aswell who will need to be reassured that Kangaroo's deals are fully competitive with whatever anyone else might pay - BBC Worldwide are in charge of this
• other issues including ther interest of other players whose businesses are based on having access to BBC, ITV and Channel 4 programming; kangaroo will be controlling access to some 90% of UK-originated programming and with a direct interest - because it is a competing platform - in putting them out of business.
  
• Another potential issue is whether Kangaroo could drastically reduce BBC revenues from DVD sales and cause havoc with other players who currently pay lots of money to license BBC content, plus Kangaroo is being referred to the Office of Fair Trading.
• Negotiating an agreement between the shareholders is also proving troublesome, as ownership is split three ways but the parties bring different amounts of content (hardly any, in Channel 4's case), and arrangements for revenue-sharing will be complicated
• Finally, there are branding issues as each partner seeks to maintain its own position in the traditional world of broadcast TV. And here, perhaps, lies the biggest question of all about Kangaroo. Are these players, necessarily so concerned about defending what's left of their "old media" legacy, really capable of leading the way in the new media marketplace?

Digital TV for a tenner from Tesco

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/aug/29/supermarkets.digitaltvradio

• Tesco is going to be selling the UK's cheapest digital set-top box, a Techwood device which offers around 40 free-to-air digital terrestrial channels and numerous radio stations for £10 , aiming to outdo its high street rivals by half the price of the current cheapest box.
• Small margins on the sales of digital TV set-top boxes mean the product is likely to be a loss leader for the high street giant, but Tesco claims the move is designed to prepare consumers for digital switchover.
• "We know that many of our customers aren't ready for the change in the way their TV programmes are transmitted, so to get them prepared for the switchover from analogue to digital, we're offering this digital TV technology at the lowest price ever," said a spokesman for Tesco.
• "We've seen the cheapest digital box go from £100 to £10 in just five years, and this is further proof that going digital needn't be expensive," said Ford Ennals, the chief executive of Digital UK.
  "We're now working with Tesco and the other supermarkets to help them provide switchover information in their stores."
  According to Ofcom, 80.5% of UK households now receive digital TV through their main TV set.

BT pulls the plug on mobile TV service

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bt-pulls-the-plug-on-mobile-tv-service-459215.html

• BT who provided the bandwith decided to end Virgin Mobile's Mobile TV service less than a year after it was launched, raising further questions about the appetite consumers have for watching television content on the small screen.
• BT, had expected to sign up other mobile phone companies to launch similar products.
• In the past, delivering TV content to mobile phones was seen as a key growth driver for operators but a lack of appropriate handsets and a divergence over what system is best for delivering TV on to mobile phones has hampered progress in deploying the service.
• Operators such as 3, Vodafone and Orange launched a limited service available to subscribtion customers to their handsets over the3G network.
• Virgin launched its TV service spending £2.5m on advertising that featured former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson. The service was based on a standard that utilised digital radio spectrum, meaning only a limited number of channels could be offered to consumers.
• It was also only available to consumers with the "Lobster" 'phone, as this is the only one they produced with the capability, but it proved unsucessful.
• O2 and Nokia backed a rival delivery method called DVB-H that can carry up to 16 channels and last week the European Commission backed that standard. A third standard, developed by Qualcomm, has proved more popular with US mobile phone companies and is being tested by BSkyB.
• Bruce Renny, a spokesman for the free mobile TV provider ROK Entertainment, said that consumers do not want to pay a subscription to receive TV content they can get for free at home. "Simply broadcasting linear TV to mobiles is not the answer," he said.
  

Virgin in Freeview deal with ITV

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/virgin-in-freeview-deal-with-itv-462968.html

ITV may sell or lease some of its capacity on Freeview, the free-to-air digital TV platform, to Virgin Media. The move follows the dropping of ITV Play channel and the launch of ITV2+1.
It is believed the broadcaster is now focusing on the consolidation and improvement of its existing channels. Virgin will launch Virgin 1 in the autumn (2007) but only has Freeview capacity from 8am to 6pm. It wants to broadcast for 24 hours

6ft by 150 inches - and that's just the TV

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/6ft-by-150-inches--and-thats-just-the-tv-768862.html

• The world's biggest plasma television has been unveiled - a 150-inch (3.75m) Panasonic widescreen TV, which stands 6ft tall, will enable viewers to watch everything in life-size.
• Because of its huge size, the screen can only be comfortably watched from a distance of at least 30ft, making it too big to install in most family living rooms.
• There is an expected price tag of 50,000, so this TV will be beyond the spending power of most consumers.
• The screen, dubbed the "Life Panel", was the star attraction on the opening day of the world's biggest consumer technology trade show in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronic Society International trade fair.
• The television trumps the previous record size television Sony's 108-inch model by 42 inches.
• Environmental campaigners were less than impressed, claiming it will guzzle up to 3,000 watts of electricity.
• It is not yet clear when the televisions will be available in the UK, but they will go on sale in the US this year.

Freeview's sales surge by 64 per cent to all-time high

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/freeviews-sales-surge-by-64-per-cent-to-alltime-high-794064.html

• The digital terrestrial television service Freeview's sales hit an all-time high last year, with the 9.7 million products rising 64 per cent on the previous 12 months.
• Alongside the set-top box, Freeview's multiple digital terrestrial channels are also accessible through next-generation television sets and through dtv transmitters built into home computers.
• More than half the homes in Britain now have Freeview
• The figures however may be misleading, as about 5 million of the 9.7 million sales were receivers bundled into new TV sets, with DVB recievers built in, so customers may be buying Freeview by default rather than by design.
• The coming year will be the company's Playback digital recorder, which enables users to pause, rewind or record live television, a feature already synonomous with existing Sky+ set ups
• But though 85 per cent of homes are now digital, Gartner's media analyst Adam Daum said: "What Freeview really needs to do is expand more into analogue households because the signs are that is slowing dramatically."

Channel 4 posts first operating loss since 1992

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/international/news/e3i2ebcd68bdc5ad9af0e554f20d45ab5e6

• The government funded Channel 4 broadcsters posted an operating loss Wednesday of 7.8 million pounds ($15.5 million) during 2007 for its core channel, its first annual deficit since 1992.programming costs increased more rapidly than revenues, by £20.8 million to £536.5 million compared to £515.7 million in 2006.


• But there was some good news with Channel 4's digital TV channel offerings collectively in the black for the first time.The bouquet of digital offerings, including E4 and More4, posted an operating profit of 16.2 million pounds ($32.2 million) in 2007, a turnaround from the loss of 17.6 million pounds the previous year.
• Such performance helped the Channel 4 Group to return a pre-tax profit of 1.6 million pounds ($3.2million) in 2007, a slump from the 21.3 million pounds recorded in 2006.Group turnover was flat during 2007 with the 48.1 million pounds ($95.8 million) increase in advertising revenue balancing falling revenues from rights and other sources.
• Falling revenues came on the back of factors including reduced income from premium rate telephone services as a result of problems with phone-in competitions on shows including "Richard & Judy" and "Deal or No Deal."Channel 4 is aiming to replicate its success in digital TV on new digital media platforms.Channel 4's New Media division grew revenues by 44% to 26.7 million pounds ($53.1 million) from 18.5 million pounds in 2006 but recorded an operating loss of 15.4 million pounds ($36.1 million), more than the 6 million pounds the year before.The further losses came largely as a result of start-up investment in its video on demand service, 4oD

BBB warns of scams on digital TV switch

http://www.suntimes.com/business/currency/910098,CST-FIN-wallet23.article

• The Better Business Bureau of Chicago & Northern Illinois is warning consumers to be on the watch for HDTV scam artists as consumers prepare for television stations' switchover from analog to digital signals.
• Television stations will begin broadcasting a digital TV signal Feb. 17, 2009.
• Viewers will need a digital television or a converter box to receive that signal.
• There is a difference between a high-definition television and a digital television, and consumers should beware if someone tries to sell them a device that turns their analog TV into an HDTV. No such device exists.

Ofcom reveals 2012 Freeview shortfalls

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/26/digitaltvradio.television

• Ofcom has revealed that by the digital switchover in 2012, when the government has promised 100% digital signal, up to a quater of houses in wales and northern ireland and a fith in northern england will not be able to recieve the signal, when they could recieve analogue signal before.
  
• This is because of "mountainous terrain interfering with terrestrial transmitter reception in some areas and the need to avoid the signal overlapping with the Republic of Ireland ." and other reigons like France, Belgium and The Netherlands.
• Ofcom said "There are simply not enough frequencies available to allow all the multiplexes to be available across the whole UK - we have to accept limitations in some areas, as do other countries,"
  
• "It is very expensive to build a transmission network that covers 98.5% of population,"
  

  "The commercial networks can achieve coverage of around 90% at lower cost, by using only 80 major transmitter sites." is their excuse.
  

Freeview HD services to launch next year

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/03/digitaltvradio.television

• from early next year there will be 4 HD channels on digital terrestrial (freeview) broadcast, co-inciding with the 'digital switchover'
• viewers will have to upgrade their hardware however (as it uses mpeg-4 compression technology superior to mpeg-2 found in normal sets)
• 1 channel has already been allocated to the BBC; the other 3 are to be bought by other potential broadcast companies

• "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to upgrade digital terrestrial television," said the Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards.

  "It offers benefits for broadcasters - who will be able to launch new services without using any new spectrum - and viewers - who will have access to new channels and services on free to air."

• 
  

NMT

I have decided to study the digital T.V area for the NMT topic.