News Round-Up

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

• BT, the UK incumbent telco that operates the Microsoft Mediaroom-powered hybrid IPTV service, BT Vision, is targeting commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV, for a takeover, according to an article in the UK newspaper, The Daily Express.
• Content delivery network provider, CDNetworks, has announced a strategic partnership with Telecom Italia Sparkle.
• Ernst & Young's Global Media & Entertainment Center has announced the release of a new report on TV widgets and their impact on consumers, broadcasters, content providers, advertisers and regulators. Entitled "Will Widgets Work: Web-Enabled TV in Search of a Killer App," the report finds "widespread support for widget-enabled television applications among consumers," with 76% of those surveyed agreeing that having a widget toolbar on their primary television would be valuable; 61% saying they would like their TV to connect to the Internet; and 30% saying that they consider the idea of news and information widgets on their television to be "appealing."
• The Los Angeles Times has just published an article outlining the consequences of for Hulu, the free, broadband video service co-owned by NBC, Fox and ABC, should Comcast become a co-owner of the service.
• UK media regulator, Ofcom, has fined Channel TV £80,000 in the latest fall-out from the UK's participation TV scandal. "In both 2004 and 2005 the vote for the People's Choice Award was finalized early," Ofcom writes. "The final half hour of both these programs...was pre-recorded, although it was broadcast as live and included a number of calls to action to viewers to vote for the People's Choice Award. However, in real time, the People's Choice Award had already been awarded. Viewers paid to vote using a premium rate service ('PRS') mechanism and continued to do so after the winner of the People's Choice Award had been announced despite having no chance of affecting the vote." In addition, Ofcom writes, "viewers were led to believe that the People's Choice Award would be awarded to the nominee with the highest number of viewer votes cast during the program. However, the result of the viewer vote was deliberately overridden. At the time when the award was made, 'The Catherine Tate Show' had the highest number of votes but the award was made to 'Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway' following a decision by a member or members of the independent production team to change the winner. Ofcom accepts that Channel TV did not itself override the viewers' vote and substitute the winner. However, Channel TV should have had safeguards in place to stop the substitution occurring."
• Time Warner Cable chief strategy officer, Peter Stern, provides some detail on the cable operator's plans for network PVR, catch-up TV and VOD, in a recent article from Bloomberg News. According to Stern, those plans include the continued roll-out of Start Over (note: the latter, which is about half-way through its roll-out, allows viewers to restart programs that have already begun airing); the expansion of Look Back (note: the latter, which is available in Hawaii and South Carolina, allows viewers to catch up with programs that have aired up to three days earlier) to all Start Over customers; the development of a service, called On Channel On Demand, that will allow viewers to catch up with programs more than three days old; the development of a service that will allow viewers to "compile an online play list of their favorite shows that will transmit directly to their TV's, much like the connection between Apple Inc.'s iTunes store and iPod media players"; and the expansion of the operator's VOD library over the next few years to 100,000 hours of content.
• YouTube has announced the launch of YouTube Promoted Videos in Google AdSense ad units; and has also announced a new feature that allows users to share videos privately.