News Round-Up

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

• Brightcove has announced that Scottish broadcaster, STV, is using its platform to launch "a series of new HD-quality, long-form video initiatives for catch-up viewing purposes," including making its three-part documentary series, "Scotland Revealed," available through its STV Player service for 90 days without the geo-restrictions typically imposed by UK broadcasters' catch-up TV services.
• In a submission to the BBC Trust, BSkyB has charged the BBC with "riding a coach and horses" through the nascent market for broadband TV by investing money from the UK's television license fee in Project Canvas, its joint OTT venture with ITV, BT and Five, according to a report in the Financial Times. BSkyB's submission complains that Project Canvas puts too much power in the hands of free-to-air public-service broadcasters, and that its backers are attempting to establish their own platform rather than contributing to an industry-standard platform, the Financial Times reports.
• UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, is reporting that UK free-to-air terrestrial broadcaster, Channel 4, has been in talks with YouTube for at least six months, and is set to sign a deal that will see the majority of its content made available on the video-sharing site. Channel 4 will sell its own advertising around its programming and share revenues with YouTube, the newspaper says. "It was key for Channel 4 to be able to sell the advertising around its own inventory so it could extract maximum value from the deal and retain commercial control over its own property," a source said to be close to Channel 4 told the newspaper. "When the Channel 4 content formally appears on YouTube, it will be branded exactly the same way as it is on the Channel 4 Web site. It will be a fully Channel 4-branded space and look as if someone has picked up 4 on Demand [Channel 4's online catch-up service] and put it on YouTube."
• Text imaging solutions provider, Monotype, has announced that it has licensed scalable typefaces to Yahoo! for inclusion in the latter's Yahoo! TV Widget Development Kit. The typefaces include two Helvetica typefaces, Neue Helvetica and Helvetica World.
• Nielsen's president of media client services, Sara Erichson, has sent a letter to 75 of the company's clients, inviting them to a meeting in New York city this week (October 16th) to discuss "'TV Everywhere,' 'On Demand Online' and similar initiatives and their implications for television audience measurement," according to a report in Broadcasting & Cable. The letter goes on to state that Nielsen plans to use the meeting to discuss the work it is doing "to develop the capability to measure online video viewing in the National People Meter panel and to share our thoughts on potentially aligning that effort with these industry developments. Most importantly, the purpose of this meeting is to get your feedback and input on these plans," the letter continues.
• Social content-discovery service provider, Redux, has announced that its service now supports Facebook and Twitter feed importing.
• Scripps Networks Interactive has announced that it is rebranding its Fine Living Network (has a reach of around 55 million households) as the Cooking Channel. According to the company, the new channel "will launch with a VOD offering and a fully interactive Internet and broadband platform as it delivers more content focused on baking, ethnic cuisine, wine and spirits, healthy and vegetarian cooking and kids' foods."
• Canadian cable operator, Shaw Communications, is adding more primetime TV programs, movies and sports to its VOD service, according to a report in Mediacaster.
• UK cable operator, Virgin Media, is set to trial delivering its TV and broadband services over copper phonelines, as part of a plan to expand its footprint beyond its own cable network, according to a report in The Register.
• According to a blog posting by a former employee, that appears to have been at least partially confirmed by Multichannel News's Todd Spangler, ZillionTV, a company that is attempting to launch a subscription-free over-the-top TV service, has laid off nearly a third of its work force. Last month, the company announced that it was delaying its commercial launch until the second half of next year, and that it was pursuing a direct-to-consumer strategy to supplement its telco-targeted strategy.