uk

Sky News said Monday that its iPhone/iPod touch application has been downloaded over a million times since its launch last May. The UK satellite TV operator's news arm also announced Monday that it is launching a new mobile Internet service. (Note: Last week, Sky News also announced the launch of an interactive TV widget for the Yahoo! Widget Engine--see the article published on itvt.com, January 11th.)

The BBC has announced the line-up of content that will be available through its red-button interactive TV service over Christmas and into the new year:

UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV (note: the name stands for "Independent Television Network), and video-sharing site, YouTube, are teaming on an interactive Christmas promotion for ITV's flagship daytime show, "This Morning."

Hulu, the free, ad-supported broadband video venture co-owned by The Walt Disney Company (ABC), NBC Universal and News Corp. (Fox), said Wednesday that it has signed a deal with EMI Music, under which the latter will be the first major music company to offer concerts and music videos on Hulu's broadband video platform.

According to a new survey commissioned by UK-based price comparison site, moneysupermarket.com, 20 million (i.e. 45% of) UK adults have never used any interactive TV services; and over 9 million (i.e. 19%) avoid free interactive TV services, such as the red button, TV programming guides and TV on-demand, due to fear of costs--all despite the fact that the UK has almost completed its nationwide digital switchover. The survey also found that over 6 million (13%) of UK adults admit to having a severe lack of awareness of the interactive TV services available to them and don't understand what the red button does, dismissing it as all "over their heads," moneysupermarket.com says.

BSkyB's Sky News arm has begun streaming its TV output live, free and 24/7 on its Web site, http://www.skynews.com. It has also launched a new, higher-bitrate video player on the site, which it says will provide visitors with a "richer and more immediate" video experience: Sky News's online team worked with BSkyB's Sky Player arm to develop a login-free version of the latter's broadband video platform, which is accessed via a tab on skynews.com's main story carousel. The player, which does not require viewers to have a Sky account, can be accessed by anyone in the UK or the Republic of Ireland.

UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, Five, said Wednesday that it has teamed with broadband video specialist, Livestation, to offer live streaming of Europa League soccer on the Apple iPhone. It claims to be the first UK broadcaster to offer live streaming soccer via an iPhone app.

According to a report Monday in the UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Hulu, the free, ad-supported broadband video venture co-owned by The Walt Disney Company (ABC), NBC Universal and News Corp. (Fox), will not launch in the UK until early next year. It had previously been expected to roll out the UK version of its service next month.

Global Digital Broadcast, a Brighton, UK-based company that provides technical services to broadcasters looking to deliver their channels over IP (note: the company offers what it bills as an end-to-end IPTV solution that includes middleware, an IP set-top box, an online "virtual set-top box" application, secure age verification processes, and an app called MyPVR which allows users to save and access previously viewed programs), and Verismo Networks, a Silicon Valley-based company that offers an over-the-top-TV platform called VuNow (note: the platform has traditionally been offered in conjunction with a small set-top box d

As it has long been expected to do (see article published on itvt.com, May 21st), UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV (note: the name is an acronym for Independent Television Network), has laid off its director of future technologies, Simon Fell, and closed down the seven-person Future Technology department that he led. According to a report in the UK trade publication, Media Week, three of the department's employees have been laid off in addition to Fell, while three have been redeployed within ITV.

UK terrestrial broadcaster, Five, launched a broadband video-enabled Web portal called Holy Soap (five.tv/holysoap), Thursday, which it describes as "dedicated to Britain's unofficial religion": TV soap operas. The site replaces the standalone Web sites that Five previously offered for its Australian soap operas, "Neighbours" and "Home & Away," and offers full episodes of those shows shortly after their broadcast (Five says that up to 30 days of full episodes of the shows will be available on the site, all free-of-charge).

Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, and UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, Five, announced an initiative, Monday, that they say will allow Five's viewers to embed ad-supported full episodes of their favorite TV shows on their Web sites, social network profiles and blogs. The initiative makes Five the first UK broadcaster to syndicate full episodes of popular programs for catch-up viewing on third-party Web sites, the companies say.

De Montfort University (DMU), which is located in the UK city of Leicester, announced Monday that it is developing a 3D TV system that will be able to "recognize where somebody is sitting in a room and what they wish to view and interact with on their television." The university says that the system--which is being developed under the auspices of a 4.2 million Euro project, dubbed HELIUM3D (for "high-efficiency, laser-based, multi-user, multi-modal 3D display"), that is funded in large part by the European Commission's Framework 7 program--represents a step towards "truly interactive 3D video games where

Warner Music UK announced Thursday that it has formed a partnership with Muzu, a Dublin-based company which operates a music-themed broadband TV Web site. According to the terms of the deal, Warner Music says, Muzu users in the UK and Ireland (and presumably elsewhere, as the service does not appear to be geo-restricted) will be given unlimited, on-demand access to thousands of videos from Warner Music's roster of local and international acts, and the two companies will share revenues generated by advertising on the site and its video player.

UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, reported Wednesday that Hulu, the broadband video venture co-owned by NBC, Fox, and ABC/Disney (note: for more on Disney's recent acquisition of an equity stake in the venture, see the article posted on itvt.com April 30th), is hoping to launch in the UK in September with terrestrial broadcasters, ITV and Channel 4, as its main in-country content partners. According to what the Telegraph describes as "senior sources" close to Hulu's negotiations with the UK broadcasters, the company hopes to sign a deal with ITV and Channel 4 in the next few weeks, and is also in talks with the BBC.