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BSkyB has reached a deal with 21st Century Fox to buy 100% of Sky Italia and 57.4% of Sky Deutschland for £4.9 billion and BSkyB’s 21% stake in the National Geographic channel, a deal worth in the region of £5.4 billion.

BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Darroch feels that this move will make BSkyB “a world-class, multinational pay TV business” and the dominant European pay-television giant. With the acquisition, BSkyB now owns ¾ of the largest pay TV markets in Europe. Furthermore, and maybe more importantly, the company has expanded their potential customer base from roughly 30 million households to almost 100 million.

As Nick Ferguson, the chairman of BSkyB, has pointed out, the move “will deliver growth and value creation for all shareholders”. 70% of all households in Italy and Germany do not pay for their television subscription currently; therefore, BSkyB now has a market of roughly 70 million consumers (including the rest of the UK market) that they can target.

This move comes...

According to Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC, BBC iPlayer is not on the road to becoming a subscription-only service. Some feared this may have been where the service was headed following a recent decision to introduce encryption.

The encryption in question is designed to prevent BBC programmes from being accessed online by those who do not have a TV licence. According to Hall, the licence fee system "isn't broken" but it is out of date. In its current form, it leaves a loophole open for viewers to watch television programmes without paying by accessing them online shortly after broadcast. "We are saying we believe in the licence fee," Hal said, "but also saying it needs to change and modernise."

The upcoming encryption of the BBC's online catch-up service, Hall maintains, is designed simply to plug this gap and return to a situation where viewers must pay their licence fee in order to watch television. It is not, as some suspected, a first step in limiting the service on the...

Thousands of BBC iPlayer viewers were unable to watch their favourite programmes throughout Saturday as a technical glitch brought down both the iPlayer service and the BBC website.

At the time, the official BBC iPlayer Twitter addressed the issue saying; “We're aware of an issue which means some people can't access certain parts of BBC Online. We're working hard to fix this as soon as possible." The issue, which started on Saturday morning, was resolved roughly 24 hours later.

A number of people took to Twitter to complain about the issues that stopped them using their iPlayer service. Many were disappointed that they could not catch up on the Grand Prix, Open Golf and the MasterChef final, which a number of people were particularly disappointed to miss on iPlayer.

Some even complained of experiencing the same issue on the Sunday as well, but it appears the issue has now been fully resolved with BBC tweeting “After a short interruption, services for all...

.....the Company initiated preliminary discussions with 21st Century Fox to evaluate the potential acquisition of its pay-TV assets in Germany and Italy.

.....If any deal does materialize and is successful, do not rule out Fox making another bid to buy the 61% of BSkyB it does not already own. Mr Murdoch's European master plan would then be complete.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27370353

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The way we look at Television is changing, and it has been for the past few years. However, the On-demand services are now changing attitudes and old habits as we now have Television that fits into our lives. These On-demand services are beginning to gain some momentum and for those people who own laptops and tablets, they are fast learning that it is possible to catch up on the TV that they like whenever they want. In some cases the viewing figures are an incredible bit of evidence where it has been proven that the total audience of one show was made up of 10% of those who watched it live with the other 90% coming from the On-demand service.

Now Google have entered the market with the launch of the Google Chromecast and what this little piece of technology offers is the streaming of video from any device along with several On-demand services. Netflix and the BBC iPlayer have both adapted their software so that it can be streamed, but the other option for users is to use the chrome...

Price hikes, nobody likes price hikes and this latest revelation by TalkTalk will not leave customer’s feeling happy at all. From May 2014, the prices are increasing and TalkTalk have decided that customer’s should pay up to £42 a year more for their broadband and TV Package. The biggest shock to come from all of this is the fact that this is the second price rise in six months, and that is what leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of customers.

TalkTalk’s current offerings of their Plus TV package sets customer’s back £15.50 a month, but come May, this will rise to £18.50, this is almost a 20% rise in the monthly cost. Their other popular additions to this are the Essentials TV package and low-cost SimplyBroadband which will be increased by £1 a month, meaning that the cost is £8.50 and £3.50. The line rental that they offer will be increased by 55p a month which is in addition to the 43p rise per month that will be introduced in September 2014. This brings the cost of their line...

BSkyB have now come up with a service that is sure to challenge online retailers such as Apple iTunes as they are now launching a new movie download service that allows the user to keep, this is known as “buy and keep”.

This service which is due to be rolled out very soon will form part of BskyB’s current film rental service which is based on pay-per-view known as Sky Store. The new buy and keep service will be aimed at families who already have Sky subscriptions and usually bought DVD’s but found it easy and convenient to purchase the films electronically.

What this new service will offer BskyB is the possibility of finding a way into the UK DVD market which in recent years has seen a serious decline in sales but is still worth a lot of money. The revenue from downloaded content, streamed content and...

Sky+HD is being updated in the biggest change to Sky’s EPG since 1998. Once the change is implemented a few changes will be noticed on the layout of the home screen. This is because BskyB have decided to completely change things and want their new EPG to really focus on Catch-up TV.

There has been a huge increase in the demand for Catch-up TV and this new introduction from sky certainly makes it easier to find the on-demand content that customers want. The changes will not be rolled out to everyone just yet, but gradually over the next few months it will be introduced. This means that the on-demand services such as Sky Store and Sky+ Planner will now be alongside the usual channels, making things look smoother and simpler.

For those people who have already seen the change they will notice that the new homepage has a...

Panasonic is now offering the award winning Freetime service that comes from Freesat to all their customers that are based in the UK. Previously, the Freetime service was only available via a Humax set-top box. Since it was launched in 2012, the Humax boxes have accounted for 40% of sales. Regardless of whether customers receive their television channels through an aerial or satellite, the service will be available to them.

Panasonic have decided that Freetime will be offered on selected models of their VIERA Smart TV range. The interface will allow users to roll back their television guide, through the past seven days which will enable them to catch up with programmes that they have missed, along with the on-demand services offered by all of the public service broadcasters and YouTube....