Philip Hunter

France’s competition commission has decided to make a detailed examination of the 2006 merger between DTH operators TPS and Canal Satellite.

Sky has made a long term commitment to investment in UK content by setting up a fund for British film making that will reach £600 million (almost $1 billion) by 2014.

The European HbbTV hybrid TV standard has incorporated support for HTTP adaptive streaming based on the recently published MPEG-DASH specification in its latest version.

HbbTV has been added to the NorDig specification covering the Nordic countries for IRDs (Integrated Receiver and Decoder), now known as hybridIRDs.

The UK’s leading IPTV operator BT Vision has increased its subscriber base by 23 percent over the last year despite getting the most customer complaints.

Sky Italia subs have turned downwards after growth in 2011.

France Telecom company GlobeCast has launched its new OTT platform MyGlobeTV in the U.S. with 16 premium Romanian-language channels.

Cloud platforms combined with rights relaxations are helping network-based TV recording take off in Europe.

GET of Norway and Poland’s Multimedia Polska are the latest European MSOs up for sale with Liberty Global’s UPC among the favorites to acquire both.

The Ukrainian National Council on Television and Radio has introduced new must-carry rules for the country’s cable operators.

Swiss Telco Swisscom has chosen a content recommendation engine from Jinni of Israel for its IPTV service “Swisscom TV,” with the promise of recommendations based on taste and mood.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Media department is being staffed up for its mission to help broadcasters deliver high quality content across all platforms.

The UK’s hybrid TV platform YouView is now expected to be launched mid 2012 following a string of technical delays.

Questions are being raised again by some home networking system vendors over power line's ability to scale up to HD

The EBU met recently in Tromsø, Norway, recently to discuss future production technologies, including HD.

Four G.hn chipset makers came together in Geneva, Switzerland, for the world's first interoperability demonstration.

The European Broadcast Union (EBU) held a quality control workshop in June, concluding that there is a long way to go to develop the automated monitoring toolsets needed for multiscreen services.

The Satellite Interference Reduction Group (sIRG) and the Global VSAT Forum (GVF) confirm they are working in partnership to combat satellite interference.

Belgian satellite comms company Newtec is encouraging operators to speed up their migration to IP at Broadcast Asia 2011.

Leading broadcasting consultant urges regulators to revise DTT spectrum planning to provide better in-home coverage in urban areas.

France, like Germany and most other European countries except the UK, is basing its connected TV platform strategy on the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard.

The Broadcasting Audience Research Board (BARB), which measures TV consumption in the UK, is introducing a viewing meter for Web-based services.

The European Broadcast Union is calling on its members to get their heads out of the sand and start working towards common standards for emerging hybrid services.