France was until now the only European country which still maintained a model of two competing satellite pay-TV platforms. This will probably change as Canal Satellite (jointly owned by Vivendi Universal and Lagardere) and TPS (owned by the commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6) join forces to create a single platform. It is expected that the [...]
The European Commission�s Christmas present to the media and communications sector is a proposal for a new Directive on the regulation of audiovisual media services. Along with it comes an Impact Assessment Document in an attempt to balance risks and benefits of the legislative initiative. The scope of the Directive has been considerably extended [...]
The European Regulators Group (which represents both National Regulatory Authorities �NRAs and the European Commission Services of DG Infosoc and DG Competition) has published for consultation a draft document which sets the common position of the ERG members regarding �Remedies� under the European regulatory framework for electronic communications.
Responses should be sent to the ERG Secretariat [...]
In the initial days of digital broadcasting Spain was one of the European success stories. By 2002 the country was, together with the UK and Sweden, at the forefront of developments in digital satellite television and leading the way towards digital terrestrial. Today, however, after arbitrary political decisions, a major bankruptcy of their digital terrestrial [...]
DG Information Society and Media has commissioned a series of four monitoring reports at 9 months intervals, on the market for electronic communications networks and services in 8 EU candidate and potential candidate countries (these are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey). The [...]
From tomorrow until Friday the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) will take place in Tunis.
The most controversial issue on the agenda is Internet governance and the control currently enjoyed by the U.S. through ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is the L.A. based non-profit corporation that [...]
Folks, the hot topic on media regulation is not the revision of the Television Without Frontiers directive. New rules for the audiovisual sector (if adopted) will still take considerable time and, in truth, they might have a much weaker impact on the European audiovisual landscape than it is currently felt. Don�t forget the quite poor [...]
Not long ago we announced an upcoming OfcomWatch interview with Mr. Joan Botella, president of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) since May 2005 and member of the Catalan Audiovisual Authority (CAC). You can check it now in our interview series or by clicking here.
Mr. Botella’s comments are very refreshing and insightful. Note that [...]
Some time ago I posted on the announced privatization of RAI, the Italian public service broadcaster. In 2004, the Gasparri law reforming the audiovisual sector in Italy opened the way to a partial privatization of RAI which was to take place (after some delays) before the end of this year. Privatization of the public broadcaster [...]
Surfing some news of earlier this month I have come across this:
�The European Commission has appointed Professor Neil Barrett, a computer scientist, as the Trustee who will provide technical advice to the Commission on issues relating to Microsoft�s compliance with the Commission�s 2004 Decision (see IP/04/382).�
In March last year the European Commission fined Microsoft with [...]
The European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) held its semi-annual meeting in Budapest last week. Once the meeting was over, Russ Taylor and I met with Joan Botella, member of the CAC (Catalan Audiovisual Regulator) and president of EPRA since May 2005. Our meeting was fun and revealing. A full interview with Mr. Joan Botella [...]
In case you have not had enough debates on the revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, here comes another chance: French Consultancy NPA Conseil is organizing yet another conference about the Directive (I found out through Broadband TV News Events �the consultancy does not seem to advertise it on their site (?)). The event [...]
Today in Brussels the Open Society Institute has presented the monitoring report “Television across Europe: regulation, policy and independence“. The 1662 pages report analyses broadcasting across 20 European countries (including EU members, candidates and potential candidates), and addresses policy recommendations to national and international authorities and groups.
The findings seem slightly alarmist. For example, the major [...]
The European Commission has recently launched two public consultations that will run until mid-November:
The first one: What challenges for the publishing industry in the digital age? The starting point is the crisis faced by the publishing sector as a result of falling advertising revenues and an increasingly elder readership (a recent study showed that even [...]
Yesterday, the European Commission granted clearance under the EU Merger Regulation to the acquisition of sole control of Channel 5 by the RTL Group S.A. (RTL) of Luxembourg, which belongs to Bertelsmann.
In July Bertelsmann reached 90.4% control over RTL, after buying WAZ Group’s share in the company, and it acquired 30% or Russian Ren-TV for [...]
The OECD published yesterday its Communications Outlook 2005. You can buy it online for 50 pounds here. I have not read the report but from the various press releases these seem to be the key points:
* The industry is profitable again, but developments in Internet technology challenge the role and business models of traditional telecommunications [...]
Digital Spy reports today:
�Telewest has reportedly set a deadline for preliminary bids for its content division, Flextech. The Telegraph reports that the cableco, which is gearing up for a merger with NTL, wants initial bids for Flextech in by the start of September�
However, it is uncelar whether Flextech will be sold. Just last week CabSat [...]
The Spanish Consumer Union has filed a complaint against Telefonica Moviles before the National Competition Authority, that should now decide whether or not to open competition proceedings. The reason is that the Spanish mobile operator plans to change its billing system to charge in 30-second blocks after the first minute of each call (which is [...]
Last week The Economist Leader stated: �There�s no solid evidence that video games are bad for people, and they may be positively good�
Today the BBC reports:
�A South Korean man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks. The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an [...]
RAI has finally got a new president! It has been more than a year since Lucia Annunziata, the last president of the Italian public service broadcaster, resigned in protest for political interference and manipulation (resignation had by then become something in vogue within the Italian PSB�for the same reasons).
Last June, RAI journalists threatened to go [...]
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