The X-Factor may have missed out on a Christmas number one this year, but TalkTalk believes the hit show it sponsored played a star role in it more than trebling analysts expectations for net new broadband customers in the last three months of 2009.
Figures out yesterday show that the ISP acquired 36,000 net new broadband [...]

The BBC Trust has given a conditional green light to the IPTV venture.

Project Canvas can now boast of two major new partners.  Broadcaster, Channel 4 and ISP, TalkTalk have joined the project which is aimed at creating a television platform which combines Freeview (and possibly pay per view) broadcasting with internet video content.
Channel 4 and TalkTalk join the BBC, ITV, Five and BT meaning that all public [...]

BT is to supply an up to 10Gb network to the MediaCity UK development at Salford Quays which will host the BBC’s new offices, as well as the University of Salford and Northwest Vision and Media.
BT claims this will make the new media cluster as well connected as similar media hubs in Dubai and Singapore. [...]

The BBC has released figures detailing the anticipated cost of developing Canvas, an open platform standard for combining IPTV and Freeview it hopes to roll out commercially towards the end of next year.
The corporation estimates that the total cost of development up to launch, and for its first four years, will be just under £100m (£98.6m). [...]

The BBC Trust today turned down plans for the BBC to share the iPlayer among a ‘Federation’ of public service broadcasters – namely, ITV, Channel 4 and Five.
In what must have seemed a little too much like a return to the days of Kangaroo the BBC had suggested that iPlayer could be shared among the [...]

Getting a deal to put Sky Player on its IP Vision’s Fetch TV set top box is a coup which its Business and Marketing Director, Peter Cox, believes will show it is doing what Canvas is talking about, only right here and now. In essence, he jokes, it is like having a canvas, only theirs [...]

In a second submission to the BBC Trust Sky has again accused the publicly funded broadcaster of “riding a coach and horses” through the embryonic market for online television.
In another  stinging attack on Project Canvas, published this evening, the satellite broadcaster and ISP accuses the BBC of misspending licence fee money to “stifle innovation” in [...]

Culture Sectretary Ben Bradshaw, launched a broadside attack on the BBC last night in a speech about the licence fee which could have huge ramifications for broadband.
An anticipated underspend in the 3.5% of the licence fee currently earmarked for providing help for the digital tv switchover in 2012 was being primed to potentially fund ‘final [...]

Ofcom’s just announced its proposals for regulating the UK’s infamously “nascent” video-on-demand marketplace. In line with revisions to European law, content could be regulated as soon as December this year.

Four hundred and forty-five million people in the world have broadband subscriptions. More than two million people have fibre to their home in Europe. And seven million people are pirating online media in the UK – or should that be more like half that? Samknows takes a look at some of the numbers racing around the press at the moment.

Broadband writer Bill Thompson’s excitement over where Digital Britain is headed has swung from anxiety to mild optimism back to anxiety, all within a year.
Having worked for Pipex and then headed up the Guardian’s new media business in the ‘90s before going freelance for the likes of the BBC, he has had hands-on experience of [...]

Now that the Edinburgh Festival proper’s over, it’s the city’s Television Festival that’s hitting the headlines – and, for the BBC at least, it’s no laughing matter. One day James Murdoch, the chair and chief executive of News Corporation in Europe declared the Beeb’s “flooding the market” with its online offerings; the next Five’s chief executive is leading calls for its presence on the Internet to be dramatically stripped back. The gallant Robert Peston’s stepped in to try and save the day, but will anyone else stand up for the BBC?

According to the BBC’s IPTV Programme Director, Project Canvas could have an innovative way of storing content locally in order to reduce the bandwidth demands of the service. Not only that, Richard Halton says there’s a “real opportunity” that the much-hyped Project Canvas will reach the market next year. Meanwhile, there’s news on Hulu and Arqiva’s own video-on-demand (VOD) plans.

Video-on-demand service BlinkBox is the latest to sign a deal to host BBC content, following hot on the heals of MSN Video. But whereas the Microsoft offering is all about streaming, the UK-based firm appears to have a very different distribution model up its sleeve as the competition in the British VOD heats up.

Having been released to the mainstream on August 3rd, Microsoft’s new UK video-on-demand (VOD) upstart has already chalked up nearly 170,000 show views – 167,487 to be precise. The man who’s overseeing the launch, Ashley Highfield – managing director of consumer and online at Microsoft UK – is no stranger to VOD success. He’s pretty chuffed – but more cautious about the “knowledge” economy.

The BBC’s decision to share online video content with three major newspapers was never going to slip under anyone’s radar. One week on, columnists are still questioning the Beeb’s motives – and it’s since emerged the infamous BBC Trust could still derail the whole venture. With seemingly everyone writing about the plans having a vested interest in what actually happens, what’s really going on?

Microsoft has admitted it’s going to be playing catch-up in the British video-on-demand (VOD) marketplace. The Redmond corporation has announced its new service will feature content originally broadcast on BBC and ITV – just as Channel Five made it’s own announcement that it’s becoming the first new partner of Project Canvas, the upcoming IPTV system being developed by the very same terrestrial channels.

It was back in February that the competition authorities delivered their knock-out blow to Project Kangeroo, the joint video-on-demand (VOD) service bankrolled by the UK’s terrestrial TV stations. Now, after months of the technology behind it being in the shop window, it finally has a buyer – and it’s British: Arqiva.

Outlaw.com concludes that net neutrality has no status in UK law.