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.

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). [...]

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 [...]

The online streaming of last night’s World Cup football match appeared to pass without incident, despite the predictions of doom.

A lot’s been made by the mainstream media about the decision to screen an England international football match – a World Cup qualifier no less – exclusively on the Internet. The sensationalism was such that one newspaper even went so far as to ask whether this could be “the beginning of the end for traditional broadcast television.” In contrast, the idea that millions could watch said game online seems like a relatively conservative bet.

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.

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.

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.

The BBC Trust has asked the BBC management to address a number of points raised in responses to the recent consultation on Project Canvas before proceeding to the next stage.

The deal is done. Carphone Warehouse has bought Tiscali’s UK assets for £235m which it claims makes TalkTalk the largest residential broadband provider in the UK with a combined subscriber base of 4.25m.
SamKnows queried TalkTalk’s maths, given that BT claims to have 4.6m subscribers. TalkTalk’s rationale, it explains, is that of these BT users 700,000 [...]

Project Canvas – the on-demand broadband TV collaboration between the BBC, BT and ITV – could run into exactly the same problems that saw Project Kangaroo mothballed, according to the UK’s communications regulator. In a letter to the BBC Trust, Ofcom have warned the project could be subject to an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) [...]

Sylvain Thevenot can understand why many people believe his appointment last autumn as TalkTalk’s senior director of products and strategy means the ISP is aiming to launch a mobile broadband service.
After all, he comes direct from Vodafone where he worked across Europe rolling out new messaging and voice products, most notably answer phone messages [...]

After defending the proposed Kangaroo multi-channel IPTV catch-up service to the Competition Commission, Ashleigh Highfield has resigned to join Microsoft.
The chief executive’s departure will come as a major blow to the proposed online television service for which the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are hoping to get clearance from the Competition Commission. Highfield, who had [...]

Google’s Senior Policy Director, Richard Whitt, has revealed that the web giant is working on tools that will reveal to broadband users whether their service is being ‘throttled’ to allow some online services to be prioritised over others.
Speaking at Santa Clara University at a conference on net neutrality – the issue of whether ISPs should [...]