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 [...]

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). [...]

American video-on-demand service Hulu, hotly tipped to be coming to the UK to partner with ITV, is the latest media outlet to announce it’s considering charging for content. As the amount of money we’re paying for our bandwidth continues to fall, could the cost of what we actually do with our broadband connections be set to rise?

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 [...]

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.

Project Canvas, if approved, could be the starting point for ITV to begin charging for access to exclusive clips, archived shows, behind the scenes footage and star interviews, according to Carolyn Fairbairn, Group Director of Development and Strategy.

The possible new revenue stream is opened up by the proposed internet television platform being open to all [...]

Under the Radar brings you the news that could have slipped away from you over the past seven days. This week we’ve been mostly dreaming up a theme tune for Microsoft’s first likeable search engine, newsworthy flavours of ice cream and new uses for Friends Reunited.

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.

YouTube is having to take down thousands of sexually explicit videos after it was targeted by pranksters on what’s being dubbed “Porn Day.” While most of the clips have already been deleted, others could be up for days.

Sky has launched a scathing attack on the BBC and the BBC Trust over the proposed Project Canvas which would see BBC, ITV and BT collaboration on a set top box which would bring online video content to the living room – essentially a Freeview box but with iPlayer-style functionality.
Sky’s response to the BBC Trust [...]

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) [...]

ITV’s Chief Executive Michael Grade’s warning that the British regulatory system could give American rivals an unfair advantage may be starting to be realised as both Hulu and TV.com admit to holding talks with UK broadcasters and content owners to launch their services here.
With the scrapping of Kangaroo, through which the BBC, Channel 4 and [...]

Project Kangaroo, the failed broadband TV venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, could be bouncing back, with Orange a potential buyer for the technology behind it. The mobile phone provider is thought to be one of two firms – the other a tech company – in the running to buy Kangaroo’s assets.

Orange, [...]

The BBC and Sky are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at loggerheads as to how central the BBC should be in delivering the government’s vision for Digital Britain.
Last week Sky asserted the government should reconsider its call, through the interim Digital Britain report, for the BBC to play a role in marketing broadband Britain and helping to set [...]