23 Oct 2012 – Mumbai: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd and TV Today Network Ltd are in the fray to buy New Delhi Television Ltd’s business news channel NDTV Profit, according to three persons with direct knowledge of the matter who didn’t want to be identified.

They add that there is also another buyer in the race for the channel that has been on the blocks for sometime now.

Manisha Natarajan, spokeswoman for NDTV, declined comment.

Emails and phone calls to Zee and India Today groups did not elicit a response.

“If a good deal comes by, NDTV will certainly consider it. If the valuation is attractive, then the group may also consider selling the lifestyle channel as well,” said a senior NDTV official directly involved in the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more: http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/bWhoEpPBy5c7KxtddlwekI/Zee–India-Today-frontrunners-to-buy-NDTV-Profit.html

23 Oct 2012 – Just a few days after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) presented impressive figures pertaining to the amount of digitisation accomplished ahead of the scheduled deadline, there are reports about the figures being far from reality.

The Cable Operators Digitisation Committee has now come forward in its response to the figures presented by the ministry, claiming that the I&B ministry has showed a reduced number of cable television connections to depict higher penetration. In his statement to PTI, Cable Operators Digitisation Committee convenor Swapan Chowdhury said, “The claim is not true as Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has reduced the cable connection estimate in the four metros from 1.33 crore to just 68.40 lakh in three months.”

Read more: http://tech2.in.com/news/dth/ib-ministrys-digitisation-estimates-incorrect-cable-operators-body/528592

The decision to hold a public hearing comes after several local governments decided to lower fees for cable television service

October 25, 2012 – The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said it would hold a public hearing on Tuesday next week on setting more reasonable cable TV service fees.

The Executive Yuan has set the goal of raising the penetration rate of digital cable television service to 100 percent by 2014. This year, the commission has begun implementing a policy that allows cable television service providers to offer nationwide service or branch out into other service areas, on the condition that they offer only digital service.

NCC spokesperson Wei Shyue-wen (魏學文) said it was about time the commission began considering what constitutes a reasonable service fee in the digital service age.

Read more at Taipei Times

October 24, 2012 – The worldwide pay-TV market is growing on all major TV platforms worldwide, including cable, satellite, and IPTV, according to ABI Research’s pay-TV Market Data, which looks at average revenue per user (ARPU) and revenues worldwide.

Pay-TV service revenue is expected to reach $236 billion by the end of 2012, up from $223 billion in 2011, according to the market intelligence company, which also expects the pay-TV market to continue to grow 19 per cent over the next five years, generating $281 billion in 2017. Pay terrestrial TV services, however, are losing steam with a small drop in revenue; ABI Research notes that the French pay-TV platform TV Numeric is in receivership and likely to close at the end of the year.

Read more at Advanced Television

UK ISPs pressured on piracy

(October 23, 2012) – The UK’s major internet service providers have been asked to block three more file-sharing websites, the BBC reports. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), wants ISPs to prevent access to Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents.

The BPI alleges that the sites are illegally distributing music. The ISPs told the BBC they would comply with the new demand, but only if a court order is put in place.

Read more at Advanced Television

Stay Tuned For Red Underpants

22nd October, 2012 – Occasionally, usually by accident (sometimes if they think nobody is listening) politicians say what they really believe.

”I have unfettered legal power,” Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told an obscure conference in New York in September. ”If I say to everyone in this room, ‘If you want to bid in our spectrum auction you’d better wear red underpants on your head’, I’ve got some news for you. You’ll be wearing them on your head.”

Conroy was clearly having a bit of fun. But he’s right. He has complete, arbitrary and absolute control over who broadcasts on the airwaves and the circumstances in which they broadcast, and that control has been disastrous for television consumers.

Read more at the Institute of Public Affairs

18 October 2012: Standard advertisement guidelines will be drawn up to protect consumers from misleading advertisements and announced on Monday.

Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said since there were no guidelines in the past, the introduction of the new guidelines would streamline all advertisement in the country, including television, radio and billboards.

“We will work with the relevant ministries like Health Ministry for food and medicine, Information, Communications and Culture Ministry for radio and TV advertisements to be carried out accordingly,” he told reporters after closing the Gerakan Pengguna Malaysia 2012 Symposium at Institut Latihan Keselamatan Sosial KWSP (ESSET) here today. 

Ismail Sabri said his ministry would also announce a refund policy this year to enable consumers to return products that did not meet specifications after purchase.

Pic: SM AminKAJANG

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/news/36-local2/141271-standard-guidelines-for-ads-on-tv-radio-billboards-to-be-announced-monday-ismail-sabri-.html

October 19, 2012: The Pirate Bay has moved its servers to the cloud to hinder authorities’ attempts to take it offline. The website will now operate from cloud-hosting providers around the world. It says the move will save money and make it harder for law-enforcement agencies to shut it down.

In 2006, police in Sweden raided The Pirate Bay, shutting down its servers. The Pirate Bay says its new cloud-based servers, do not have to be hosted with the same provider, or even on the same continent – making it impervious to attempts to close it down. The Pirate Bay said: “The site that you’re at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us.”

Talking to the TorrentFreak website they said: “Moving to the cloud lets us move from country to country, crossing borders seamlessly without downtime. The hosting providers have no idea that they’re hosting The Pirate Bay, and even in the event they found out it would be impossible for them to gather data on the users.”

http://advanced-television.com/2012/10/18/pirate-bay-moves-to-the-cloud/

10/16/12: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and other major Internet service providers are set to implement a copyright alert system aimed at cutting down on illegal peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted material “over the next several weeks,” according to the head of the organization overseeing the new anti-piracy program.

“There are [implementation] dates in draft materials that are not set in stone and we don’t want to create any expectations we can’t meet, but we’re really close and we’ll start seeing alerts over the next several weeks,” said Jill Lesser, the executive director of the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).

Under the new copyright alert system, Internet service providers (ISPs) will send a series of alerts to subscribers whose accounts may have been used to illegally distribute music, movies or other entertainment content via file-sharing. If the subscriber does not respond to the first set of alerts, which will include educational material on protecting copyrights and the consequences of illegal file-sharing, the Internet service provider may temporarily slow down their Internet speeds, direct them to an online tutorial when they try to access popular websites or implement other penalties–called “mitigation measures.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/262315-internet-providers-set-to-crack-down-on-illegal-file-sharing

New Delhi | Wednesday, Oct 17 2012: Television Audience Measurement (TAM) data has been suspended across the country till a switch-over to the digital from the analogue TV service is complete. The decision has been reached with consensus among the TAM & Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India, (AAAI) and ISA (Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

The IBF said here today that the Broadcasting Industry was of the view that during the transition process from analogue signals to digital environment, there could have been discrepancies in TAM’s reporting of data, which could have had serious implications, particularly for the broadcasters, not only in terms of finance but also in terms of credibility. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has ordered the cable TV operators to suspend signals to all those consumers who do not install set top boxes by October 31 to get digitised signals. The deferment of release of data during the ‘switchover’ will ensure that TAM and all stakeholders have provided extended time for the on ground situation to stabilise into a digital phase. This will help in ensuring the users take a longer-term view of data for decision-making, the broadcasters body said. TAM will now release its data on December 19 and will include data measured from December 9, 2012.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20121017/2084666.html