Digital TV Blog

OFT repeated cry of regulation

Project Kangaroo, working title for the joint on-demand venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, has been referred for investigation by the Competition Commission after the Office of Fair Trading concluded that there was a danger that the platform could become too big and could crowd out any potential competition.

As a joint venture between the main UK broadcasters, Kangaroo was always going to be big, and there was no question if it would go live without having to go through the regulatory mangle first. Optimistically, Project Kangaroo, which promises tens of thousands of on-demand programming, was due to hop onto British screens this autumn, but now the Commission has until the 12th of December to conclude its investigation, so its unlikely that we'll get to see anything Kangaroo shaped appearing on the horizon anytime this year.

Project Kangaroo is headed by Ashley Highfield – he chap most famous for launching the BBC iPlayer – and was recently given the proposed title of SeeSaw, which we reckon is a bit rubbish. We preferred Project Roo.

Can I get a rebrand?

Freeview Playback, the brand used to advertise the pause-record-rewind functionality first introduced by Sky way back in 2001, is to be sensibly rebranded as  "Freeview +" keeping it in line with both Sky+ and Virgin Media's V+.

This change is set to be closely by a significant marketing campaign to establish the Freeview + brand as being easily comparable with other products providing the same functionality.

as being comparable with the other products out there in the marketplace already – now with the launch of Freesat, and iDTV sets containing Freesat receivers, we can expect to see integrated digital TV sets coming with Freeview+ built in very soon.

3 for the price of 1

Usually picking out the Friday Feeling choice movie isn't really hard work – with literally hundreds of channels to watch, looking for the pick of the week is like searching for the proverbial diamond in the dog poo; it doesn't take very long. However this weekend there's loads to watch – including previous Friday Feeling winner Austin Powers in Goldmember (Saturday 10:00pm, Channel 4), classic con artist comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Saturday 11:10pm, ITV3), and classic Sixties road movie Easy Rider (Saturday 11:05pm, fiveUS).

However it this trio that have topped the list of hits here at Digital TV towers for this weekend’s viewing:

Kill Bill: Vol One (Friday 11:40pm, BBC1) – the first part of Quentin Tarantino's mile-a-minute reference-a-thon rolls on BBC1 tonight, with Vol Two to follow the same time next week. Uma Thurman stars as the Bride, a powerful former killer-for-hire who is intent on seeking revenge on the titular Bill (David Carradine) and his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who made her a widow on her wedding day.

The Castle (Sunday 11:55pm, Sky Movies Indie) – overlooked Australian comedy about the Kerrigan family whose blissful suburban existence in their home located next door to the Melbourne airport is threatened when said airport wants to expand. Going by the old adage that 'a man's home is his castle', Darryl Kerrigan, head of the clan sticks it to the man and takes the fight all the way to the High Court. Subtle deadpan humour at its best.

The Last King of Scotland (Sunday 11:05pm, Sky Movies Screen 2) – based on the famous Giles Foden novel of the same name, The Last King of Scotland follows the (fictional) exploits of young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan as he heads to Uganda, eventually becoming 'royal physician' and confidant to Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator fond of brutally repressing and expelling entire ethnic groups and concocting Byzantine titles for himself, such as "Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular."

Trouble in the Jackson family

Soap opera EastEnders will tackle the issue of child sex abuse in what could potentially be a controversial storyline, the BBC has announced.

The plot will involve Bianca Jackson's 15 year old stepdaughter Whitney, played by Shona McGarty - pictured right - and her stepfather Tony who has not yet appeared on screen.

Full details of the storyline have not yet been released but commentators think that it will kick off when Tony is released from prison and appears in Albert Square.

A spokeswoman for EastEnders said the programme was working closely with the children's charity the NSPCC to portray accurately the devastating effect of child abuse. "EastEnders is a contemporary drama which aims to tackle and reflect real life issues together with raising awareness of the sensitivities that sometimes accompany them," she said. "EastEnders has successfully drawn attention in the past to a number of sensitive issues including domestic violence, rape and HIV."

The NSPCC's director of communications, John Grounds, said that programmes like EastEnders help raise awareness of the horrors of sexual abuse, which usually happens behind closed doors. "The NSPCC's work with the BBC on the forthcoming EastEnders storyline is aimed at ensuring the portrayal of child abuse accurately reflects the damage it can do to the victim, their family and the wider community," he said. "This is vital in persuading people to take action to stop it and encouraging children to speak out."

The soap has been criticised in recent months by Ofcom for airing controversial storylines before the 9pm watershed. The regulator ruled that a story aired in February portraying a gang attack in the Queen Vic and a girl who went into premature labour, had shown "sustained violence, intimidation and menace".

The world's most watched TV show gets slammed

The popular motoring programme Top Gear has been criticised by the BBC's independent watchdog for glamorising drink-driving.

The BBC Trust said that a special edition of the programme broadcast last July in which presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May raced to the North Pole, broke its guidelines. The pair were shown drinking gin and tonic while driving a heavily-modified pick-up truck in a race with Richard Hammond, who was riding a sled. One viewer commented that the presenters' behaviour was "highly irresponsible" and should not have been show before the 9pm watershed.

The programme's producers said that the filming took place in an uninhabited area on international waters where no drink-driving laws were in force, so the presenters had not committed any offence. They added that neither presenter was shown to be drunk nor out of control, and that the drink was a prop to emphasise the difference in attitude between the two teams.

However, the trust insisted the programme "was not editorially justified in the context of a family show pre-watershed" when children were likely to be watching because it "could be shown to glamorise the misuse of alcohol". The trust ruled that repeats of the show should not be shown pre-watershed unless this scene was edited out.

The episode also saw them appearing to blithely ignore the sage advice of Sir Ranulph Fiennes - someone who knows a thing or two about frostbite - as the trio of twit-headed kidults sniggered and biroed massive knobs on their notepads.

This is not the first time the show has got into trouble because of complaints from offended viewers. In February last year Jeremy Clarkson strapped a dead cow to his car, as part of a challenge to create a "road-kill dinner" on a USA roadtrip, prompting over 100 complaints. The programme was also accused of making light of accidents when presenter Richard Hammond crashed his car driving at 300mph at Elvington Airfield, seriously injuring himself.

Scottish Premier League football clubs are rejoicing after it was announced yesterday that Setanta, the satellite company that currently hold the rights to screen live Clydesdale Bank Premier League action, has renewed a deal to screen live matches from Scotland, at double the price they paid for the privilege four years ago. The SPL’s current deal with Setanta, worth 13.5 million a season, is due to expire at the end of the 2009/2010 season. The original deal was struck in 2004, when Setanta took over coverage from the BBC.

The four year contract extension was announced by Lex Gold, the SPL's executive chairman. "£125 million marks the biggest ever TV deal in Scottish football history," he said yesterday. “This will allow clubs to re-invest to make the Scottish game even stronger."

The main beneficiaries will be the club managers, who will see the annual television revenue of £31.25 million distributed when the new terms come into force at the beginning of the 2010-11 season. Whilst Celtic and Rangers are among the top 20 richest clubs globally, other Scottish Premier League teams will be only too glad of the extra cash. Most have to operate on much smaller budgets and therefore lose out on key players. They will now see their revenues from satellite television rise from just over £1 million a season to £2 million a season under the new agreement.

The success of Rangers and Celtic who both reached the UEFA cup final in the last five seasons has raised the profile of the Scottish game, particularly abroad. Lex Gold sees this change reflected in the new deal.

"Ten years ago, we spoke about delivering a brighter future for Scottish football," he said. "Today, as we look ahead to our next 10 years, we can do so with confidence. No commercial deal comes close to matching what has been achieved today by the SPL and Setanta Sports for our game. We have moved forward with Setanta over the past four years and we look forward to working with them to continue building and developing our league."

Setanta will broadcast sixty live games each season to be shown throughout Britain and Ireland.

1080p for all, at last

Word on the street is that since the launch of Freesat a couple of months ago, take up of HD TV equipment has really started to take off. According to sales figures, there are approximately 10 million HD TV sets currently in use in British households, half a million of which are being used in conjunction with the Sky HD service, which, incidentally, is set to take a price tumble tomorrow.

Virgin, which has proudly boasted its own V+ HD digital TV service since inception, also commands a portion of this figure. However, it is thought until now, the majority of HD Ready TV sets have been purchases with the purposes of enjoying next-gen home entertainment in the form of Blu-Ray and HD DVD players, not to mention the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Yes, and the Wii, although we realise it’s technically not a next-gen console…

Anyway. Just as Freeview and Freeview Playback drove the increase in sales of switchover-ready Digital TV sets, Freesat looks all set to do the same for HD-compatible kit. Like Freeview, the main selling point of the Freesat package is the one-off install fee, no subscription deal which sees punters able to sign up for a whole bunch of HD channels all in one go.

If that wasn’t enough HD access to keep people happy, the BBC are reportedly trialling HD transmissions over Freeview, using the Guildford transmitter as a test bed, putting paid to rumours that HD on Freeview would never happen. The broadcast utilised the newfangled DVB-T2 spec, which apparently offers 30% more capacity than the standard DVB-T, on which the existing Freeview equipment runs.

Justin Mitchell, head of the DVB-T2 development team at the BBC, said: "This is a big step forward in enabling the introduction of full HD terrestrial on Freeview by the end of 2009."

The DVB-T2 specification means that Freeview punters will almost certainly have to buy a new set-top box, which prompts the question why bother waiting when you could just shell out for Freesat now? Well, the problem with Freesat is that it requires a dish to be fitted to the side of a property, and for structural and contractual reasons, this isn't an option.

2009 is also well in advance of the 2012 switchover and just in time for the Olympic Games, meaning that every British household ought to be able to see that high-watermark acheivement of graphic design that is the London 2012 Olympics logo in super-high 1080 progressive scan resolution.

Sky supersize Hi-Def telly package price

With the take up of HD TV in the UK soaring since the arrival of the HD video formats, next-gen gaming consoles and now Freesat, Sky have upped the ante on the competition by slashing nearly £100 off of the asking price of its high definition service, giving its current HD box the name Sky+ HD. Kind of confusing if you ask us, seeing as the current Sky HD box already has Sky+ style functionality, but sometimes life's hard y'know?

From tomorrow customers will be able to purchase a Sky HD box for £150 when taken alongside a £10 a month subscription to Sky HD Mix. Currently, this package costs £249 on it's own with the basic channel mix. Sky have branded the subscription Sky HD Mix, to differentiate it from the Sky+ box and Sky+ HD box.

The Sky+ box will also be priced at £150, which could be reduced to £75 if taken with Sky Broadband and Talk - aka See Speak Surf - or Sky Multiroom.

I have a cunning plan…

Cate Blanchett delivers one of her most memorable roles as Elizabeth (9:00pm Tonight, More4), which documents the rise of one of the most prominent figures from British history, and the early years of her reign.

As a Protestant and a reformist, she has more enemies than she realises both at home and abroad – the fervent political and religious backdrop is set right at the very beginning of the film, where three Lutheran 'heretics' are roughly shaven before being burned at the stake. Criticised for portraying Catholics in a bad light, the film is nonetheless enjoyable as a kind of English Renaissance-based thriller – much of the film is spent clandestine locations, with conspiratorial whisperings abound.

The costumes and settings are vibrant, lush and lavishly rendered, and the supporting cast is equally star-studded, featuring La Haine star Vin Cassel appears as Henri of Anjou, a would be suitor of Her Maj, future Pirate of the Carribean Geoffrey Rush as spymaster Francis Walsingham,  post-Man United Eric Cantona as the French ambassador, a pre-Doctor Who Christopher Ecclestone as the conniving dastardly Catholic Duke of Norfolk and a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig as fanatical, head-stoving Jesuit assassin John Ballard.

Its hard to believe that Elizabeth is now ten years old, probably because of the fairly recently release of (not quite as good) follow-up Elizabeth: The Golden Age still relatively fresh in people's minds.

More Prime Time Reality Family Fun

Amateur choir is to be given a prime-time face-lift on a new show hosted by Myleen Klass and Nick Knowles. Last Choir Standing, to be shown on BBC1, will scour the country for the choir with the most talent, passion and pizzazz. The two presenters will be joined by a panel of judges, X-factor style – the much-loved Tenor Russell Watson, Holby City actress and west-end singer Sharon D. Clarke, and seasoned choral conductor Suzi Digby OBE. The 27 choirs who make it onto the programme will gradually be whittled down to six, when the audience decide who to keep and who to boot.

The choirs couldn't be more diverse, from a group of hip-hop street kids who struggle to follow the music or the conductor and the all-male Hertfordshire Police Choir to a group of handbag-wielding housewives singing Britney Spears.

Singing in choirs is apparently one of Britain's favourite pastimes with over 25,000 registered choirs and at least half a million members. "It's one of the things the UK truly excels at," says Suzi. "More than any other country, we have an amazing amateur tradition. We are the only country with a 1,000-year unbroken tradition of cathedral choir schools. It is one of the things we really do well."

Nonetheless, choirs have not always been seen as cool and many of us hold back from singing in public. "There was this idea that if you were going off to choir practice, you were a sad loser," Suzi continues.

"People also get a psychological block about singing. Parents say their children can't, siblings laugh – it doesn't take much for it all to shut down."

Still, the programme aims to raise the profile of choral Singing. Co-host Nick Knowles, better known as the host of DIY SOS and City Hospital, enthuses that "The public will be treated to some fantastic performances from all the choirs, and it will ultimately be up to them to decide who will be the Last Choir Standing. This will be entertainment television at its best – getting the whole country involved." Last Choir Standing will air on Saturday Nights on BBC1 next month.