Digital TV Blog

‘Pirate Movie Racket’, or Bedroom Hobbyist?

Much-loved TV linking site TV Links (tv-links.co.uk) has been torpedoed by the joint forces of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and the Gloucestershire Constabulary.

Last week, police arrested David Rock, a 26 year-old computer engineer from Cheltenham, who had set the ball rolling from his home, but had not actually linked to or hosted any copyrighted material himself – it was for this reason that TV Links had been able to avoid a legal telling off for so long – and in his own words, says “I’m not some master criminal. It was just a hobby.”

According to thisisgloucestershire.co.uk, which describes TV Links as a “huge Pirate movie racket,” film studios in the US contacted FACT when they realised that people were downloading copies of releases, including, ironically, Pirates of the Caribbean 3. FACT then contacted local Trading Standards, which in turn called in the police to make the arrest.

Rather than removing the offending links, the entire website has been shut down. A statement FACT claims that Mr. Rock had been arrested for “offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet”.

Former users of the site have also been quick to point out that in theory websites such as Google and YouTube are also guilty of facilitation of copyright infringement, as they too provide links to unsolicited and illegal material – TV Links was just one guy in his bedroom, unsupported by an expensive law squad.

What David Rock was doing with TV Links might have been flirting with the borders of legality, but the fact of the matter is that his website was regularly used and loved by thousands of punters worldwide, and he wasn’t making any money off of it – not exactly the evil criminal ‘movie racket’ that thisisgloucestershire.co.uk would have you believe.

Many would have liked to have seen the film studios react in a more positive way; many users have said that they would happily pay a nominal monthly fee, say, £5 a month to use the site.

The rise of on-demand IPTV platforms like Sky Anytime, Virgin Media and BT Vision has proven that people want to watch and download programmes on and from their computers – TV Links was a well known and popular site with a clean, uncluttered layout which was easy and user friendly. It’s highly likely that TV Links may re-emerge as a legit entity a la Napster, with a pay per view system in place.

Copyright Offences carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and unlimited fines, although there is currently no law for facilitation of copyright infringement in the UK. There is in the States, which is from where the complaint originated. How this pans out stands to be just as interesting as the Sky/Virgin brawl.

‘His ‘n Hers’ channels make an impact

The digital TV channel UKTV G2 has seen a resurgence in figures since its recent rebranding as Dave. The channel, has been credited by UKTV bosses with a recent rise in overall Freeview ratings (27%) for the UKTV group – Dave and UKTV’s other Freeview channel UKTV History, accounted for a 3% share of Freeview ratings last week.

The name was chosen because according to UKTV “everyone knows a bloke called Dave”. Dave is styling itself as ‘The home of witty banter’, and a kind of incisive, blokey, fast cars, smoking jacket and glasses of port type channel. The Dave website boasts that the channel features; “Jeremy Clarkson. Stephen Fry. Paul Merton […] a place full of complete and utter wits…” Chortle chortle eh readers?

Dave head honcho, whose first or last name disappointingly isn’t Dave, but is in fact Steve North, had this to say about the initial performance of his channel:

“It’s incredibly satisfying that the channel has performed so strongly in its first week. Dave’s stellar programme lineup and its innovative marketing on and off air have paid dividends.”

The stellar programme line-up mostly consists of choice comedy cuts from the rump of the BBC, such as Top Gear, QI, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, The Mighty Boosh, and (unfortunately) The Catherine Tate Show. According to our research, Julia Davis’ Nighty Night also has a place in the Dave line up. Jolly good. Dave broadcasts from 7.00 AM to 3.00 AM the following day. A timeshift channel is also available on Sky and Virgin.

On the other end of the gender spectrum, Sparrowhawk Media, the folks behind the Hallmark channel have also recently launched Diva TV in the UK, which is currently airing on Sky and Virgin Media, mostly broadcasts US soaps and talk shows such as the famous Late Show With David Letterman, Oprah and Rachael Ray, along with acclaimed drama Picket Fences, which was previously shown on the UK version of the Hallmark Channel.

Whilst the channel contains programmes arguably skewed towards the ladies MD Rosie Hill-Davies said that it would be foolish to “immediately cancel out 50% of your potential audience by specifically making it solely for women,” and insists that all the prime-time viewing, specifically Letterman, is intended to appeal to everyone. In an interview with Digital Spy, Rosie Hill-Davies said that Diva TV intend to launch a +1 catch-up channel “sometime next year”.

Dave and Diva TV can be found at the following channels – Freeview owners note that you may have to perform a quick rescan in order to get Dave.

Dave / Dave +1

Freeview: 19 / N/A
Sky: 111 / 159 (+1)
Virgin: 125/126 127 (+1)

Diva TV

Sky: 282
Virgin: 192

Life After Analogue Again

Reports coming in from Whitehaven residents suggest that whilst technically the switchover was a success, not everyone was too keen about the whole prospect.

According to a report in Tuesday’s Times and yesterdays Guardian, many residents felt as though they had ‘panicked’ into buying the comparatively expensive Sky packages because they either felt that they could not get all the channels or did not know how to get set up; Angela Parkinson, quoted in the Times said that switchover was; “a big con and […] really confusing. We had to pay extra to get Sky Plus just so we could get a signal on all our televisions”.

Guest house owner Andrew Davies said that initially he had expected to fork our over £5,000 to get TV reception (through Sky) for all of his rooms before he found out that he could get Freeview for a combined cost of £1,000 – a fifth of the initial price.

Mr Davies said that he had not received any help or advice from Digital UK on getting set up for the switchover: “As a guest house it is not an option for us not to have television in all our rooms. There was no help or guidance for small businesses at all.”

Mr Davies added that the change to digital was “a financial burden that has been put upon us without any consultation whatsoever.” Others echoed his sentiment, with some feeling as though it was “another thing that the government is asking us to pay for,” which came, ironically, from a Mr. James Orr, who is unemployed.

Life after analogue

So how is life in Whitehaven after the first stages of switchover? Early reports indicate that overall, switchover has been a success, with the only major hiccough so far being that many receivers needed to be retuned multiple times after some confusion from residents that only Channel 5 was being displayed. The information packs handed out by Digital UK included detailed sections on the necessity of retuning and how to go about it.

The analogue signal that formerly carried BBC2 is now gone, with around 2000 Whitehaven homes losing the channel in the small hours of the morning. The remaining terrestrial channels, BBC1, ITV1, and Channel 4 are still showing, and are slated to be shut down on the 14th of November.

We’d like to hear from anyone in the Whitehaven area who took part in the switchover, their experiences and any difficulties they had getting set up.

…

The digital revolution begins in earnest tomorrow – BBC2 will be the first channel to power down in the Cumbrian town of Whitehaven.

Residents of the coastal town are kept informed of the countdown to change by way of a huge LED clock display in the harbour ticking towards the switching off of the analogue signal.

Locals have been helped to get ready by members of Digital UK, who have set up shop in the town, explaining the switchover in detail to concerned members of public, and local black goods dealers have been doing a roaring trade, selling off hundred of Freeview and Sky+ boxes within the last couple of weeks, with one retailer describing the sudden demand as being like Christmas.

BBC2 will leave 25,000 Whitehaven screens throughout tomorrow, with the rest of the channels to follow suit on the 14th of November.

IPTV goes all interactive

BT Vision will be promoting a new TV concept currently titled New Media 2, or NM2, for its BT Vision IPTV platform. Ostensibly, New Media 2 allows viewers to shape the narrative of a TV show or series via the interactivity of an IPTV service, allowing for multiple choice endings to programmes.

So rather than producers filming a linear story-line based, New Media 2 programmes will have a back-end loaded up with multiple storylines and plot options.

We imagine that NM2 programmes would be a bit like those old sword and sorcery adventure books and a BBC debate show (the name of which I currently can’t remember) when viewers were invited to phone in at the end of a terrestrial TV show, to vote for their preferred storyline conclusion. Rather than phoning in midway through a broadcast, viewers would be able to press the red button and choose from a list of options, rather like a televised RPG game.

“The back-end system will be loaded up with multiple storylines and options, so it’s not a process whereby viewers react and the producers make something based on that,” says Richard Griffiths, Director of Technology Strategy and Development at BT Vision. “We have developed the production tools that would sit alongside a video editing suite, but you have to shoot what you need before you do this.”

With directors therefore having to shoot what they need before they hit the edit suites, this is going to potentially drive up the costs of commissioning an NM2 series, especially if an ambitious director writes and shoots a multi-faceted script of staggering complexity with no conceivable ending in sight (possibly involving a plane crash on some island or something) – BT Vision are currently looking at how they can subsidise the venture, either through paying for a subscription or extra pay per view costs.

Tommo does his part for the switchover

Virgin Media have hired Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson as the face of their campaign to encourage the switchover to digital TV.

The actor famous for playing couch potato lard arse Jim Royle was hired according to him because ‘they wanted someone who was known for sitting in front of the telly scratching his ****.’

In the promotional video which will soon be doing the rounds on our screens, Ricky puts on a teacher’s mortar board and gown and “…rather than preaching at people, we’ve done it in a comic way with a little bit of a giggle.”

The digital switchover starts this week in Whitehaven, Cumbria and will proceed through every region in Britain, starting next year with the Border region and ending in 2012 with the London, Meridian and Tyne Tees regions being the last to turn off the old signal.

Ricky says that advert is aimed at “the old age pensioner who doesn’t want to spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and who is happy with what they’ve got, can just go buy a Sky box that sits on top of the telly, plugs in and they get all the benefits of everything else and all the channels. I don’t think the cost is going to be a deterrent.”

All well and good, but Virgin bosses might not be too happy about that comment about Sky, although in one of the seasonal specials of the BBC sitcom, Jim Royle famously got excited when he received a Sky+ subscription for Christmas.

Switchover begins in Whitehaven next Wednesday. Residents have just over a week to get connected.

But nothing’s going to happen until January anyway

Sky have said that in the event of it being forced into a loss-making sale of its 17.9% stake in ITV, it would be “bound to” seek legal action.

When the £940m blitzkrieg ITV share raid took place last November, individual shares were valued at around £1.35 a share – now they’re worth substantially less, roughly £1.05 a share. This equates to a £200m loss for Sky if they were forced to sell tomorrow.

However, as nothing is going to happen decision wise until January anyway, by which time market conditions may be more favourable for Sky.

Sky have said that it will continue to work with the regulator until the publication of the final report next year. It has been suggested that for purposes of voting neutrality, that Sky would support Michael Grade ITV’s executive chairman, on any important votes.

Mary Whitehouse’s favourite channel hooks up with Sky

Channel 4 has announced that it plans to transmit some of its programmes in high definition (HD) through Sky from December 2007.

To begin with, the new channel, which presumably will be called something like 4-HD, will just broadcast a selection of programmes rather than the full C4 schedule, with a view to expanding to encompass all the listings in the future. Hit shows such as Ugly Betty are already being broadcast in HD in the US.

“The launch of Channel 4 HD represents an early cost-efficient entry into a valuable emerging market, and an important enhancement to the service offered to the rapidly increasing number of HD viewers,” said Rod Henwood, director of new business at Channel 4.

However, only programmes which are recorded using HD equipment will be broadcast in HD. Channel 4 believes that this will stimulate producers who want to use HD recording techniques:

“We believe that increased investment in HD at this stage could help boost HD production for the benefit of Channel 4 producers who will find their programmes more saleable in the international market.”

Imagine being able to look at Jade Goody’s face in full high definition glory. Huzzah! Viva La Revolucion Digitale!

The channel will debut on Sky, and will be available for no extra subscription to those who have a Sky HD receiver, and will eventually become available on Virgin Media and Freeview.

Viewing figures for this Monday suggest that Virgin 1 did alright on its, ahem, virgin night. Flagship drama series The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver pulled in around 323,000 viewers at 10, beating initial expectations that the channel would debut at 200,000.

By comparison, Sky One netted 460,000 viewers with Prison Break and the repeat of EastEnders on BBC3 got the most, pulling 531,000 punters.

However, the most watched programme on Monday night was ITV1’s Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes (8.1 million viewers). Murphy’s Law on BBC1 got 4.1 million, and BBC2’s Inside a Sharia Court: This World got 1 million.

Yours truly was one of the 1.8 million who watched Channel 4 documentary The Great Wall of China.