Archive for the ‘Sky Digital’ Category

MTV is to launch a new comedy and music channel, Viva, to replace the digital music channel TMF.

The new channel will feature MTV reality series such as The Hills and Scream Queens as well as early episodes of US comedies including Two and a Half Men and South Park and the “best in rock and pop music”, said the broadcaster.

Heather Jones, MTV Network’s director of television, said Viva was “about fun and frivolity and not taking yourself too seriously” and a “real antidote to the daily grind”.

“It is not simply a new-look TMF but instead a completely new channel with a unique blend,” Jones added. “TMF has for a long time been about more than just music, so it deserves an identity that reflects its output.

“MTV has a long history of ensuring the look and feel of our channels remains current and vital and in tune with the 16- to 34-year-old audience.

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One of the biggest dance events based on the High School Musical franchise is to be filmed in London for a new Disney Channel UK series.

In Club High School Musical: Make It Happen, four Disney fans are given four days to persuade 500 people to strut their stuff in a dance performance of a song from the show. The children have to find a venue in London for the final performance, helped by the show’s presenter and former Fame Academy choreographer Kevin Adams.

The four episode show will air later this month on Disney Channel UK. The show is being made by independent production company The Foundation, part of the RDF Group.

Nigel Pickard, the executive producer, said: “This is the first time that RDF Media Group has worked with Disney Channel UK.

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Live coverage of the next Ashes cricket season in the UK is to return to terrestrial television, it has been announced.

The test series played between two of international cricket’s greatest rivals, England and Australia, which was shown this summer by the paid-for broadcaster Sky, will be returning to free-to-air television in 2013.

The move follows a review of leading sporting events led by David Davies, the former Football Association executive. Ministers are likely to back his proposals on the Ashes, it is understood.

“It’s a no-brainer. This is one thing we can do that chimes in with the wishes of millions of voters,” a government source told the Sunday Times.

At its peak just 2 million viewers watched this summer’s deciding test match at the Oval when it was broadcast on Sky this summer. By contrast, the previous Ashes series broadcast in 2005 by channel 4, attracted over 7 million viewers.

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Gordon Brown has indicated he is willing to take part in a series of television and radio debates ahead of the general election.

In a letter on the Labour Party website, the Prime Minister said he believed it was “important for the country” for leaders to take part in broadcast debates on a wide-range of themes.

Earlier this week the Conservative leader David Cameron accused Brown of “sitting on the fence” over the question of a live debate between political leaders.

The proposed television debate has attracted considerable media interest, with Sky News making a public push for one in a high-profile campaign.

David Cameron and the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg have both expressed their willingness to take part in televised debates during the run up to the election, but until now the Prime Minister has declined to give any firm indication as to whether he would participate.

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BSkyB is to make an official complaint to Ofcom in response to proposals that would force the broadcaster to sell its premium sports and movie channels to rivals such as Virgin Media at prices dictated by the media regulator.

BSkyB chief executive Jeremy Daroch said that if Ofcom’s proposals are pushed through, its pay-TV rivals will get Sky’s premium services “on the cheap”.

“These guys want a free ride. Intervention like this is not a good incentive to encourage people to invest in the UK,” Darroch said.

“[Ofcom] is proposing an unprecedented level of interference in commercial markets. Good regulation does not involve micro-management. Nor does it mean tinkering to reshape an industry so that it matches a spreadsheet in a regulator’s office,” he added.

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US broadcaster CBS is to launch a range of branded digital channels in the UK.

The broadcasting network will work in conjunction with channel provider Chellomedia, the European content division of Liberty Global, which will rebrand six of its 26 services - Zone Romantica, Zone Thriller, Zone Horror and Zone Reality, Zone Horror +1 and Zone Reality +1 - under the CBS banner. The channels have not yet been given new names.

CBS’s new UK themed channels, which will launch later this year, will feature programming from the network’s 70,000 hour back catalogue, including the 1980s soap opera Dynasty and the remastered version of the original series of Star Trek. In addition, the broadcaster will continue to acquire programming from third party suppliers.

The commercially funded Chello Zone channels are currently broadcast to over 13 million homes through Sky, Virgin Media and FreeSat. The rebranded CBS channels will continue to be operated by Chellomedia, but representatives from CBS will contribute to the shaping and day-to-day running of the channels.

American networks ABC, NBC and Fox have all run channels on British television, but this is the first time that CBS has launched such a venture, although its CBS Evening News programme already airs on Sky News.

“The CBS brand is recognised around the world for quality, both as a production studio and as a network,” said Armando Nuñez, president of CBS Studios International.

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Whilst commercial products are often displayed prominently during films, including James Bond’s famous Omega watch, British TV programmes have for a long time had to use fictional products, such as pints of Newton & Ridley in Coronation Street’s Rovers Return, because of a ban on product placement in the UK.

However, that could all change this week after an expected decision that will allow broadcasters to display sponsored products on their shows for the first time.

Commercial broadcasters are likely to welcome the move as they struggle to cope with significant falls in advertising revenue. Some analysts believe that the deal could raise up to £125 million for commercial broadcasters, although product placement will not be allowed in children’s programmes or by publicly funded organisations such as the BBC.

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Paul O’Grady is expected to decide this week whether to stay on as host of his Channel 4 chat show, or move to a rival broadcaster such as Sky 1, which has offered him a lucrative deal thought to include a new peak time weekend show.

Earlier this month O’Grady publicly criticised Channel 4 after the broadcaster told him it was likely to slash the budget of his weekday chat show by 50% in a bid to cut costs. The presenter said that he would rather leave the show altogether than “do it on the cheap”.

O’Grady is understood to have held talks with rival broadcasters including Sky1 and ITV over the last few weeks, and is likely to come to a decision as to whether he stays will Channel 4 or decamps to a different network at the end of next week, according to a friend.

“There have been various approaches from different broadcasters and there are ongoing talks with Channel 4,” the source told The Guardian. “Everything is in flux at the moment, but more should be known towards the end of next week.”

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Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, has accused James Murdoch of being “desperately out of touch” with viewers.

In a strongly worded email attack on the head of News Corporation in Europe and Asia, Thompson told BBC staff that Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture at the end of last month amounted to a “pretty relentless onslaught” against the corporation.

Murdoch used his MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival to warn that the scale of the BBC’s operations was “chilling” and called for the corporation to be radically scaled down.

However, a Guardian/ICM poll released on Saturday revealed that 77% of Britons take pride in the BBC, and that the majority think the corporation offers good value for money.

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British viewers have given their overwhelming support to the BBC, with four out of five indicating that they are proud of the BBC, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll.

The research found that 77% of people think the BBC is an institution to take pride in, compared to just 68% in 2004. 63% of those surveyed also think it provides good value for money – up from 59% in 2004.

The results appear to contradict claims that the BBC’s expansion into digital media has a “chilling” effect on consumer choice, made in a speech last month by James Murdoch, European chief executive of News International.

In his speech, Murdoch said that the BBC is unable “to distinguish what is good for it, and what is good for the country”, and also called for a greater embracing of private enterprise in public service broadcasting.

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