BBC licence fee to remain for a decade

TV LicensingA committee of MPs has decided to support the retention of BBC licence fee for the next decade, however, has stated the licence has “no long-term future”.
The fee has come under pressure with the shift in national viewing habits as audiences increasingly catch up on programmes online.

Figures released by the BBC show that the BBC iPlayer received over 2.6 billion requests for television programmes in 2014—requests from tablets increased by over 50% to 801 million, while those from mobiles were up by over 30% to 662 million.

The culture, media and sport select committee said the licence fee should remain for the next decade and be replaced in the 2020s by a “broadcasting levy” on all households, including for those who do not own TVs or watch shows online.
Such a system was introduced in Germany in 2013 and would end the need to detect and prosecute those who avoid buying a TV license.

Claire Enders, a media industry analyst, said it was “an amazing conclusion” for Conservative MPs on the committee to support the retention of the licence fee for the next decade.
The fee is “no longer an ideological football”, she added.

The committee also said that voluntary subscriptions could be introduced for some BBC channels as an alternative way of financing part of the service.
Though the fee has come under criticism, chiefly because it talks a higher proportion of poor households’ income, only one MP on the committee voted for it to be scrapped immediately.

The license fee currently costs £145.50 per year for every household where people watch or record live TV. A TV license is not required to watch catch-up TV, using services such as the BBC iPlayer.

The committee’s report will feed into the negotiations over the BBC’s next royal charter, which will begin after the general election in May.

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Open source digital radio could deliver cheap community DAB

digitalradioAn open source DAB technology to be trialled by Ofcom could spark a community broadcasting boom that enhances the DAB radio offering and advances the digital radio switchover.
Currently, the cost of broadcasting on DAB is far beyond the reach of local radio stations. However, a system pioneered by Ofcom engineer Rashi Mustapha, which runs on freely available software, would allow small, provincial radio stations to broadcast DAB radio for a fraction of current costs.

If the trials are successful, UK radio listeners could benefit from more local and community radio stations on DAB. The UK’s first small scale DAB experimented was conducted in 2012.

Rashid, a senior broadcast specialist at Ofcom, said: “The first test of the small scale DAB concept was from the roof of the tallest building in East Sussex. Despite an unexpected delay to the start of the experiment while waiting for young Peregrine falcons to fly from their nest, the technology provided very encouraging results.”

“The trials being announced today are the next step in potentially helping hundreds of small stations to start broadcasting on digital radio.”

The approach known as ‘small scale DAB’ substitutes expensive hardware equipment for software from opendigitalradio.org, and is best suited for broadcasting to small geographic areas, ideal for community and local radio stations.

Ofcom engineer Rashid Mustapha was granted a test licence and installed a low power digital radio transmitter on a Brighton roof-top. The test successfully delivered a reliable, high quality digital radio broadcast.

Ofcom has invited applications to take part in up to ten trials, which are expected to run for nine months. The deadline for applications is 3pm on 7 April 2015.

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Freeview Play Manufacturers Announced

freeview_playDigital UK and Freeview have today announced that Panasonic will be the first manufacturer to launch TVs featuring the Freeview Play connected TV service.
Panasonic will make Freeview Play available in its new 2015 line-up of VIERA TVs (Freeview Play available on CX680, CX700, CR730, CX802 and CR852 series of TVs.).

Channel 5’s Demand 5 service will also join the platform – completing the launch line-up of catch-up players alongside BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and 4oD (Channel 4’s new digital brand All 4 will replace the 4oD brand on all platforms from the end of Q1 2015).

Freeview Play combines catch-up TV, on-demand services and live television to make watching what you want, when you want as easy as possible. The service will be free from subscription and compatible with existing broadband services. Viewers will be able to search for programmes via a scroll back function in the TV guide or a dedicated apps page. This month Freeview announced a major rebrand in preparation for the launch of the new TV offer.

Ilse Howling, Managing Director, Connected TV at Digital UK, said: ‘It’s great news that Panasonic will be the first of many to bring TVs with Freeview Play to viewers. I’m also pleased that Demand 5 will be joining our line-up of great, free, on-demand players. Digital UK is working closely with manufacturers and broadcasters to develop our exciting new service and bring the benefits of connected TV to everyone, free from subscription.’

Guy North, Managing Director of Freeview, said: ‘We believe that Freeview Play will put viewers back in control and we’re delighted that Panasonic is our first TV launch partner. Freeview Play will be integrated into a number of TVs in the new VIERA range, giving people the freedom to choose across a range of price points. We look forward to welcoming more products from other partners later this year.’

Panasonic plan to offer Freeview Play recorders at a later date. Multi-brand manufacturer Vestel will follow with a range of Freeview Play products.

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SES – 5.1% increase in HD channels in 2014

sesLuxembourg, 20 February 2015 – SES S.A. (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) reports financial results for the year ended 31 December 2014.
“SES delivered another year of strong revenue and EBITDA growth in 2014. This reflects a series of successes in key market verticals and geographies in securing new business, as well as further serving our long-standing customers.

We have continued to execute on SES’s strategic principles for delivering long-term profitable growth, and enhancing our world-leading satellite operations. We have expanded our core video business by developing new neighbourhoods, securing new contracts and increasing channel count. Our investments in innovative solutions that bring together linear and non-linear broadcasting are also paving the way for the introduction of Ultra HD TV.

Data and Mobility applications are an increasing source of demand, and SES has continued to build its capabilities across multiple verticals – securing major new contracts for fixed networks as well as maritime and aeronautical connectivity. Our government business has continued to develop, with important new business wins despite the prevailing U.S. budget constraints. Within the business, our focus on operational optimisation has improved margins and enhanced overall profitability. “Looking forward, 2015 will be a year in which SES continues to build for future growth.
The recent announcements of the SES-14, SES-15 and SES-16/GovSat programmes demonstrate SES’s commitment to generating long-term revenue growth as part of our existing investment plan. These satellite programmes will use the latest technological innovations and leverage SES’s differentiated capabilities to deliver new capacity that will optimally serve attractive market verticals across the globe.”

SES saw a 5.1% increase in HD channels broadcast over its satellites in 2014 as it posted solid full-year results, with revenue up 4% to €1.919 billion and EBITDA up 5% to €1.428 billion.

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Petition to save BBC Three delivered to the BBC Trust

bbc3A petition signed by more than 270,000 people, opposing plans to take BBC Three online only, has been delivered to the BBC Trust.
Campaigners delivered the petition in person yesterday to the BBC’s governing body on the final day of the public consultation into the plans to move the linear channel online.
A small rally was held outside Broadcasting House, joined by Labour MP John McDonnell, who tabled a motion in parliament last year opposing the closure of the broadcast channel.

Campaigner Jono Read, who set up the online petition to save BBC Three, said “we presented three boxes full of signatures. The Trust say they are listening and will report back in the coming months on their findings.”
He added: “It’s been a fantastic day and I want to thank everyone who supported us. You’re all ace!”

The BBC announced plans to “reinvent” BBC Three as an online-only channel last year. In detailed proposals published in December, the corporation said the move would generate savings of £50 million and allow the corporation to experiment with new content.

At the time BBC Director-General Tony Hall described the plans as the “most exciting and ambitious proposals” since he has been at the BBC, though he admitted that “with the licence fee frozen, we’ve had to make difficult decisions.”

Last month, UK production companies Avalon and Hat Trick announced that they were attempting to take over BBC Three. However, BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh stressed that the network was “not for sale”, claiming that the new BBC Three will continue to make comedy, drama and documentary programmes and will also make digital content and short form video for platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

In a statement, Avalon said: “We believe that the closure of BBC3 as a linear channel and its migration to a much reduced version online is a huge mistake both for the BBC and for the licence payer. There is an alternative way.

“Avalon and Hat Trick wish to offer to pay the BBC fair value for BBC3. ‘BBC3’ in this context means the ongoing right to broadcast original and acquired programming currently offered under the brand name BBC3. If necessary we would operate the channel under a new brand name.”

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Red Button arrives on Freeview HD devices

freeviewhdThis week sees the start of our roll-out of the BBC’s Red Button interactive services on the BBC’s HD channels on Freeview.

If you are watching BBC One HD, BBC Two HD, BBC Three HD or CBBC HD, you’ll now be able to press the red button on your remote control and enjoy all the usual interactive services that you already know and love from the BBC’s standard definition television channels.

On most platforms (Sky, Freesat and Virgin Media non-TiVo devices), we were able to offer the full range of interactive services on the launch date of the BBC HD channels. However, due to technical limitations we were unable to bring the BBC Red Button to Freeview HD, until now.

These technical limitations have now been resolved following work from the BBC’s Future Media TV Platforms team in Salford and BBC Distribution in London, and now allow us to bring the usual features of the interactive service to any Freeview HD certified device.

Unfortunately, the service is not currently available on BBC Four HD, CBeebies HD and BBC News HD as they are carried on a separate multiplex to the other BBC HD services.

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Review into TV licence enforcement

TV LicensingAn independent review assessing current TV licence enforcement is seeking views for possible reforms to the system.
The Government announced an independent review into TV Licence Enforcement in September 2014.

The Review has been assessing options to change current enforcement measures, including the decriminalisation of TV licence evasion offences.
It is looking to identify whether such options could improve the existing system.

As it stands, a person who installs or uses a television receiver without a TV licence is guilty of a criminal offence under the Communications Act 2003 and can be fined up to £1,000.
In some cases where there is a refusal to pay the fine and where all other enforcement methods have been tried or considered, a person can be sent to jail for non-payment of a court-imposed fine.
The Review has set out six policy options for the future of TV Licence Enforcement and is seeking interested parties to provide evidence and views on these.

The policy options are: do nothing and retain the current criminal enforcement system; reform the current system; retain criminal offence but allow an out of court settlement; retain criminal offence but establish a fixed monetary penalty; decriminalise and enforce via a civil infraction; and decriminalise and enforce as a civil debt.

Following this consultation period, the views expressed in the consultation will be considered and will inform the final report to Ministers. The Review will report by the end of June 2015 and findings will be presented to Parliament and the BBC Trust.

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UK Ultra-HD could hit 1m units

4K LogoThe forecasts for 4K/Ultra HD take-up this year have exceeded all expectations. 2014 saw around 200,000 UHD units sold in Britain (3 per cent of the market), and this year’s forecasts could see as many as 995,000 large-format 4K sets sold. The data comes from market analyst GfK, and were presented at the SES-sponsored 4K/Ultra HD conference in London.

GfK says that the British sales are more or less in line with similar sales in other comparable countries in Europe. December’s UK sales were in excess of 60,000 pieces, already 7 per cent of the market in that month alone.

GfK’s Nigel Catlow (Business Group director/consumer electronics) told delegates that if this expansion continued, then 2015’s overall sales will be close to half-a-million units. “However, as the sales percentage is itself growing month by month it seems highly probable that the market will be closer to 1 million pieces by year end, rather than half-a-million.”

Catlow stressed that these are forecasts, and inevitably carry the usual warnings, but given that the 4K manufacturing sector is releasing many new UHD models “strong growth seems inevitable”.

He added that the one inescapable fact was that British consumers seemed to have a strong appetite for larger and larger screens, and “this is encouraging the purchase of UHD TVs” and also helped by steadily falling prices of the technology.

German sales, said Catlow, were even stronger (at 211,000 for 2014) and France only just behind (196,000 units).

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Sky looking at IP delivery for 4K content

skySky said that it is “not ruling out” the possibility of delivering 4K content over the web in the future in a similar way to Netflix, after staging early trials filming in the ultra HD format.

Speaking at SES Ultra HD conference in London yesterday, Sky’s chief engineer of broadcast strategy, Chris Johns, said that there was “no reason” Sky couldn’t launch a 4K channel now if there was compelling enough content to do so.

However, asked whether Sky would not make such a move until transponder pricing and 4K production costs drop, he said that there was more options than simply broadcasting a linear 4K channel via satellite.

“We want to know what we can fit on a single transponder, should it be necessary. We’re not ruling anything out; we’re looking at it economically. The lower the price for distributing a piece of content, the better it is, obviously,” said Johns.

“Looking at the other end of the spectrum is how you deliver not just over a satellite but via IP and broadband in a way that Netflix are delivering. That is another way of actually doing that delivery method without having to have a continuous linear channel, but just delivering as requested by the user.

“I’m not ruling anything out. We wanted to know what we could do here and now should it be necessary, but we know where we want to get to as we move forwards into the future,” said Johns.

Sky tested 4K during the Ryder Cup golf tournament at the end of last year, in what Johns described as a valuable “in the wild” trial.

“We wanted to test everything in the production chain to see if we could get it working and produce an entire production over three days of the live Ryder Cup in 4K,” said Johns.

However, discussing the use of 4K, he pointed to a number of challenges that still exist.

These include: compression issues; colour and dynamic range challenges, particularly the difficulties of moving between images of light and shade; and an overall “lack of content” in 4K.

Calling for more industry collaboration, he said: “We need to come together to create a technology leash. The UHD alliance in the US is just kicking off… we need to look at it in detail to see if we can get up with these common standards that everyone will adopt to give a really good quality UHD.”

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Astra Connect selected for UK Satellite pilot

Astra2ConnectSES today announced that its Astra Connect for Communities solution will be used in a UK Government-funded Market Test Pilot (MTP) project. These Pilot projects aim to assess which technologies and commercial models are best suited to deliver superfast broadband to the final five percent of households in the UK that currently do not have access to high-speed internet.

SES is working with Satellite Internet, the UK-based Internet Service Provider, to deliver its satellite broadband solution to the villages of Simonsbath and Luxborough in south-west England. The villages, each with a population of about 200 residents and located in Exmoor National Park, will benefit from a Satellite Distribution Node (SDN) and a Wi-Fi head-end technology providing homes with internet speeds of up to 25 Mbps.

Last year SES successfully rolled out several Astra Connect for Communities networks in Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Baden-Wurttemberg states. Another 35 networks are due to be completed by the end of June 2015 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Satellite Internet was selected for this project by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport in June 2014, having applied for funding from Broadband Delivery UK’s GBP 10 million Innovation Fund. The provider has worked closely with Connecting Devon and Somerset, a public-private partnership of six local authorities set up to deliver next generation broadband infrastructure to areas where commercial investment plans are absent.

A feasibility study for this project has already been carried out and the deployment in Luxborough started last month. Further installations in Somerset are due to take place later this year.

“This is a great initiative and we are pleased that our proven, reliable and cost-effective satellite solution is being evaluated for potential nationwide roll-out in the UK,” said Patrick Biewer, Managing Director of SES Broadband Service.

Secretary of Culture, Media & Sport Sajid Javid said: “We want everyone in the UK to be able to enjoy the benefits of superfast broadband, that’s why we have begun work on reaching the last five percent of communities not covered by existing plans.”

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