OFCOM - the main headlines

From MediaGuardian:

Media regulator demands that BSkyB make a 23.4% cut in price of Sky Sports 1 and 2 to rivals such as Virgin Media and BT
BSkyB must reduce the wholesale price at which it sells Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 to rivals such as Virgin Media and BT by 23.4% from the current £13.88 to £10.63 per subscriber per month. On the basis that most subscribers buy packages including the sports channels, the reduction for a bundle is 10.5% from £19.15 to £17.14.
Ofcom also said today that BSkyB is restricting the distribution of premium movie rights, with a knock-on effect for the subscription video-on-demand market, and is proposing to refer the issue to the Competition Commission.
Rivals such as BT and Virgin Media have promised to cut the prices that their users pay for Sky Sports channels, but are also concerned that BSkyB may be able to exploit loopholes in the ruling such as shifting key sports content to channels not covered by the ruling.
Ofcom said that it would counter any move by BSkyB if it tried to shift content to channels not covered by the ruling "to any material extent".
Ofcom has also said that BSkyB must offer wholesale high-definition versions of Sky Sports 1 and 2 to rivals but stopped at setting a price. Within minutes of the announcement this morning BSkyB confirmed that it would lodge an appeal with the CAT over what it regards an "unprecendented and unwarranted intervention".

OFCOM pay TV report published and disappoints on HD

And they've backed off from the strong wording of the previous draft. Here's the relevant piece from the summary on Sky Sports HD:

We have not set a price for high-definition versions of Sky Sports 1 and 2. We have accepted Sky's argument that high-definition services are a relatively recent innovation, and that pricing flexibility will help promote future innovation. We instead require Sky to offer contractual terms for supply of these channels on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

And it doesn't look like they've pushed Sky's HD movie channels our way:

We have decided it would not be appropriate to impose a similar obligation on Sky's movies channels. We have concerns over restricted distribution of movies channels, but our main forward looking concern relates to the sale of video-on-demand rights. We cannot adequately address this concern under section 316 (which relates primarily to linear channels). Instead we believe we should make a reference to the Competition Commission under the Enterprise Act 2002, and as required by statute, we are consulting on that proposed decision.

 It's literally been published in the last few minutes. I will write more later. Not the news Virgin customers were hoping for.

US Masters on BBC HD, starting April 8th

Another BBC HD sports exclusive:

BBC Sport will have exclusive, live television coverage of Tiger Woods's return to golf at The Masters, in Augusta, Georgia – starting on 8 April. The Masters will be Woods's first competitive tournament since his self-imposed break from the game towards the end of last year ... viewers will be able to enjoy all of the coverage in High Definition through BBC HD.

This year's Grand National to be broadcast in HD

According to the BBC

Next month's Aintree Grand National meeting will be the first-ever horse racing event to be screened in High Definition by the BBC.

The three-day coverage includes the Grand National on Saturday 10 April.

NGTV upgrades this week

from Cable Forum:
Media Boy EXCLUSIVE: More areas join NGTV this week.

Tuesday March 30th:
Birmingham and Solihull (Birmingham, Sutton, Harbourne)
Croydon (Rescheduled from last week)

Wednesday March 31st:
Black Country (Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall)
Manchester (Baguley, Wilmslow, Blackburn, Rawenstall)

This list is subject to change as there may be technical reasons why areas may not get completed in time.

Off Topic: Lost - my theory

Nothing to do with HD, but after following Lost for almost six years I've finally come up with my own theory on the programme. Here goes...


Why Lost is actually about Manchester United

• Ferguson is Jacob (hence his hatred of the man in black, who may appear different each week but is the same Jacob-nemesis deep down regardless of appearance)
• Which of course means Jacob is actually the true (Red) Devil
• It’s not about time travel but about extra time travel, and the island exists only where time has been stretched beyond natural boundaries…so the island, in fact, is Old Trafford
• The story line that has gone quiet and everyone’s forgotten about? The Djemba Djemba Initiative…
• Richard, he lives forever, appears to wear eyeliner and is unnaturally hirsute…that would be Mr Giggs, surely
• The oddball Scot who nobody really rates - "Desmond" Fletcher
• The man from the East who barely speaks English - "Jin" Park
• The redhead we all thought was dead but reappears every now and again – Scholes
• The bald bloke who insists everything's fine … Sir Bobby "Locke" Charlton
• Everyone hates him, he's rarely seen but is really running the show… "Whitmore" Glazier

And the Others…

• The character who everyone (including himself) thought was going to be the mastermind but turns out to be an inadequate puppet as greater forces take control – Ben(itez)
• The mad French person who sees things no-one else does, talks nonsense, and may (or may not) be dead – Wenger
• The mysterious big bear that nobody talks about but has still to be explained – Ancelotti
• The crazy professor who eventually fails and dies – Martin O’Neill
• The pilot who keeps crashing to earth - Mancini


I’m sure there’s more but I’m busy … honest ...

New standard def channels on Virgin Media

Now available:  ITV2+1 launched on channel 116; ITV3+1 on 174; ITV4+1 on 175; Quest is on 179 and the Military History channel is on 236. No, I won't be watching any of them either...
There are a few +1s disappearing too - full details over on the Cable Forum Coming Soon board.

OFCOM report next week

Not sure of the exact day, but it'll all kick off next week apparently. Here's what Robert Peston of the BBC says about it:

The latest is the three-year pay-TV probe, which reaches an end - of sorts - next week, when the media watchdog, Ofcom, publishes its final conclusions and proposed remedies.
There have been thousands of pages of submissions to Ofcom in this enquiry, a fair number of them from the company directly threatened, British Sky Broadcasting (which was still lobbying Ofcom, with some 100 pages of detailed economic analysis, some five months after the consultation was formally closed).
And while we'll have to wait for the detail, there is no doubt (based on what Ofcom has already published) that Ofcom's recommendations will send British Sky Broadcasting into paroxysms of fury.
Ofcom believes that BSkyB has "market power" in the supply of channels containing live sport and first-run Hollywood movies to competitors such as Virgin and BT.
The regulator has already concluded - in its preliminary verdict published last summer - that the way BSkyB exploits this market power restricts the choice of "channels and platforms" available to consumers and may be a deterrent to the development of "new platforms".Or to put this in English, it believes that BSkyB has an unfair hold on the supply of movies and sport, that this gives it an unfair advantage in the battle to flog not just TV but broadband and telecoms too, and that rivals therefore must be allowed to re-sell BSkyB's sport and movies at a "reasonable" price (whatever that may be).
So BSkyB will be forced to sell rival broadcasters access to its films and sport - in normal and high definition format - at keener prices than it does today.

Going to be an interesting week, even for those of us not getting all of the new HD channels on April 1st...

HD movies over the Easter weekend

ITV1 HD arrives with a bang (or should that be a growl?) on Good Friday evening with Peter Jackson's King Kong at 10.15pm. Still very little HD content on the channel though.
Over the Easter weekend 4HD has the inferior (but still fun) 21st century version of The Italian Job on Saturday at 9.05pm, followed by Pan's Labyrinth at 11.15pm and One Hour Photo at 1.25am.Sunday at 5.35pm is Eragon.
Not a stunning line up for movie fans. Filmflex meanwhile has 40 films in HD for under a fiver, including the Oscar-laden The Hurt Locker which I watched a few weeks back. It's a great film, but I don't think it's a great example of HD - the Filmflex version looked grainy to me.

TiVo Premier reviews

We don't yet know how much of TiVo's new Flash-based user interface will make it to the Virgin Media version launching later this year, but here are two interesting reviews from the US press on the TiVo Premier XL.
Endgadget (thanks, Hew) and Wired.