Month: April 2019

BBC Submits Plans to Revamp iPlayer

The BBC has submitted to Ofcom plans to revamp their BBC iPlayer service. The proposals include making more box sets available, and making programmes available for up to 12 months instead of the existing 30 days. More archive material is also to be included on the iPlayer.

The BBC has already conducted a Public Interest Test, which has indicated general support for the proposals. Ofcom will now assess the impact on commercial providers which offer competing services, in order to ensure that rival services such as ITV Hub can compete on a level playing field. This process is expected to be complete by August.

New LaLiga PPV Offering from Eleven Sports

Sports provider Eleven Sports has unveiled a global partnership with Onefootball, a a digital football platform.

The new venture has launched an in-app pay-per-view (PPV) streaming service, to allow football fans to watch LaLiga matches for £2.99 (UK)/€3.49 (Ireland) per view via the Onefootball app.

Plans are being made to roll out the service for Serie C matches in Italy, before the model also rolls out to other Eleven Sports markets from the 2019/2020 season.

UKTV Live Streams are Now Available

Following UKTV removing its channels from online platform TVplayer, the company has introduced live streams of its Freeview channels to its UKTV Play website.

The channels included are:

  • Dave
  • Drama
  • Home
  • Really
  • Yesterday

These channels will also be available to live stream on UKTV Play mobile apps in the next few weeks. The UKTV Play website can be found at uktvplay.co.uk.

Euronews Evolution

Around 2 years ago NBC News became a share holder of the 24hour cross Europe new channel Euronews. At the time it was revealed that the channel would become EuronewsNBC, but this is yet to happen.

There have been changes. An overhaul has led to different language feeds being introduced. There was also an introduction of more presenter led programmes. A German news report by Infodigital suggests that brand perception has now improved without the need to add NBC to the name.

In the UK and Republic of Ireland, Euronews can be found on channel 508 (SD only), and is also on Virgin Media (channel 620 in the UK, 203 in Ireland). An online stream can be found at www.euronews.com/live.

UKTV Splits

BBC Studios and Discovery have announced details of how UKTV will split.

BBC Studios will take over Alibi, Dave, Drama, Eden, Gold, Yesterday and W. Discovery will take over Good Food, Home, and Really.

BBC Studios will take over the UKTV Play on-demand catch up service. A 10 year deal will see the BBC content launch on Discovery’s new global subscription on-demand video service, excluding the UK, Ireland, and China.

The split has been rumoured for some time, following Discovery inheriting the UKTV share that was owned by Scripps Networks.