First searchable web-based TV channel launched

Blinkx, the online video search site, launched the world's first searchable web-based television channel yesterday. Users will access the peer-to-peer service using downloadable software to view TV-quality news and entertainment content from the firm's 250 existing partners such as ITN and the Ministry of Sound. The channel will also include a library of 40 feature films thanks to a tie-up with Dogwoof, a UK-based independent film distributor, with another 10 to 20 to be added each quarter. (The Independent)

How to safeguard public service media

Channel 4 on Thursday announced an imaginative self-help programme designed to support the public service end of its output in a changing market. It already helps itself – with new channels such as More Four, with commercial sales and new media activity. It will drive these further, add new partnerships for special interest programming and create links that build intellectual property rights in its output. Will this effort deliver enough ? (Financial Times)

Tiscali expands IPTV service

Tiscali has launched a new PVR (personal video recorder) for its ‘Tiscali TV’ IPTV service in the UK. The Tiscali+ has a 160 GB hard drive and three TV tuners, allowing users to record two channels while watching a third. The PVR supports high-definition content and is compatible with the BBC’s iPlayer, and Channel 4’s 4oD, on demand services.

BBC viewers switching to watch online

The BBC iPlayer is changing the way we watch television, BBC executives said on Monday, as they disclosed that 500,000 programmes are now being viewed over the online video site each day. Seven weeks after its formal launch, 17m programmes have been downloaded or streamed on demand over the iPlayer. For some programmes such as Torchwood, the science fiction spinoff from Doctor Who, the online audience is now up to 10 per cent of the number of television viewers watching the show. (Financial Times)

All eyes switch to ‘smart’ televisions

Panasonic, part of Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial group, is to start to sell internet-connected televisions in the US that are able to access Google’s YouTube online video service. The deal marks the first partnership between a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer and Google, the internet search and advertising giant. It emphasises the drive by flat panel TV makers to build internet and networking connectivity into the next generation of high-definition TVs. (Financial Times)

Paris could face similar hurdles for 'Le Beeb'

Proposals by president Nicolas Sarkozy to strip advertising from France's state channels and create an umbrella organisation for France's international broadcasting efforts come as the BBC's remit and funding model are once again under scrutiny. The BBC has been funded since 1922 by a licence fee, currently a levy on every household with a television set. Senior executives admit that fragmenting audiences mean it is becoming "more problematic" to defend that model in future. (Financial Times)

French consider effects of Sarkozy TV revolution

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on Tuesday proposed scrapping advertising on France’s public television stations and financing them through a levy on the advertising revenues of private stations and a tax on internet and mobile phone operators’ turnover. The plan, still in its early stages, was the opening move in a much broader liberalisation of France’s broadcasting industry, including changes to ownership rules and advertising restrictions, analysts said. (Financial Times)