A brief round-up of the latest media news reveals... British consumers enjoyed a digital Christmas, with more television sets, set-top boxes and personal video recorders that can receive the Freeview digital terrestrial TV service sold over the last three months of 2007 than ever before. In its best ever performance, more than 3.8m devices that can receive Freeview were sold in the last quarter of 2007, according to figures to be released today. For the year as a whole 9.7m TVs, set top boxes and personal video recorders were sold that can receive Freeview's more than 40 free to air channels, up 64% on the previous year and also a new record.
ITV is to make its TV shows available via Bebo in a deal that aims to tap into the young internet generation increasingly attracted to social networking websites. The deal is a milestone for ITV, which has the ambitious aim of growing digital revenues to £150m a year by 2010, as it is the first time it has agreed to provide full-length programming via a third party online... Elsewhere, you can go behind the scenes at Newsnight as Jeremy Paxman fronts an educational yet comedic short film explaining how the show is put together as part of a wider BBC project to get children interested in news.
Marcus Arthur, the director of BBC Worldwide's London magazine division, has been promoted to the post of managing director of the BBC commercial subsidiary's global brands division, while Steve Hewlett ponders if the rapid expansion of BBC commercial arm BBC Worldwide's activities risks compromising the corporation's brand and whether the licence fee should be helping to fund it.
Richard Branson could scoop $750m if Virgin Media is sold to US private equity groups, which are actively considering launching a takeover bid, despite continuing turmoil in the credit markets. According to a private document entitled 'Project Coaxial' - seen by The Observer - Blackstone, Cinven, KKR and Providence Equity are prepared to offer $6bn to $7.5bn for the company, in which Branson's Virgin group holds a 10.5 per cent share. The proposals suggest the predators are ready to take advantage of Virgin Media's weak share price, which slipped to $14 last week.
Nadine Nohr, the managing director of ITV distribution arm Granada International, is to step down to pursue "other challenges". Nohr is leaving Granada International, which sells thousands of hours of ITV programming worldwide, after 15 years at the commercial broadcaster. According to ITV sources, Nohr appears likely in the immediate term to concentrate on her work with the international development charity Every Child which she was made chair of in January 2008.
Finally, plans to allow parts of court cases in England and Wales to be broadcast on TV have been shelved, a Whitehall source has told the Guardian. The former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, was poised to allow not only hearings in the court of appeal but judges' summings-up to juries and sentencing remarks in crown court criminal trials to be broadcast. Legislation would have been necessary because a statutory ban imposed in 1925 prevents filming in English and Welsh courts. You can read Mark Lawson's take on the issue here.
ITV is to make its TV shows available via Bebo in a deal that aims to tap into the young internet generation increasingly attracted to social networking websites. The deal is a milestone for ITV, which has the ambitious aim of growing digital revenues to £150m a year by 2010, as it is the first time it has agreed to provide full-length programming via a third party online... Elsewhere, you can go behind the scenes at Newsnight as Jeremy Paxman fronts an educational yet comedic short film explaining how the show is put together as part of a wider BBC project to get children interested in news.
Marcus Arthur, the director of BBC Worldwide's London magazine division, has been promoted to the post of managing director of the BBC commercial subsidiary's global brands division, while Steve Hewlett ponders if the rapid expansion of BBC commercial arm BBC Worldwide's activities risks compromising the corporation's brand and whether the licence fee should be helping to fund it.
Richard Branson could scoop $750m if Virgin Media is sold to US private equity groups, which are actively considering launching a takeover bid, despite continuing turmoil in the credit markets. According to a private document entitled 'Project Coaxial' - seen by The Observer - Blackstone, Cinven, KKR and Providence Equity are prepared to offer $6bn to $7.5bn for the company, in which Branson's Virgin group holds a 10.5 per cent share. The proposals suggest the predators are ready to take advantage of Virgin Media's weak share price, which slipped to $14 last week.
Nadine Nohr, the managing director of ITV distribution arm Granada International, is to step down to pursue "other challenges". Nohr is leaving Granada International, which sells thousands of hours of ITV programming worldwide, after 15 years at the commercial broadcaster. According to ITV sources, Nohr appears likely in the immediate term to concentrate on her work with the international development charity Every Child which she was made chair of in January 2008.
Finally, plans to allow parts of court cases in England and Wales to be broadcast on TV have been shelved, a Whitehall source has told the Guardian. The former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, was poised to allow not only hearings in the court of appeal but judges' summings-up to juries and sentencing remarks in crown court criminal trials to be broadcast. Legislation would have been necessary because a statutory ban imposed in 1925 prevents filming in English and Welsh courts. You can read Mark Lawson's take on the issue here.
