15 December 2012, NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Rahul Khullar has said Trai was making efforts to move towards a lighter regulatory regime.

Khullar also said that India urgently needed a new convergence law for the industry to consolidate. As technology was advancing at a rapid pace, there is a need to respond to it accordingly and encourage use of new devices and technologies.

Also, it is imperative to create opportunities for providers of value added services and create for them an environment that is conducive for them to operate and grow.

http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k12/dec/dec158.php

19-12-2012: Leading broadcasters from Europe, Japan, the United States and Australia have signed a declaration to fight what they believe is the growing censorship of the Internet and jamming of TV signals by authoritarian political regimes.

The broadcast organisations — Audiovisuel Extérieur de la France (AEF), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) [Australia], British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) [United Kingdom], Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) [US], Deutsche Welle (DW) [Germany], Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) [Japan] and Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) — say that international journalism is facing unprecedented challenges from countries that seek to deny their own citizens access to information from outside their borders in violation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

They note and condemn without reservation certain government’s control of the flow of information such as blocking the Web and most notably intentional jamming of satellites as practised recently by Iran.

18-12-2012:Despite the assumption that ads in long-form online video content are more effective because they’re more TV-like, a study from AOL has found that ads in short-form content actually produce significantly higher recall, brand affinity and purchase intent than those in long-form content.

To explore the effect of content length on ad effectiveness, AOL partnered with Qualvu and released a study designed to provide insight into how consumers perceive ads within both long- and short-form premium video content, with ten minutes being the demarcation line between the two. And it turns out that short-form video produced a 25% higher brand recall and a 42% higher purchase intent for the featured product or service.

Unsurprisingly, viewers are adopting traditional avoidance behaviours during ads within long-form videos, AOL found. Long-form video ad viewers are 52% more likely to think the ad detracts from their experience, because they are seen as too frequent and interruptive. As a result, viewers chose to avoid them altogether (by walking away, going to other sites, multitasking with their phone). This is the same “annoyance” behaviour that is demonstrated when viewing television without the use of a DVR.

18th of December 2012: NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO, BUSINESS WIRE — Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, and Twitter today announced an exclusive multi-year agreement to create the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” for the US market. Under this agreement, Nielsen and Twitter will deliver a syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter, slated for commercial availability at the start of the fall 2013 TV season.

“The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating is a significant step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop increasingly captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media,” said Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen. “As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data.”

“Our users love the shared experience of watching television while engaging with other viewers and show talent. Twitter has become the world’s digital water cooler, where conversations about TV happen in real time. Nielsen is who the networks rely on to give better content to viewers and clearer results to marketers,” said Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s vice president of media. “This effort reflects Nielsen’s foresight into the evolving nature of the TV viewing experience, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with Twitter ecosystem partners on this metric to help broadcasters and advertisers create truly social TV experiences.”

http://spinshell.tv/news/view/78231/nielsen_and_twitter_establish_social_tv_rating

December 18, 2012: Get ready for video ads in your news feed.

Facebook is set to unveil a new video-ad product in the first half of next year in its largest attempt to date to attract big swaths of ad dollars from TV advertisers, according to several industry executives who have been briefed on the company’s plans over the past few weeks.

Facebook is still debating several product features, but has decided on this much to date, these executives said: By April at the latest, it will offer video advertisers the chance to target video ads to large numbers of Facebook users in their news feeds on both the desktop version of Facebook as well as on Facebook apps on mobile phones and tablets.

Facebook is leaning toward capping the length of these video ads at 15 seconds — a move that could push ad agencies normally reluctant to cut down their 30-second commercials to do so. That decision could also mean that 15-second video ads would become more prevalent elsewhere on the web.

http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-preps-bring-video-ads-news-feed/238825/

December 20, 2012: The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), the successor body to AEPOC, the European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services (Association Européenne pour la Protection des Œuvres et services Cryptés) has been launched at the HbbTV Symposium in Paris. Plans for the revised Alliance and focus were exclusively revealed by advanced-television.com July 15.

AAPA represents the major players in the pay-TV industry, including the largest technology security vendors. The Alliance’s mission is to support the fight against piracy where this involves the development, promotion, distribution, application or use of technologies resulting in the unauthorised use of protected audiovisual content.

Building upon the work of its predecessor body, AAPA’s role is to facilitate the co-ordination of intelligence and anti-piracy activities amongst its members and to interact with EU institutions to ensure that there is effective legislation to achieve successful enforcement action.

http://advanced-television.com/2012/12/17/audiovisual-anti-piracy-alliance-launches/

Broadcasting firms executives say news channels reluctant to have performance data made public

Dec 19 2012, New Delhi: There is more to the row over withholding television ratings by TAM Media Research, which were to have been released on Wednesday, than meets the eye.

Top executives of at least three broadcasting companies admitted that the News Broadcasters Association, which has the main national news channels as its members, was reluctant to have performance data made public before phase two of digitization was complete. Unlike the first phase in which the four metros were digitized, the second phase will cover 38 cities by 31 March.

Television viewership monitoring agency TAM issued a statement on Wednesday morning that it was delaying the release of the data in accordance with a request by the ministry of information and broadcasting “in concurrence” with the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

Read more at Live Mint

December 12, 2012: IMTV, a new Indonesian satellite operator, views the rapid growth of the middle class in Asia as a great opportunity for the expansion of Pay TV. Here, Felix Ali Chandra, CEO at IMTV, which is part of the Lippo Group, outlines his ambitions for the new DTH service, targeting families outside the capital Jakarta who have motorcycles and mobile phones and who he believes are now ready for multichannel TV. NAGRA provides the CA.

http://www.v-net.tv/indonesia%E2%80%99s-growing-middle-class-is-ready-for-pay-tv-2/

2012/12/13, KUALA LUMPUR: Rolling out digital terrestrial television broadcast (DTTB) infrastructure in Malaysia will cost between RM650 million and RM1 billion, said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) yesterday, citing early estimates.

“Our initial estimates for a nationwide rollout will, conservatively, be anywhere between RM650 million and RM1 billion,” said its chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi.

MCMC is planning for the infrastructure to be built and operated by an independent party.

Just last month, it shortlisted three companies – i-Media Broadcasting Solutions Sdn Bhd, Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd and Redtone Network Sdn Bhd – out of eight that submitted bids for the DTTB infrastructure contract.

Read more: ‘Rolling out digital TV may cost RM1b’ http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/msee/Article/#ixzz2F0kmYkU0

December 11, 2012: State-owned China Mobile has launched a mobile television service in Hong Kong for any phone users regardless of their carrier.

The application provides both free and paid channels on Android tablets and smartphones.

But iPhone users will have to wait until next year to get the app.

Known as UTV, the service offers free entertainment content including user-generated videos, a 24-hour news service provided by TVB and the UOne channel, created by China Mobile providing entertainment as well as food, travel, culture and technology programs.

Paid packages of HK$58 a month give users access to content including MNC International, Mei Ah HD Movie Channel, channel M HD, Nat Geo Wild HD, Star Chinese Channel, Cartoon Network and MNC international.

http://thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=129128&sid=38447238&con_type=1&d_str=20121211&fc=2