Blackarrow Consulting

BT signed only 14,000 subscribers to its hybrid DTT/IPTV service, BT Vision, during the second quarter of this year, giving a total of just 481,000 paying customers.

TV sets with inbuilt internet access are quickly gaining popularity in Germany: A total of 1.2 million hybrid-TV sets have been sold since the first models became available in retail stores in March 2009, reports German industry association BITKOM with reference to GfK market figures.

The transition to digital is well underway in the United Kingdom. Unlike the U.S. switchover that occurred nationally on June 12 last year, the U. K. transition is being done on an area-by-area basis. It began in 2008 and will wrap up at the Crystal Palace tower near London in 2012, the same year London will be hosting the summer Olympics.

ANT plc (LSE AIM: ANTP), the leading provider of software and services for the delivery of digital TV, today announced that digital STB (set-top box) specialist Topfield (KOSDAQ: 057880) has selected the ANT Galio HbbTV Platform for its latest range of set-top boxes. The new devices will be capable of delivering HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV) services and will be available in the German retail market in 2010, with France to follow in 2011.

UK cable operator Virgin Media’s new web and mobile VOD service will offer premium archive material, rather than the latest catch-up shows, because broadcasters already offer own-brand catch-up services, Virgin Media’s TV and online executive director Alex Green tells paidContent:UK.

UK satcaster BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) CEO Jeremy Darroch channeled much the same belief in paid content as its its largest shareholder News Corp (NSDQ: NWS). while discussing healthy growth from the last financial year with investment analysts Thursday morning…

The new CEO of ITV has admitted that the UK broadcaster lags behind its rivals in technology and has hired a former BBC and BSkyB exec to address the issue.

International research firm Parks Associates reports a modest increase in awareness of 3DTV among U.S. broadband households in 2010, but the mainstream viability of 3D depends on availability of premium video content and not one-off events such as the World Cup.

Virgin Media today confirmed the beta launch of its first online and mobile TV player: Virgin Media Player.

Barcelona-based video streaming startup Flumotion is celebrating the world’s first WebM live stream this week with a live feed from the GUADEC conference in The Hague. The conference, dedicated to the open source GNOME desktop, is a fitting coming-out for the codec, which was open sourced at Google’s I/O developers conference in May, and it seems to generate some significant interest: Early reports mention more than 100 concurrent viewers.

BSkyB has confirmed that Europe’s first 3D channel will make its consumer debut on Friday October 1. Transmitted in the side by side format, Sky 3D will offer viewers a line-up of sport, movies, entertainment and the arts.

Growth of Australian regional pay-TV platform Austar’s next-generation PVR service, MyStar, shows no sign of slowing, with additions for the last three months up just over 15,000 to reach 159,550 at end-June.