BT has outstripped BSkyB in the race for TV and broadband customers, and pledged to raise the stakes in its battle with the satellite broadcaster by accelerating the rollout of a superfast network that will boost its appeal in the multichannel market. … more

Google Inc. is considering a plan to offer paid cable-TV services to consumers, a move that could unleash a new wave of competition within the traditional TV business.
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This time a year ago, the television industry was rife with worry about so-called cord-cutting — people dropping cable subscriptions in favor of watching TV over the Internet.
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YouTube, making an expensive bet on original content, is planning to create dozens of channels featuring comedians, sports stars, musicians and other entertainers, the company said on Friday.
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Google TV arrived last fall to lukewarm reviews. Its remote control was big and complicated, its software was clunky and confusing, and it didn’t live up to the promise of Internet-connected TV’s — that they would allow us to cut the cable cord and watch whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.
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The British streaming television service, SeeSaw, has been closed down.
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Young British teenagers would be less worried at being deprived of television than losing access to the internet or their mobile phones, as attachment to the medium slides among the young, according to new research from Ofcom.
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One can only wonder how they do it: researchers at GlaxoSmithKline think they might have come up with drugs to cure malaria, it emerged last week. Glaxo, turnover last year £28bn, is able to survive in an industry where patent protection lasts only 20 years - whereas some media and media-related businesses seem to struggle with the notion of copyrights that last longer than several people’s lifetimes. It may help that drug companies can charge hospitals ridiculous sums, but what media companies may lack in price they can make up for in volume, as not all of us have the same serious ailment. Take 10.2m Sky subscriptions at £535 per household and you are talking serious money.
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Despite online video and commercial-skipping DVRs, companies still spend 38 percent of their advertising budgets on television ads and just 1 percent on online video. YouTube is trying to change that.
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Piracy is less of an issue for the movie industry than is the dominance of the digital distribution channel by a single company, such as Apple.
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