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The UK broadcast landscape changes again today with the official unveiling of Freesat, the BBC/ITV joint venture that aims to bring redefine standard and high definition TV services. Unlike Sky, once installed Freesat viewers will have unlimited access to around 80 free-to-air channels. This number is expected to double by the end of the year. [...]

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PS2 owners have finally begun to migrate to the PlayStation3, thanks to GTA4 hardware bundles. Bob McKenzie, Senior Vice President for Merchandising, at US chain GameStop, says: “The launch has been tremendous in driving traffic to our stores, as well as providing a vigorous lift in PS3 console sales over this time last week.” In [...]

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Blu-ray player sales in the US plummeted in February. According to data released by the NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, dedicated player sales dropped 40 per cent, as a string of special retail promotions and bundling deals came to an end. NPD director Ross Rubin suggests that the format war with HD DVD was not [...]

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Sky now claims to have nine million subscribers. And according to new figures released by the satcaster, viewer churn is at a four year low at 10.5 per cent. Churn is the number one adversary of Pay TV operators. During its third quarter, BSkyB signed up 289,000 new customers, but after churn it was left [...]

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After a string of romances, Hollywood now seems content to cement its marriage with Video On Demand. Market major Warner says it will release all of its US titles day and date on DVD and VOD from April 30, for the rest of the year. Superior margins on titles proffered for VOD prompted Warner CEO [...]

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Sony has entered into a merger agreement with Gracenote, the online digital content and media service. Sony’s Tim Schaaff says: “We see tremendous growth potential in developing Gracenote as a separately run business unit, and by broadly embracing Gracenote’s platforms, Sony expects to significantly enhance and accelerate its own digital content, service and device initiatives.”

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Copy protection giant Macrovision will acquire the original electronics TV listings company  Gemstar-TV Guide International on May 2. Macrovision arranged 650 million dollars in debt financing to finance the deal. Macrovision has its routes in the original DRM system for VHS video tape movie releases. Gemstar has a comparable heritage, as the originator of VCR [...]

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