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Microsoft Eyes UK Digital TV Provider
xiox writes: "This story by the BBC claims that Microsoft are planning to "rescue" the failed digital TV provider in the UK, ITV Digital. This would enable them to get a large share of the British TV market, as the British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010."
There are all sorts of rumours spreading about ITV Digital at the moment - rumours they've struck a deal with clubs over lowering the amount of cash they'll pay them - rumours as to whether they'll go bankrupt or find a buyer first - how much cash they have left - the list goes on - but they're all that so far - just rumours!
Video Game cheats, hints a
Or does it seem like MS is trying awfully hard to get involved in "every thing " to appear to be helping. Yet, it seems to be all about control. Now, This may be off topic and modded as such, but maybe Government is not what we should be fearing...but rather the Corporations behind the government votes. Everyone in the US learned that their vote doesn't amount to much with the past Presidential election...so maybe this is where the "Big Brother" aspect will appear...
You keep going until you die..."Me".
The software giant is one of several firms trying to assemble a consortium to take over the wreckage
Why on earth do they need a consortium? ITV Digital's debts are in the region of a few hundred million pounds, as far as I know, but Microsoft is sitting on an actual cash pile of tens of billions. If they truly want it, then the only reason not to buy it outright is surely a political one, not problem of means!
So will Microsoft be giving away a new version of the X-Box as a digital tv receiver? That'd be about the only way to boost sales of X-Box games there.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
If this happens we may need to float the british iles off into the mid atlantic and quietly sink them.
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Wow wont it be great when everything is controlled by microsoft?
Just think: Microsoft TV can hype Microsoft OS that is bundled with Microsoft Internet that wont let you see all that nasty "free" and "good" stuff available.
and noone will have to worry about incompatibilities! it's all microsoft, you know how well their stuff plays with their stuff
wait.......
...and then we can have another spectrum auction and sting the telcos again :-).
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Microsoft/Gates VS News Corp/ Murdoch.
Mark My Words.
-- Oh Well
ITV had already a dwindling population of subscribers and now that the bad PR of current people will not flock back.
And the second biggest money maker (after drugs) for the UVF and IRA in Northern Ireland was too sell chipped ITV decoders.
I wonder if Ballmer will get his own workout show. It'd be even worse than flashy animation from Japan: siezures and vomiting.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
So Now anyone in the UK who wants Digital TV is going to have to chose between Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates. Fantastic ;-)
For those Americans Not in the Know obout our state of affairs accross the pond, ITV digital has Over bidded to get the TV rights to most Football (Soccar) games over here and as a result has gone bust. It's parent companies (both established broadcasters "Carlton" and "Granada" are using Legagal technicalities to get out of paying the Football clubs the money they were promised. This has left a lot of smaller, less well off clubs facing financial ruin, unless a buyer can be found. Whilst it is true that I think Microsoft is Vile, if it saves all of the threatened clubs my opinion of them will increase dramatically.
They would be putting themselves in a somewhat compromised position here. They are more interested in buying succeeding businesses (like their attempt at Nintendo).
What they are trying to do is expand into other markets. All big corporations try to 'diversify,' otherwise they get bloated, top-heavy and sink. MS is just looking around for other markets to get into in order to keep themselves going.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
About a week ago, Microsoft laid off about 65 employees in their TV division due a "re-organization". (including me)
Almost all of the people who were cut were developers and technical people.
Since the restructure, they're attempting to target the low-end middleware platform. For example the software that runs on a Motorola DCT-2000 cable box, and gives you the channel listings, and in the future VOD and purchase control.
It makes me wonder what they're trying to accomplish by purchasing yet another small itv company in the UK when they don't make enough money to support their own engineering efforts.
Aaron
MS stuff can work pretty good, once they get it working at all. It is getting to the point where it works that is the problem. Here, they will be getting a system that already does work, technology-wise (not income-wise, which never was a problem for MS).
They could possably expand a working network to do alot of the neat digital tv stuff that people have been talking about, but not actually making/getting.
My point is that, while the problems with MS are obvious (to us), there are also some possable good things that could come from this.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
...but I can't seem to find Ctrl-Alt-Del on my remote.
God no ... we don't really have the AOL-TW thing in the UK.
We have BBC vs Channel 4, that's no bad thing.
ITV Digital? "Large share"? Don't make me laugh. Many of us can't even get channel 5 properly, yet, in spite of being in a major city. Those who have satellite and/or cable forget that there are still many, many people in the UK who don't.
This whole story is one big sensationalist rumour. I've heard so many "possibler buyer" stories about ITV Digital in the past couple of weeks that I've lost track. Why is this one any more likely?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Even if the rumors aren't true, this is no surprise. Even before WebTV and MSN (and MSNBC, and so on), Microsoft has planned to get into the telecom business. Don't believe me? Pick up a pre-revised copy of _The Road Ahead_ at your local used bookstore. There is at least one chapter about the future of Microsoft.
At one point there was a rumor that MS wanted to have a controlling investment in a communications satellite. I don't know what happened with that.
This now concludes our broadcast day.
Hey! Let 'em go into content production for a change.
:-)
We know TV's already full of crap. M$ can't do any harm there. Its already down to the lowest common denominator. Let M$ go broke trying to get into HDTV. Its just a mirage as far as I can tell.
There are still no real standards.
The competition is already there and its dog-eat-dog.
The margins are razor thin.
It'd be something else they'd give up on eventually. (I haven't seen any plans for X-Box][ or X-Box ]|[. Have you?
And they'd be at the whim of their advertisers. It'd be great to see M$ pandering instead of patronizing. M$s share holders will watch the share values drop like a stone but since Bill's still richer than Creosus, he won't care and he still holds the majority so their opinion counts for squat.
I can see it now:
"Debby Does Redmond!"
"M$ Where more that you system goes down!"
"Digitized 'Chech & Chong' in:
'Gotta Crash' "
"MSNBC and CNet television in HDTV.
Boredom with a 9x16 aspect ratio."
I gave up on TV years ago. Don't even own one anymore. Waste of time. When I found yourself flipping through 50+ channels trying to see if there's anything on that caught my attention for more that a second, it was time to abandon it (I just didn't pack it a couple of ago,) and get a life.
Maybe the world'd get usable software instead of Win-doze.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
... The country's going entirely digital in the next ten to twenty years. We now have a choice of who we'd like to run the whole TV network: 1) Bill Gates 2) Rupert Murdoch Thanks a lot. I think I'll have to stay on the net permanently now. At least the BBC's still around...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
from the UK Sunday The Observer can be found here
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
This is probably a non-story. There's a $250 million poisoned chalice attached to buying ITV Digital as a going concern, let alone the fact that it makes a loss ever second it's on air. That's not pocket change, even for Microsoft, and bearing in mind their internal beaurocracy, they probably won't be able to commit to taking it on in time to buy the business outright.
Chances are, nobody else will either, and the company will fold, default on its debts, and then have its assets (i.e. its license and equipment) bought by a new bidder. Most likely (wait for it) is the current owners, who are chuckling all the way to the bank at the thought of being able to effectively just wipe all the debts and start clean. Microsoft doesn't like to get involved in bidding; they like deals to be done behind closed doors and controlled entirely by then. Actually bidding on an open market would be... unseemly.
I think we can sleep easy. But then, I'm already a UK Telewest customer, and Microsoft's already got their finger in that pie, so I may be suffering the first signs of Infestation. Make up your own minds. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Rumour has it, that Microsoft wants to get their hands on TV's existing blue screen technology - ie where something simple is superimposed onto something flash to make it _look_ like something really good is going on...
Well, we had ITV Digital vs. Sky Digital, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. It was never a remotely equal battle. In fact MS is probably one of the few companies big enough to take on Murdoch. And just think - two vast cross-media companies, each with billions of pounds to spend, slugging it out in cut-throat competition for market share. Sounds like heaven for the happy consumer caught in the crossfire. As long as one of the companies doesn't actually win, of course.
I'm no MS fan (by a long shot), but this seems like smart business to me, by moving into other industries they're not wholly dependent on software. They're already in entertainment, tried digital communications (failed satellite venture) and just introduced a gaming device (X-Box). They know they can do entertainment (look at everything they've contributed to /. stories! ;) ), so why not expand on that?
I'm not saying they may not try to manipulate content or use another tactic, but it seems to make business sense from their past investments...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
I doubt the mobile phone companies will be interested though since they have been stuck with a rather large bill for the 3G licenses which no customers seem intested in using.
It's not that we're not interested, it's just that there's nothing for us to buy yet! I think GPRS is the only new technology that's appeared since that auction, and that's really not what 3G is about.
According to Nokia:
* 3G is being on a train and watching clips from your favorite soap
* 3G is being out and sending images back to headquarters
* 3G is using your phone to take holiday pictures to instantly send to friends at home
* 3G is using your phone for a videoconference in a taxi
I think we'd best wait until there's a product that actually does this before declaring that customers aren't interested in the technology!
ITV Digital has about 1% of the market with maybe 1 million subscribers out of 60 million people in the UK and is in debt to the football association to the tune of a couple of hundred million dollars. Their set top technology has been comprehensively cracked and cracked cards are easily available.
Not necessarily a good business to be in.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Just think, a world without all the dull dull dull football matches on TV. The more football clubs going bust, the better.
In fact. it'd be good if Sky bought all the football matches forever then we wouldn't have to have it on every channel every saturday.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
... was, and still is, collecting subscriptions in the USA.
That's pretty much what I've been looking for.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
ITV Digital != ITV.
They just share a similar name (Granada are/were a large shareholder to ITV digital but that's as far as it went).
Digital TV is exactly the same cost as analogue (once you have the decoder).
They don't bother detecting transmissions from sets, although it's possible (the military developed such technology to read data from terminals remotely). There's no need, there is a central database of every house that doesn't have a license anyway.
£100 a year for 7 BBC channels (1,2,4,choice,news24,+2 childrens channels), not to mention 6 radio channels and all the BBC interactive stuff (some of which is really cutting edge) is a bargain... especially since there's no advertising to fast forward past every 5 minutes.
The UK hasn't 'lost' any satellite companies. BSB was taken over by Sky simply because Murdoch had spare change and hadn't bought any companies for a few minutes... It's a great pity the M&M commission didn't put a stop to it then, because we'd probably have some decent competition (lower prices - the full sky package weighs in at something like £50 per month).
2010 is *not* going to happen.
An STB costs £100 a throw. My video is analogue, I have 3 analogue TVs. My WinTV card is analogue. My Tivo is analogue.
Before this switchover is even going to be remotely realistic then STBs have to be down to about £10 or less. All new videos and TVs have to be equipped with digital. Conversion of existing sets must be available at a minimal cost.
None of this is happening. The adoption of digital won't realistically even *start* until this is true. It is currently impossible to by a 14" portable digital set. The smallest digital TV available is a 28" widescreen and it weighs in at £700. OK for rich ubergeeks, but for the other 99% of the population conversion isn't practical.
My mother saw the pace STB on breakfast TV, and since she had some money spare decided to get one. Looked at it, phoned me in confusion, then sent it back. It only supports SCART input (which she can't use)... great f*cking move guys...
ITV Digital shot themselves in the foot by paying nearly £400 million for the television rights for the three divisions of the Football League (lots of people said at the time it was a ridiculous price).
The number one reason for Murdoch's success with Sky was that he managed to get rights for the Premiership football, which meant anyone who wanted to watch the matches (which is a lot of people in the UK) had to get Sky.
ITV tried the same trick with the Football League rights but somehow didn't understand that very few people would subscribe just to be able to watch Football League matches.
Premiership football has (inter)national appeal, people all over the country (and indeed the World) will watch it because it is one of the top three domestic leagues in the World (along with the La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy), the quality is good and many of the World's top players play in the Premiership. In contrast, the lower levels of football have only regional appeal. When Grimsby play Gillingham the only people interested are those in Grimsby and Gillingham (and many of these will actually go to the game rather than watching it on TV) the rest of the country doesn't care.
However, I think (though I may be wrong) that the rights have already reverted back to the Football League so that they can resell them to the highest bidder (which is bound to be much lower than the original deal), so Microsoft acquiring ITV Digital would not necessarily mean Microsoft acquiring the broadcasting rights for the Football League.
Suck figs.
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WHEW! Thanks for the clarification!
creation science book
There will be third choice rolling out nationally sometime next year. This project (www.kitv.co.uk), true Interactive DTV is
currently only available in Kingston up Hull. It will be available nationally from some time next summer.
It's already offer more services (DTV,VOD,Internet,Email, Fax Bridge) than the established players. Ultimately it will support any Service available over IP.
Not that this is remotely on-topic, but insisting on darwinian evolution as the only modifying force on biological structure is a common fallacy.
If you were to read Kauffman, "The Origins of Order" (Oxford University Press, 1993), you'd get a fairly solid mathematical treatment of how chaos and order combine on the boundary between them to self-modify. This process both limits and creates the evolution that darwin famously found, and the maths provides for the non-linear nature of evolution in the early stages (it's basically a log(n) relation, n=2 in the book but the general case holds. We're so far down the route that the changes are now very small).
Kauffman is a recognised authority in the field as well...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
The change from the original name "On Digital" to ITV Digital is another example of the latest UK management fad, If you have a bad product, your staff are stupid and lazy, and your managment couldn't be trusted to run a bath let alone a company, simply change the name and everything will be fine!
Examples:
Andersen Consulting is now "Accenture"
The Post Office is now "Consignia"
If this tactic fails, simply rename again!
Example:
Mobile phone company Mercury became "121" and is now "T-mobile"
My analogue cable TV service has been "Encom","Bell Cable Media","Cable & Wireless" and is currently "ntl". Draw your own conclusions.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
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It's all moronic tedious crap that's about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You have no idea how refreshing it is to get a sensible response! (-:
Unfortunately for the actual argument, which is a shame because it would be such an elegant solution and open up whole new areas of science if it were plausible, Kauffman gets short shrift from Michael Behe: `Kauffman discusses his ideas in a chapter [of The Origins of Order] titled "The Origin of A Connected Metabolism," but if you read the chapter from start to finish you will not find the name of single chemical - no AMP, no aspartic acid, no nothing. In fact, if you scan the entire subject index of the book, you will not find a chemical name there either. John Maynard Smith, Kauffman's old mentor, has accused him of practicing "fact-free science."' This is amid a lot of railing about how mathematics is disconnected from practice. If you read the linked page, you'll shortcut a significant amount of objecting. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing