In The Frame – August ’15

Amazon has revealed that it will now offer high dynamic range (HDR) content to members of its Prime service in the UK, Germany, Austria and the US. The company has also announced a multi-territory deal with Entertainment One (eOne), which will bring AMC Studios’ Fear The Walking Dead, the upcoming companion series to the hit show The Walking Dead, to Prime Video.

In another move, Amazon Prime Instant Video is to launch in Japan, putting it in direct competition with Netflix, which launches in the territory next month. The Amazon Prime delivery service is already in operation in Japan but to this point it has not distributed its SVOD service there.

Netflix, meanwhile, has raised subscription prices across Europe for its streaming service, following a similar price hike in the US last year.

UK mobile operator EE has unveiled a host of mobile-first features designed to help personalise its fledgling TV service. The company, which runs the EE, Orange and T-Mobile brands to more than 27 million customers, says its updated features “help customers find, record and watch their favourite content more easily than ever”.

BBC News

BBC director of television Danny Cohen has guaranteed that BBC2 will not be closed down but warns that all of the corporation’s television channels will face cuts following its funding deal. BBC1, meanwhile, has been named channel of the year at the Edinburgh TV awards, where Armando Iannucci, delivering the 40th keynote MacTaggart lecture, said he believes ministers want the corporation to consider “assisted suicide”.

In other channel news, while BBC Three is to go online only from March 2016 (Scottish broadcaster STV are in discussions to take over the vacant Freeview slot), the BBC is considering replacing its news channel with a mobile streaming service, should it be forced to make further cuts.

The iPlayer was upgraded this month to offer live restart & pause & play features across multiple platforms. Live streaming also launches on connected TV platforms.

ITV News

ITV’s director of television, Peter Fincham, claims that his network is not under threat from VoD services, such as Netflix and Amazon, describing the former’s £100m commission of The Crown and the latter’s deal with Jeremy Clarkson as “exceptional things”.

ITV turns 60 next month and to mark the occasion the network will celebrate “with a host of special programmes culminating in a live hour-long episode of Coronation Street” and “a host of special programmes”.

A press release continues:

ITV Changed My Life reveals the impact ITV has had on some people’s lives, including the first Blind Date couple to marry and the emotional story of how This Morning saved a 38-stone viewer’s life.

Across six episodes, Britain As Seen on ITV tells the story of our changing nation through extraordinary real-life footage seen on our screens over the last 60 years.

You Saw Them Here First: Hall of Fame reveals early footage of some of our favourite TV personalities and The Sound of ITV celebrates TV’s most memorable soundtracks.

Our celebratory programmes will tell the story of six decades of some of the nation’s favourite TV.

In other news, the company has extended its playout contract with Ericsson to 2024.

And finally…

• • Family Guy, which recently moved from BBC3 to ITV2, is to be used to help launch original scripted commissions on its new channel.
  • This year’s IBC, Amsterdam’s annual TV conference and exhibition, rolls around next month. 2014’s event was visited by more than 55,000 people from 170 countries.
  • The proportion of the UK population who watch broadcast TV on an average week remains high, but has been falling since 2012, according to broadcast regulator Ofcom, in its 2015 Communications Market Report.
  • As mentioned above, Armando Iannucci delivered the MacTaggart Lecture at the 40^th Edinburgh International Festival this month, commenting on the state and future of television in the UK. A sign of the times, then, that the event was “powered by YouTube”: