In The Frame – March ’15

Tom Pammenter Published: 31.03.2015 Industry news

Netflix has broadened its marketing strategy in the US, as it teams up with mobile phone companies Samsung and T-Mobile – the latter announcing that its customers will get a free year’s subscription of Netflix if they buy the Samsung Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge.

Channel 4, meanwhile, replaced 4oD with All 4 from Monday March 30th 2015, with the new service available via PC, iPads and iPhones and sponsored by O2. Customers of the UK mobile operator now get early access to the channel’s content following an exclusive agreement between the two companies. The new service will allow viewers to watch live Channel 4 programmes via the Now function, as well as access past programmes using the On Demand feature. All 4 also includes the On Soon feature, which will allow users to watch exclusive episode premieres before their linear TV broadcasts.

Apple are reportedly in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of TV networks. The service would have about 25 channels, anchored by broadcasters such as ABC, CBS and Fox, and be available across all devices powered by Apple’s iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and Apple TV set-top boxes.

As the world continues to shift towards mobile, Twitter’s January acquisition of Periscope, the live video-streaming app (which they bought for somewhere in the region of $100 million), looks set to disrupt a rapidly-changing broadcast industry still further. Now available for the iPhone and coming to Android devices soon, Periscope’s streams are also viewable on the web.

Like Meerkat and YouNow before it, Periscope allows people to broadcast whatever they’re doing through video, with a couple of taps. Unlike Meerkat, however, Periscope can save streams for replaying later, which could help it become the world’s live-streaming platform of choice.

Kayvon Beykpour, Periscope’s co-founder, says: “We don’t want this to be a tool for very few people.” Rather, he suggests, broadcasting is ready to be embraced by the masses. How will this impact traditional news-gathering operations? And to what extent? And how quickly? One to watch. Read more here.

BBC News

Jeremy Clarkson, sacked by the corporation, leaves an empty chair in the Top Gear studio but who will fill it? Despite nearly 34,000 people (at the time of writing) signing an online petition calling for Alan Partridge to be given the job, it looks unlikely that AP will be joining messrs May and Hammond. Clarkson, meanwhile, is unlikely to present for either Channel 4 or Sky.

BBC Films’ 25th anniversary plans include an Armando Iannucci adaptation of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Life on the Road, which sees travelling salesman David Brent attempt to become a rock star. BBC Two will celebrate the anniversary by airing a week of films in May.

BBC3, meanwhile, is to lose Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane’s other cartoons, American Dad! The Cleveland Show – as well as new series Bordertown – which are heading to ITV2. The move was inevitable given that the BBC is migrating a lot of BBC3’s content onto the iPlayer ahead of its closure, but US carrier Fox has banned it from being put online for free.

And finally…

Avid is to launch a series of new products, including subscription and cloud offerings which “opens the door to an almost $2 billion market not previously targeted” by the maker of editing package Media Composer.

Ofcom has published its Annual Plan “that sets out our priorities and describes the other work we will be conducting in the coming year.” The two-page PDF report is here.

The DPP (Digital Production Partnership – whose mission we discussed in April 2014) has laid its plans to become a fee-paying organisation and has invited more broadcasters, indies, post-production facilities and manufacturers to become members. Chairman Mark Harrison:

“What the DPP offers to post houses is the opportunity for them to take part in conversations about change and get early warning around any form of changes that are useful to them. [It] is not entirely about common standards – it also includes aspects such as connectivity and archive.”

The UK general election is looming and comedians Jack Dee and Rory Bremner will soon join Charlie Brooker as the Newswipe presenter promises ‘confusion’ in a BBC general election special.