Sky is adding a kids safe mode to Sky Q, providing a special space for children to watch television. It will allow parents to lock their Sky Q box to the kids section using a pin code, blocking access to other live channels, recordings, on-demand shows and apps. Sky is also working with Common Sense Media to help parents make informed choices about the suitability of programming for children.
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Project OAR, or Open Addressable Ready, is a technology consortium created to deliver better advertising experiences to viewers through the use of dynamic advertising on internet-connected televisions and other devices. Founding members include major American television networks. The group aims to provide technical specifications and best practices for selling, targeting and measuring television advertising and is open to programming providers and device manufacturers. So far smart television company Vizio is the only manufacturer involved, with development led by its content recognition subsidiary Inscape.
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A cross-party House of Lords communications committee is holding an inquiry into the future of public service broadcasting in the age of video on demand. The committee will ask how serious the threat to public service broadcasting is, whether it is worth saving, and what form it could take in future. Among the questions that the committee will be considering are the requirements for prominence for public service broadcasters, whether there should be new regulation of on-demand services, and the relationship between public service broadcasters and on-demand platforms. Notably, the committee is asking about the implications of BritBox, the planned online video joint venture between the BBC and ITV.
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The European Commission has accepted legally binding commitments offered by Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Sky under European Union antitrust rules. These commitments address the concerns of the Commission about certain clauses in movie licensing contracts of these studios for pay-TV with Sky UK. It theoretically opens up the European market, but Sky UK is not planning to start actively offering its services elsewhere. Meanwhile the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union remains unclear.
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Tony Hall, the director general of the BBC, has been talking about the TV of tomorrow. That sounds like a good name for a show. He said there is a proud and powerful place for public service broadcasting, despite profound changes in the viewing environment. He suggests the answer is the BBC iPlayer, supported by its proposals for BritBox. But perhaps the telly of tomorrow is television.
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More than half of all television sets shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2018 were ultra-high-definition and over three quarters of all sets were able to stream online services. In Western Europe, almost two thirds of sets shipped were ultra-high-definition. The global television set market grew by 2.9% in 2018, reaching 221 million units, boosted by the football World Cup.
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