BARB, the organisation that reports television viewing figures in the United Kingdom, has published a list of the most popular programmes of 2017 as measured across personal computer, table and mobile screens. The numbers, in television terms, are surprisingly small.
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AT&T is planning yet another streaming video service. Unlike its DIRECTV NOW offering, it will be comparable to the existing DIRECTV satellite service but will use a new smaller media player box, understood to be 4K capable, without the need for a dish.
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The top 10 television service providers in the United States lost over 200,000 subscribers between them in the first quarter of 2018, as reported by the informitv Multiscreen Index. Among the top 10 services there were 373,000 fewer satellite subscribers and 245,000 fewer cable television customers. Meanwhile online television services DIRECTV NOW and Sling TV gained a total of 427,000 customers, resulting in an overall loss of 0.25% of the subscriber base across the top 10 services.
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Two decades since preparations began for the launch of digital television in the United Kingdom, a BBC executive told the annual summit of the Digital Television Group in London that it was not a question of when but how to make the transition to being an internet broadcaster. Yet it could still be some time until all television transitions to internet protocols.
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Vodafone has agreed to acquire the operations of Liberty Global in Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, in a deal worth €18.4 billion. The transaction is predicated on the potential to cross-sell fixed and mobile services in these markets. The acquisition of Virgin Media in the United Kingdom was not on the table this time but could still be on the cards.
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The 100 leading television services in the informitv Multiscreen Index added a total of 4.33 million television subscribers in the last quarter of 2017, compared to 3.70 million in the previous quarter and 4.03 million in the last quarter of 2016. The gain of almost 1% was slightly up on the previous six quarters.
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