Ofcom chief Ed Richards will leave this year October 2, 2014 Broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced yesterday that its long-serving chief executive Ed Richards will step down at the end of this year. Richards, who previously moved to leave Ofcom in 2012 when he applied to become director-general of the BBC but was passed over for George Entwistle, said he would not consider his next move until [...]
Regulator slaps £10,000 fine on Ageas for phantom phone calls October 1, 2014 OFCOM has handed a £10,000 fine to Ageas Retail for making abandoned calls to its UK customers. The watchdog found that the insurer made 148 of these calls, where consumers answer the phone to find there is no one on the line, on three separate days within a seven-week period. A spokeswoman for Ageas said the [...]
Virgin urges Ofcom to probe cost of football September 30, 2014 Virgin Media yesterday slammed the soaring cost of Premier League football on TV, as it revealed it had urged broadcast regulator Ofcom to launch a competition investigation into pricing. “Significant consumer harm” had resulted from the skyrocketing cost of live Premier League TV rights, said Virgin Media. Costs jumped 70 per cent to £3bn at [...]
Premier League TV deal costs fans too much says Virgin Media in complaint to Ofcom September 30, 2014 Virgin Media has submitted a formal complaint to Ofcom about the way Premier League television rights are auctioned. The company believes fans in the UK are being charged too much to watch games from England's top tier. In 2012 the Premier League sold domestic TV rights to BSkyB and British Telecom (BT) [...]
ITV ups the ante with call for Sky and Virgin to pay to broadcast its shows September 8, 2014 ITV chief executive Adam Crozier yesterday upped the ante on BSkyB and Virgin Media as he called for the government and its regulator Ofcom to force the pay TV firms to pay to broadcast ITV’s shows. Under the current model pay TV operators Sky, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk all broadcast the UK’s so-called Public [...]
Theresa May to tackle extremism in Britain with new laws but warns it will take decades to eradicate August 23, 2014 The Home Secretary Theresa May has announced plans to tackle home-grown extremism following the murder of the US journalist James Foley by a suspected British Jihadist. New measures dubbed “anti-social behaviour orders” for extremists will seek to curtail extremist behaviour and language and make it illegal to join extremist groups not directly involved in terrorism, [...]
EE crowned best UK mobile network, but rivals closing in August 18, 2014 Mobile operator EE was crowned the UK’s best performing mobile network, according to an independent study out today. The tests by RootMetrics, the leading independent mobile analytics firm, found that EE’s customers received better calling, texting and mobile internet performance than rival operators Three, O2 and Vodafone during the first half of 2014. “Today’s results, [...]
Your call is important to EE as it tops Ofcom’s call quality survey August 12, 2014 Vodafone has been ranked bottom for call quality, according to research from industry regulator Ofcom. The regulator found that 7.4 per cent of Vodafone’s calls were unsuccessful across the UK, compared to just three per cent from rival EE, which ranked top in Ofcom’s findings, which were based on data from RootMetrics. “It’s great to [...]
Is email dying? Some firms are betting on social August 8, 2014 But the trusty inbox isn’t set to disappear in the near future. It's so ubiquitous that it sounds strange to ask whether email might be on its last legs. But if Ofcom’s latest report (released yesterday) is anything to go by, it’s a question worth considering. The regulator found that young people are turning [...]
UK buyers top EU rankings for online shopping August 8, 2014 The UK is the most active country in Europe for shopping online, with the sector becoming increasingly important to Britain’s retailers, according to official figures released yesterday. More than three quarters of UK residents said that they had bought items online in 2013. Britain was tied only with Denmark, with the joint-highest rates of internet [...]