Google has said it will not compete with broadcasters for the rights to show live sporting events.

 This means that its recent announcement of an agreement with the Indian Premier League to stream live matches via YouTube is likely to be a one-off.

Eric Schmidt was reported by Marketing magazine as saying that the IPL deal did not mean the company intended challenging free or pay TV channels for exclusive rights to broadcast major sporting events.

The announcement came days after Google launched its Smart TV platform, which provides a means for people to search for online content via their televisions.

Schmidt told Marketing: “We’re not trying to become an exclusive content provider (but) will seek to partner broadcasters rather than compete with them.”

His comments pour cold water on suggestions that Google was seeking to establish YouTube as a major player in live sports broadcasting.

Its deal with the Indian Premier League covers two seasons, including the one recently finished. The coverage helped YouTube achieve record audience figures of 17.2million for March. Significant extra sponsorship was agreed for the IPL coverage.

But Schmidt insisted Google was not aiming to become a content provider in its own right: “YouTube provides a platform for other people’s content,” he added. “Our strategy is to take this content and continue to monetise it through advertising.”

Smart TV is the latest vehicle through which Google hopes to achieve this. It was shown to a conference of developers in mid-May, and combines Google’s search facility with live TV programming and DVR content to produce a list of results from which individual options can be chosen at the push of a button.

Sony is working alongside Google to produce the first TVs with on-board Smart TV, and it hopes to have the first models on sale in time for Christmas. It has not yet decided whether the TVs, which are expected to carry Intel chips, will be sold elsewhere.

Logitech is also working on a device which will channel Google TV through existing high-def televisions.

“Video should be consumed on the biggest, best and brightest screen in the house. And that’s a TV. It’s not a PC or a phone or anything else in between,” Google project senior product manager Rishi Chandra told Reuters.

A new range of wired-for-internet televisions and set-top boxes is looking to usher in the new online TV service from BSkyB, Sky Player.

Sky has announced a partnership with LCD TV manufacturer Cello, and 3View, a company which provides set-top boxes for digital terrestrial television (DTT) and internet pay television (IPTV) channels.

Cello was the first company to launch an internet-connected TV, when, in 2009, it unveiled the iViewer, a TV which can access online media directly, without the need for a set-top box, computer or games console.

Sky’s other partner in its internet TV venture, 3View, sells personal video recorders (PVRs) which can access both DTT channels and internet video services.

Major electronics retailers offer products from both companies, and buyers will be able to pay a subscription to add Sky Player to the services available when buying an internet TV.

These new outlets are likely to greatly boost availability of the Sky Player service. The player will be available for a small extra charge to existing Sky television subscribers, while a choice of packages will also be offered to non-Sky customers for a monthly fee.

Sky’s director of on-demand, Griff Parry, said the new partnerships showed the potential for internet video-on-demand services.

“We will continue to look at opportunities to distribute Sky Player across new platforms, to give consumers even more choice and control over how they access high-quality pay TV content”, Parry told Brand Republic magazine.

Sky’s announcement coincided with the expected release by Ofcom of details of its review of the UK’s pay digital TV market.

The review will include a ruling on the sale of sports and movies content by Sky to competing digital TV providers.

As part of the review, Brand Republic said it believed Ofcom was considering giving the go-ahead for Sky’s orginal digital TV service Picnic, which would enable the broadcaster to offer Sky Sports alongside a Freeview-based range of digital TV channels on a monthly tariff.

This service had first been proposed in 2006, but had been on hold since.

A Sky spokesman said: “We would have loved to offer Sky Sports on digital terrestrial TV three years ago”, and blamed the delay on a “bureaucratic logjam” at Ofcom.

Google is reported to be working with Intel and Sony to develop a new class of internet-compatible televisions and set-top boxes, according to a media report.

The effort, known as Google TV, has been under way for several months and is based on Google’s Android software which is currently available in certain smartphones, according to a report in the New York Times and cited by Reuters.

Logitech International is also said to be involved in helping develop peripheral devices, such as a tiny keyboard.

Digital display advertising is expected to earn UK publishers significantly increased revenues in 2010, with video-led content leading the way, according to a new report.

Findings from the annual census of the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) highlight that many of the country’s biggest online players have started the year with a renewed sense of confidence.

The main areas for growth are expected to be in display advertising, with video particularly expected to show significant growth this year, while a range of other revenue streams will increasingly contribute to turnover.

Half of all AOP members forecast growth of more than 10 per cent in 2010, according to the report.

Nearly half of all companies questioned identified advertising sales as a key area in which they were looking for growth. This compared to 33 per cent who saw editorial skills as a top-three priority, and 25 per cent who were concentrating on database and data analysis skills.

More than 1,500 online publications were represented in the survey, completed by all 37 of the AOP’s core members.

Of the respondents, three-quarters were planning to increase overall investment in their digital businesses, and more than half said they expected to increase staff levels.

The snapshot of the digital landscape echoes industry forecasts, with WPP’s GroupM forecasting that online advertising spending will grow by 7.3 per cent this year.

Tim Faircliff, general manager of consumer media at Thomson Reuters, and chairman of the AOP, called the findings “broadly consistent” with his own forecasts for Thomson Reuters and the industry.

He added: “A return to growth will provide all our businesses with a renewed energy and focus on people skills, revenue generation and business models, plus the opportunity for exciting innovation around mobile and video. The challenge will be how fast we can gear up to drive these initiatives forward.”

The findings also point to an increasing interest in attempts to diversify revenue streams and the potential of introducing paywalls.

It’s easier than ever for TV addicts to get the fix of whatever programmes they’re crazy for, but new research suggests that general awareness of video-on-demand services available online has still not taken off as its proponents would have hoped.

A vox pop carried out for the marketing trend-watchers at Brand Republic magazine suggests that people know little about what is available and where it can be viewed.

The main exception to this was the BBC iPlayer, which was cited by most as the online TV service with which they were most familiar, while the similar catch-up services offered by ITV and Sky did not register such wide recognition.

The news was even worse for Channel 4, whose 4oD service was not mentioned by a single respondent, despite the Channel’s heavy plugging of the facility in its programme trails and online.

Complaints about the viewing quality of the on-demand services available were widespread, with slow streaming blamed for disrupting several people’s attempts to tune into TV shows online.

There was also resistance to pre-roll advertising, which was described by one of those surveyed, a 24-year-old woman, as “annoying”.

The scale of the impact of social networks on the way people get their news is graphically illustrated in a new study from the US.

Researchers for the Pew Internet and American Life project found that 92 per cent of Americans now get their news from multiple sources.

The study also found that the internet was now the country’s third most popular news source, behind national and local television programmes.

Nearly six out of ten (59 per cent) of those who participated said they used multiple platforms daily to gather their news.

“In today’s new multi-platform media environment, news is becoming portable, personalized, and participatory,” the report said, going on to point out that one-third of mobile phone owners used the devices to access news content, while three in eight (37 per cent) had actually contributed to, commented on or redistributed news content via their social media.

This growing reliance on social networks to receive and redistribute news is killing off loyalty to individual news organisations, the study concluded.

Pew said the advent of social networking sites and blogs had helped news become a social experience in fresh ways for consumers as they use social media to filter, assess, and react to news.

The study said: “To a great extent, people’s experience of news, especially on the internet, is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their tweets, and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads.”

Twitter and other status update services are used by 19 per cent of online Americans and virtually all of those people using Twitter access their news online.

Anger and accusations of attempts to appease political and commercial interests were among the first reactions after the BBC – the publicly-owned state broadcaster for the United Kingdom – unveiled its blueprint for the future of its myriad services on Tuesday.

The plans include the closure of half of the BBC’s websites by 2013, as part of efforts to divert GBP600million – one-sixth of its current income from the licence fee – towards improving the quality of its television and radio programmes.

Among the planned closures announced in the draft of the strategic review of the Corporation were two radio stations, 6Music, which focuses on contemporary and up-and-coming talent, and the Asian Network.

Trade unions immediately attacked the plans, broadcasting union BECTU’s general secretary, Gerry Morrissey, calling them “totally unnecessary and purely politically motivated.”

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, added: “These plans smack of an attempt to appease commercial and political interests. Hard-working staff shouldn’t be used as a political football and we will fight any compulsory redundancies.”

The BBC consultation document which outlined the plans said that a future objective of the Corporation should be “to develop and back open platforms and standards…and (it) will therefore continue to make sure that open broadcast platforms (like Freeview, Freesat and proposals for internet-connected television) succeed.”

It added that the current upsurge in local, national and international community web coverage mirrored the founding principles of the corporation. “Wikipedia, Twitter and many other websites broaden and enrich public space in new ways which can be very close to the spirit of public service broadcasting,” it said.

“But digital also threatens to disrupt traditional public space,” the report went on.

“Fragmentation of audiences and consumption is weakening traditional media business models, including their ability to support quality content”.

The result of this, the report said, could be that “societies around the world (were) left with fewer reliable sources of professionally validated news. The risk of bias and misinformation and, in some countries, of state control, may grow.”

 “The BBC’s mission to ‘make the popular good and the good popular’ should continue,” the report also said.

Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, later conceded to staff that online services aimed at a youth audience, specifically the corporation’s Switch and Blast services, were in a market where Channel4 had proved it led the way.

The plans are to be discussed by the BBC Trust, the body which represents licence fee-payers’ interests, and are also open for any member of the public to comment upon. The consultation will run until May 25 2010.

A former semi-professional footballer has attempted to set the world record for the longest online advert ever.

David Sheath spent four days, two hours and two minutes painting a brand new white Fiat 500 with pink nail polish.

According to the World Records Academy, he used a total of 131 bottles of nail varnish during the task, which was filmed in a studio in South London and broadcast in a continuous feed over the internet.

The publicity stunt, which aims to promote a limited edition Fiat 500 model, has yet to be confirmed by Guinness as a world record.

The car comes in shocking pink is available exclusively online with an on the road price of £11,700.

The BBC's highly successful 'on demand catch-up' service, iPlayer, is to expand its reach substantially when the corporation makes it available through Freesat high-definition digital boxes and high-definition TVs.

The move follows a successful three-month trial which involved 300 viewers whose homes were equipped with a Humax Freesat set-top box.

It will make the BBC the first broadcaster to provide subscription-free catch-up services for both itself and its commercial rival, ITV, without viewers needing to buy new equipment.

Media Week reported that Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat, said feedback from the trial had been “really positive”, and resulted in many people accessing the iPlayer service through their televisions for the first time.

Freesat‘s website has detailed instructions about the service which include a video to help viewers to set up the player.

BBC iPlayer launched on computers on Christmas Day 2007. It is now available on more than 20 devices, including TV services, games consoles and mobile phones, and receives more than 80 million programme requests per month.

The on-demand service allows UK audiences to catch up with BBC content broadcast over the previous seven days. Audiences have a choice of streaming or downloading their chosen programme and, with series catch-up, entire seasons of selected programmes can be viewed.

Last year, the BBC’s motoring show ‘Top Gear’ was the most-watched TV programme of the year on the iPlayer.

Last month, the BBC Trust gave its provisional approval for the corporation’s involvement in the joint industry venture Project Canvas, which aims to bring multiple VoD services to Freeview and Freesat.

The joint project, which counts the BBC, BT, Five, ITV, Channel 4 and TalkTalk as partners, aims to promote a common technology standard that would allow viewers with a broadband connection to watch on-demand services on their TV sets.

Leading Chinese search engine Baidu is rumoured to be about to make a foray into online video, supported by an equity company which has already backed Hulu, the similar American venture.

News agency Reuters has quoted reports suggesting that it is teaming up with Providence Equity Partners, to set up an online video channel in its native country.

The channel, which will show licensed content, is set to launch in the first quarter, and will be Baidu’s first major step into a Chinese online video market which is highly fragmented but considered to have tremendous potential.

Local websites reported early in the new year that the joint venture company had received about US$60million in private equity funds and Baidu will invest about $10million into the firm.

Rhode Island-based Providence Equity Partners and Baidu will team up to create a fund to buy licensed content to show on the channel, said the source, who declined to be named as the information was not yet public. Baidu also refused to comment further.

Providence is an investor in Hulu, a website owned jointly by NBC Universal, News Corp and Walt Disney that allows viewers to stream TV shows over the net for free.

The source also said a recently-departed senior executive from China Mobile, Gong Yu, will head the online video venture.

China’s online video market was worth 162 million yuan (US$23.73 million) in the third quarter, according to data from research firm Analysys International, and analysts expect sales to triple in the coming years. Baidu is also an investor in PPLive, a Chinese website that streams free licensed movies and video.