—Eircom: Irish telco Eircom is hiring former BT (NYSE: BT) Vision technology director Richard Griffiths to lead VOD and IPTV strategy as TV and entertainment director. Griffiths told Silicon Republic Eircom is examining multi-platform delivery via streaming and progressive download. Eircom is in the middle of a €1 billion broadband network upgrade that will see fibre-to-the-kerb delivery 25Mbps speeds that can support high-quality IPTV.

—BT: BT itself, meanwhile, is bringing its fast global media network (GMN) to Johannesburg, allowing broadcasters there to transfer high-quality video around the world. BT said the addition of four new pay TV licenses hastened the installation and, of course, the 2010 World Cup will also be held in South Africa.

—BBC.com: BBC Worldwide’s BBC.com sales team has also been in South Africa, hosting an event to woo local advertising buyers for the controversial site, which shows ads to users outside the UK and is currently trying to boost ad sales in a big way.

—The Onion: The satirical US news site has signed on video rights distributor MyVideoRights to add videos from its current War For The White House strand to UK and European vid sites, in time for the US election, adding to MyVideoRights’ clients including All3Media, Film & General Productions, and Zodiak.