Six Hollywood studios have urged the UK’s competition watchdog to throw out its assertion their Sky Movies deals are anti-competitive. But some of them are warming to its suggestion BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) should offer rival services like Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) over its own set top boxes.

It’s a wild world these days at the intersection of traditional television business models and all the new ways that people are consuming content online and across different devices. Panelists at paidContent Entertainment 2011 grappled with the implications of that shift by emphasizing the need for quality: quality metrics, quality…

Netflix’s decision to divide its DVD and streaming operations is being treated as a joke and a shot in the foot by some observers. CEO Reed Hastings’ blog post announcement has got over 11,000 comments within 14 hours.

Big news for mobile TV pioneer MobiTV: the company has filed for an IPO worth up to $75 million, as it looks for funds to expand internationally, develop its products and potentially size up acquisitions.

Hulu’s first offering outside the U.S. is live: Hulu Japan, a subscription service with “hundreds” of films and thousands of hours of TV. For ¥1,480 a month or roughly $18.50, Japanese subscribers can watch across an array of devices just like U.S. subscribers of Hulu Plus with one exception—Hulu Japan…

The numbers are coming in on just how many people tuned in to watch the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton. While some are highly skeptical that the event pulled in the 2 billion viewers that the UK government predicted, the event—especially if you count not just the live,…

Television is often included on that list of industries Facebook executives enjoy casually mentioning will have to rebuild themselves around social engagement. Don’t look now, but Facebook may have just laid the foundation for that blueprint with the anticipated announcement that it will facilitate voting for American Idol contestants.

Naysayers continue expressing suspicion Spotify will launch in the U.S.. But Spotify’s not alone in discovering the challenge of an overseas launch. Here’s a newsflash for the sceptics: the list of U.S. services which haven’t found their way out of America is also long…

Spotify has given itself one more, small reason why people might subscribe to Spotify Premium - a hook in to Sonos’ wireless music systems around the home.

The invite to Wednesday’s Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) event shows a guitar, which usually suggests music, but that hasn’t stopped the buzz about video. The current Apple TV is too expensive at $269 and too limited in the kinds of content it delivers. With that in mind, expectations include a cheaper,…

Playboy Enterprises (NYSE: PLA) is forming a new video game label this year as part of a wider digital strategy to make its brand more mainstream, Paul H. Lee, the company’s managing director for new digital ventures, told paidContent. The company hasn’t decided on a name yet, but it already…

Paul Brown, who is leaving as partnerships SVP at Spotify, is becoming chief operating officer for Mendeley, a start-up often described as a Last.fm for research papers, say MediaWeek and TechCrunch, and Brown confirmed to paidContent:UK.

Spotify’s partnerships SVP Paul Brown is leaving after 18 months with the music startup, saying his exit’s on good terms. “I wasn’t looking to leave. But this was an opportunity that came along and which I had to take,” Brown tells MusicWeek.

Despite trying for over a year, Spotify has been beaten to U.S. launch by Rdio, the comparable online music start-up backed by Atomico Ventures’ Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who earlier in their careers founded Skype and Kazaa.

Spotify has been offering pay-TV operators a set top box version of the music service for some time now. But so far it only has the deal inked with triple-play telco TeliaSonera back in October. That service is launching today on the TeliaSonera TV service in Sweden and Finland, Spotify…

Spotify is slashing the cost of its advert-free music streaming in Europe, in a bid to win more paying customers besides just mobile users. It comes in two new tariffs Spotify’s introducing… —Spotify Unlimited: £4.99pm/ for no-ads music, but no mobile access, no offline or MP3 play and no higher-bitrate…

Spotify spent most of its first year saying it would refrain from adding “social” features and concentrate on just serving music. But the ice in Stockholm has thawed lately and today the music service added just that, amongst its first significant product updates since launching in late 2008. —New profiles:…

—Al Jazeera: The broadcaster is making its mobile services free - that means iPhone apps, streaming on mobile website, its Symbian and Windows Mobile apps. “We want Al Jazeera everywhere on mobile for free,” its mobile head Safdar Mustafa tells TechCrunch. —Spotify: It’s not exactly carrier bundling, but 3 UK…