By Mark Sweney: The Digital TV Group, which represents more than 100 companies including Samsung, Sony (NYSE: SNE), Pace and Dixons, has expressed concern that the BBC-led video-on-demand venture Project Canvas is failing in its core promise to create an open, industry-wide technology standard for the service. In a submission…

—Bauer Media: Is anyone left running online at the magazine/radio firm? Group digital MD Tony Kypreos left in November, leaving online staffers reporting instead to other group CEOs or MDs, the company tells NMA. Digital marketing director Carl Lyons has joined restaurant booker TopTable. Richard Phillips replaced Kurt Edwards as…

- Dr Who: The BBC is planning to extend the Dr Who franchise into games. This signals the BBC re-entering the gaming industry after shutting its Multimedia division in 2005. The Dr Who venture is being licensed through BBC Worldwide. (via MCV) - Virgin Media: The pay-TV provider had 750…

—TopGear.com: FHM.com editor-in-chief Chris Mooney is the BBCWW commercial site’s new editor. Top Gear is a key global online property for BBCWW. —Red Bee: Brian Levy is the new CTO for Red Bee, a commercial spin-off of the BBC that provides digital media services to broadcasters and telecoms clients. He…

—Channel 4: David Abraham will replace Andy Duncan as the next CEO of Channel 4. Abraham is currently the CEO of the multichannel digital broadcaster UKTV, a JV of Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) and BBC Worldwide. (Release - download) —Virgin Media: Richard Larcombe is joining Virgin Media in a new…

What’s a little harmless DRM? The BBC claims that plans by Freeview broadcasters to apply digital rights management to high-definition television content is “light-touch”, as Ofcom launches a second public consultation on the matter. The regulator’s first public consultation, made back in September, was only open for 10 days. But…

BBC Worldwide has tapped Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) exec Robert Nashak to help build up its gaming offerings as EVP of Digital Entertainment. During the nearly two years he spent at EA, Nashak’s last role was as a VP charged with overseeing the company’s social gaming group. He previously led…

—Ofcom/BSkyB: Ofcom says a final decision on forcing Sky to cut wholesale channel prices will come in March. The board is due to meet this week as part of the deliberation process only. Competing pay TV providers, such as BT (NYSE: BT), have been lobbying for a review of the…

—TV viewing: Look out, BARB - TV overnights are no longer the sole determinant of a show’s popularity. BBC Vision director Jana Bennett writes that TV viewing is growing: “A staggering 2.6 million people recorded Doctor Who on a PVR to watch at their convenience and 1.4 million watched it…

Late last month, I met with Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg, and did a short video interview with him. It has been exactly a year since Goldberg, the former Dow Jones’ digital strategy and operations SVP, joined as the CEO of the travel guide company now owned by BBC Worldwide.…

—Samsung iPlayer: So much for that thing about “threat to Canvas”. Not waiting for the broadcaster JV to launch, Samsung’s Internet@TV service will carry a build of BBC’s iPlayer, Telegraph.co.uk reports. —Kirill on Hulu: Kirill, the sci-fi web series MSN commissioned from Endemol, is being syndicated to Hulu US and…

The BBC has released a new bundle of iPlayer stats showing just how popular the catch-up service was in 2009… A record 88.2 million requests in November Added to the 641 million requests served over January to October, that’s a total 729.2 million Most popular show: Top Gear series 13,…

Given its opposition to the proposed connected-TV VOD standard in the consultations to date, it’s no wonder that BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is upset the BBC Trust has provisionally approved Project Canvas. Here’s the statement from its corporate affairs director Graham McWilliam… “The key concern with Canvas is the leading role…

Behind the press release, the BBC Trust’s 33-page provisional approval document for Project Canvas states… “The BBC is already working with three innovation partners (Thomson, Humax and Cisco) from the consumer device manufacturing sector on the development of the Canvas core technical specifications.” The relationships have NDAs, non-binding collaboration agreements…

After knocking back online proposals time and time again, the BBC’s regulating BBC Trust is giving provisional approval to the corporation’s Project Canvas proposal to create a common interface for IPTV-delivered catch-up VOD and internet widgets in the living room. The proposal has passed both the public value test and…

Well, this is a rarity - the BBC Trust backing the BBC’s online decisions… Little-known IPTV company IP Vision had wanted to build its own implementation of iPlayer on its Fetch TV set-top box, but the BBC refused to support. IP Vision complained to the trust that this breached the…

The BBC Trust says it will publish a “provisional” conclusion on the BBC’s proposed Project Canvas at 10am GMT on Tuesday. This will include the market impact assessment (MIA) and public value assessment (PVA) which it has conducted. Someone - perhaps at the BBC itself? - is confident. An FT…

By Stephen Brook: The BBC Worldwide chief executive, John Smith, has become the first executive at the corporation to support Rupert Murdoch’s plan to charge for online content. Smith, who runs the BBC’s commercial division, which includes magazines such as Top Gear and Radio Times and licenses BBC hits such…

Guidebook business Lonely Planet has named Douglas Schatz as its new MD for EMEA, in charge of the division’s print and online expansion in the region. He joins the BBC Worldwide-owned business from independent UK book retailer and map data provider Stanfords. He’s been involved in digital publishing from an…