BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is acting to head off rising City concerns about the threat from over-the-top connected TV services, by announcing it will launch, by the summer, its own such service that does not require a satellite subscription.

The UK’s leading pay-TV provider BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is taking a significant step to improve its PVR box’s new IP on-demand TV service by adding catch-up TV services from the BBC and ITV.

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.

Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) fancies bidding against News Corp-controlled BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) for Hollywood movies and TV shows, even though international roll-out losses are set to exceed $70 million this quarter alone, CEO Reed Hastings tells paidContent.

News Corp-controlled pay-TV firm BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is buying itself a foothold in the looming social TV field by acquiring 10 percent of the startup Zeebox for a sum that is “double-digit millions” in both pounds and dollars.

When the News Corporation-controlled UK satellite broadcaster Sky launched a free iPad app for its Sky Sports News channel in September 2010, some wondered if it would also start to offer a paid version of the product. Well, it’s taken 15 months, but it’s happened.

Cash-rich pay-TV service Al Jazeera Sports could force Sky Sports to bid 25 percent more for 2013-16 Premier League rights when negotiations begin next summer, an analyst says.

“We confess ourselves slightly perplexed,” BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) finance chief Andrew Griffith told Wall Street investors, when asked about the Competition Commission’s judgement that Sky Movies is anti-competitive in the on-demand movie space.

BSkyB’s set-top boxes may have to offer services like Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX), Lovefilm and Blinkbox alongside its own Sky Movies, under new proposals from the Competition Commission.

—Bertelsmann: Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music’s global digital head Thomas Hesse is leaving to join Bertelsmann in February, tasked with its digital transformation, MusicWeek writes. Hesse previously led digital at SonyBMG.

James Murdoch has been re-elected chairman of BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) at the pay-TV and telco company’s annual general meeting, with 81.24 percent of the vote against 18.76.

BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is to appoint Matthieu Pigasse, controlling shareholder of Le Monde and the French edition of Huffington Post, and Aberdeen Asset Management founder Martin Gilbert as independent board directors.

BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) deputy chairman Nick Ferguson’s letter to investors explaining why James Murdoch should remain chairman of the broadcaster…

Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is laying some content groundwork for its launch in the UK and Ireland, expected in early 2012: today it announced a deal with MGM to stream first-run feature films in the two countries. The deal,  exclusive to Netflix for new releases, will mean that more established players…

The aftershocks of the phone-hacking scandal that erupted at News International in the UK over the summer are still being felt by its parent News Corp.: the media giant posted a decline in net income for Q1 as it weathered charges related to its UK businesses—primarily in its newspaper division, …

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q310	Net Inc. vs Q310
News Corporation	Release		7%	4.8%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) has declared its Sky Go live and on-demand service - with which subscribers can watch over PC, Mac, Xbox, iPad and iPhone - has 1.6 million viewers. “Sky customers watched 33 million pieces of content in September alone,” CEO Jeremy Darroch told investment analysts on Wednesday.

UK football fans will potentially be able to watch cut-price Premier League matches, after the European Union’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that it is not illegal for individuals to buy set top box decoder cards from foreign broadcasters.

Investors in News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS), Rupert Murdoch’s media company, were urged on Tuesday to vote against the re-election of his son James Murdoch as a company director by an influential advisory group.

One of James Murdoch’s closest advisers has resigned from News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS), it emerged on Tuesday, amid disagreements over the way the media group dealt with the phone-hacking scandal.