Following an intervention by the Labour spokesman on media, Ivan Lewis MP (Labour warns Hunt on News Corp), in which he linked the evidence of phone hacking and the erosion of media plurality, the FT concluded that opposition to the News Corp bid for outright control of BSkyB would coalesce around the paramount issue of protecting the public interest.

Commenting on reports of private discussions between News Corp and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the FT suggested that the former intends to offer concessions, such as the disposal of Sky News, in order to convince the minister, Jeremy Hunt, that it would be unnecessary to follow Ofcom's recommendation and refer the bid to the Competition Commission.

In an article which shed light on confidential discussions between the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and News Corp, triggered by its bid to acquire full control of BSkyB, (News Corp raises prospect of selling Sky News), the FT revealed that News Corp is keen to avoid a lengthy investigation by the Competition Commission, in the public interest, and is prepared to make significant concessions, such as the disposal of Sky News.

Following Ofcom's decision in the public interest to investigate the adverse effects of a loss of broadcasting plurality, and issue an invitation to comment on News Corporation's bid for British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB warns watchdog over News Corp bid), the FT reported that the broadcaster's independent directors have warned the regulator of a “perverse outcome” if it found that a deal would seriously curtail diversity for UK viewers. Chris Goodall was asked for his view.

Following the announcement by the BBC that it intends to build on the popularity of the iPlayer by launching an international version of the video-on-demand service as an application for the Apple iPad (BBC picks iPad for iPlayer global launch), the FT asked Benedict Evans for his view.

Heralding the simultaneous launch by Rupert Murdoch and Sir Richard Branson of iPad-only publications (Why the iPad should rival the web), the FT suggested that both announcements simply reflected a "bigger debate about whether companies are balkanising the web to gain economic leverage".

The FT argued that a tablet "restores the advantage of depth over breadth" and in making use of such technology "an edited in-depth publication has a better chance of competing with the atomised, open-source information flow of the open web". However, the article conceded that many people are happy to live in the world of free, distributed information and will prefer it. Benedict Evans was asked for his view. He said: “If you think that the day of the editor deciding what you read today is dead then these apps will fall apart.”

Following Virgin Media's announcement that it will provide its customers with a new set-top box which would combine the internet and television on one screen (Virgin boss boasts better TV than Sky), the FT observed that "rivals including BSkyB and YouView, are rushing out similar services, but Virgin said its offering was the first of scale".

Having warned that questions would be asked over the reliability of the technology, as "Virgin has had problems over customer service" the FT asked Toby Syfret for his view. He said: “This is a chance to produce something that is user friendly and encourages video usage... But seeing is believing, so we will have to wait to see if it works.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3975a6f8-fd3c-11df-b83c-00144feab49a.html#axz…

In an article which revealed that Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary has told BT that the government would not provide it with a “blank cheque” (BT warned over broadband funds) the FT explained that a fund of £830m (drawn from the BBC licence fee over the next seven years) will be made available to extend the high-speed broadband network. Although the fund is open to other broadband operators, BT claims that the fund would enable it to extend its high-speed network to 90 per cent of UK homes. BT is spending £2.5bn on its network to reach two thirds of homes by 2015.

Ian Watt was asked for his view. He said that he expected BT to be the company that secures the largest portion of the £830m, partly because it was best placed to provide significant additional funds of its own to expand superfast broadband to rural areas.

In an article which indicated that Apple may be struggling to maintain quality control over its App Store (Japan publishers accuses of App Store of piracy, the FT revealed that the Japanese Book Publishers Association is claiming that "Apple had failed to address numerous private complaints about the handling of bootlegged works, many of which are Chinese translations".

Benedict Evans was asked for his view. He said: “From Apple’s perspective, there are 300,000 applications on the App Store and 50,000 book apps – they can’t check all of them... They have a scale problem but not a willingness problem.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/57879f8c-0793-11e0-8d80-00144feabdc0.html#axz…

In an article which heralded a competitive environment for data tariffs (3 unlimited data tariff challenges market) the Financial Times observed that 3, the UK's smallest mobile network operator "is seeking to double its subscriber numbers over the next five years and regards its new unlimited data tariffs as an important driver of growth".

When asked if 3’s move could enable it to poach customers from rivals, James Barford said that unlimited data tariffs were attractive to consumers, but they risked being “uneconomic” for operators if downloading surged on their networks.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/40d8ffc4-0888-11e0-80d9-00144feabdc0.html#axz…

With evidence available for the first time of the take-up of the online subscription service for the Times and Sunday Times (Experts doubt Times paywall data) the FT suggested that the subscriber statistics published by News International were unreliable and even had been described by analysts and commentators as “chicanery”."

The article revealed that although News International had claimed that "105,000 “digital products” of The Times and The Sunday Times had been sold since the paywall went up in July, of those, more than 50,000 related to people currently paying monthly subscriptions for an iPad edition, for content on Amazon’s Kindle or in weekly £2 payments through the website".

Douglas McCabe was asked for his view. He said: “The numbers seem to demonstrate people are more inclined to pay for convenient on-the-move news services [the tablet], rather than desktop access.”