The hugely popular, and not aired in Victoria yet, show Underbelly has been given another series - after overwhelming demand urged them to create another one. The show, about the Melbourne Gangland War, re-established the network as a serious ratings contender after losing last year to Seven.

The new series will be a prequel to the war, and will detail the rise of power of many of the characters in the original series - but will mainly focus on Alphonse Gangitano, who was portrayed by Vince Colosimo.

CEO David Gyngell was confident that the series will be a smash hit like its predecessor. The series will begin recording in September for 13 episodes. It is also unknown if the series will not be shown in Australia - like its predecessor.

All of Australia’s broadcasting corporations, including the public broadcasters and the regional affiliates, have announced a new initiative to follow the footsteps of similar plans in New Zealand and the UK, Freeview.

The ‘Freeview’ initiative was started in the UK to help drive the take-up of free-to-air digital television in Australia, with the ABC’s Director of Television, Kim Dalton, will chair the organization in Australia. In New Zealand, almost of all of their stations are apart of their version of ‘Freeview’; and it has exceeded expectations with installed receivers in over 100,000 homes.

In Australia, Freeview will contain all the free-to-air stations and their respective HD channels. As well, it will air ABC2, SBS World News Channel and the commercial stations’ new SD channels - bringing to to 15 channels.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the public broadcaster, has recorded another consecutive double-digit growth, increasing its revenue by 17 percent to a record profit of £117.7 million.

The new figure comes after a range of acquisitions and investments into the digital sector, including purchasing a controlling 75 percent stake in Lonely Planet, launching bbc.com - an international version of bbc.co.uk and putting content up on Apple’s iTunes Store in the UK and US.

While the Lonely Planet aquisition is sketchy in details, they say that they will launch a new design and launch more books for the Australian company. BBC Worldwide also regained control of Australian pay-TV channel UK.TV, and launched BBC HD.

It will also launch CBeebies and BBC Knowledge in Australia, when more capacity is available for Foxtel’s digital service.

As well, it will launch a localised version of motoring show Top Gear, with the help of SBS and APC Magazines. Top Gear will also be launched in the US on NBC.

paidContent, a blog about "the economics of content", has said that it will be acquired by UK media company Guardian Media Group, owners of The Guardian and Guardian.co.uk. The Guardian Media Group itself is owned by the Scott Trust.

Its parent company, ContentNext Media, has said that it will remain as a independent business and also says that it is a major expansion for the Guardian Media Group’s US presence. It will also own paidContent’s UK equivalent, mocoNews.net and contentSutra.

Founded by Rafat Ali in 2002, it has offices in Santa Monica, California, and Manhattan, and also runs several conferences. In May, Conde Nast bought Ars Technica for $25 million, $5 million less than the ContentNext buyout. The full press release is below.

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The Seven Network’s Ryan Stokes has indicated that the network is keen to take back the Olympic rights for the 2016 Summer Olympics after losing the rights of the 2010 and 2012 Olympics to Nine and Foxtel.

However, it also looks like that they would need to go to Foxtel to help get the bid, or another pay-TV group. This sounds like the AFL again.

Seven currently has partnered with SBS, who will be broadcasting several events that Seven will not broadcast - while other programming will go to Yahoo!7.

Source: TV Tonight

The BBC and Norway’s public broadcaster TV2 are in a row after the BBC would not allow material to be shown in a documentary that will be shown on Norwegian television.

In an email seen by MediaGuardian, a sales executive from BBC Worldwide refused to give a Swedish broadcaster permission to reuse its footage in subsequent showings of the documentary produced by TV2.

The documentary, titled "The Famine Scam", has alleged that the BBC and the United Nations were saying that African state of Niger was suffering from a famine. Interviewees like the Prime Minister of Niger, residents, doctors in the region and an aid organisation spokesperson in the US have said that no famine existed.

Though the BBC allowed producers a license to show the reports, but withdrew after the footage was shown in Norway - forcing the producers to shorten the documentary. In the original format, the documentary was awarded third prize in the Monte Carlo TV festival in June.

Source: MediaGuardian

The battle of the DVRs has begun, with Seven bringing out the TiVo to compete with the Foxtel’s iQ - claiming it would help bypass pay-TV subscriptions - whatever that means.

But the new machine, which has a RRP of $699, will have limited content due to the fact that we don’t have enough content on the free-to-air channels. TiVo’s main success is where that channels from FTA, Cable and Satellite TV users can use TiVo and not the selection of the provider.

As well, users will now have to have a broadband connection to access certain features.

The device will come with two high-definition tuners - allowing users to record two programs while watching a pre-recorded show. The device will also store the last 30 minutes of TV programs, and would allow viewers to catch up to shows that they missed if they arrived home late.

Sadly, you won’t be able to skip advertising - which was one of the reasons that the TiVo became so popular.

Currently on FTA, you can get ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 (which is basically the same as ABC1), SBS, SBS World News, Seven, Seven HD, Ten, Ten HD, Nine and Nine HD. But expect more SD services coming soon after it was deregulated just this year.

ITV1 is believed to suffered the worst Saturday ratings on June 28, with BBC1 winning the whole day thanks to Wimbeldon and the penultimate episode of Doctor Who.

The commercial channel brought only 10.2% share for all-hours, down from its previous recording of 11.5%. BBC1, however, brought 26.9%. The Doctor Who episode brought 7.4 million, according to unofficial ratings.

The BBC1 basically won the entire day, except for 15 minutes - where BBC2 showed Wimbeldon. BBC3’s behind-the-scenes look into the production of Doctor Who, Doctor Who Confidential, got 1.1 million and a 6.8%.

After the massive cliff-hanger in the second-last episode of the series - I’m trying not to spoil it - here is what the media is saying:

Wired has a story about the second-last episode and about the cliff-hanger - and it does contain spoilers, so if you don’t want to know - don’t read it.

Doctor Who News is reporting the unofficial ratings of the episode, with 7.4 million viewers.

We, The Journal, have a video of the trailer for the last episode of the season. Don’t view the video if you don’t want to see spoilers.

The Coventry Telegraph has a blog post about the episode, and also links to other news articles about the future of the Tenth Doctor.

The Telegraph is reporting that the BBC is expected to be watched around 10 million, hoping to eclipse the 9.1 million who watched the first episode of the season. The final episode is also getting some additional minutes, totaling 65 minutes.

The BBC is, well, shaping up to compete with our own public broadcaster, ABC - after the BBC brand is starting to take a stranglehold in our local media.

BBC’s commercial arm - BBC Worldwide - announced that it would be taking control over UKTV last week, and announced plans for BBC Knowledge and Cbeebies - both channels being part of its worldwide push. The BBC already has BBC World News, BBC HD and UKTV on the Foxtel platform, and the two other channels will launch when Foxtel adds more capacity.

As well, they are assisting in shows like Top Gear Australia, being broadcast on SBS, and has established a joint-venture with PBL Media’s ACP Magazines.

This comes when the ABC readies for their submission of federal grants - remember, we don’t pay license fees, aiming to raise $850 million and extra money to launch ABC3 - a children’s channel. ABC has said that Cbeebies will not affect their plans - as the ABC purchases over 200 hours of content from the Beeb every year - mainly children shows, but also Doctor Who and Spooks.