Google yesterday announced the new Google TV service, which will merge applications and a web browser with TV content, enabling users to search across TV programming, their DVR and the web in order to find related content.

BSkyB reached a compromise deal yesterday that will see the broadcaster provide its Sky Sports 1 and 2 football coverage to rivals BT Group, Virgin Media and Top Up TV from next season.

BSkyB will, however, still contest an Ofcom ruling about the prices it should charge. Ofcom, meanwhile, has agreed that only the three companies already specified can take part in the deal, and that they will have to pay for content at current rate card prices until the legal appeal is concluded.

Virgin Media and Top Up TV both welcomed the decision, with BT saying:

We are delighted Ofcom's decision can be implemented pending the full appeal, and that we will be able to bring Sky Sports 1 and 2 to customers in time for the 2010-11 Premier League football season this summer.

BSkyB has decided to pull out of talks with Google aimed at sharing its programming on YouTube. It had been investigating the possibility of making full-length content available for free, but has decided against it in the end. Perhaps, in the light of recent comments from News Corp - BSkyB's biggest shareholder - that Google has been "stealing" content (linking to its online newspaper content for free), the curtailment of the talks should not be so very surprising.

The BBC's iPlayer catch-up service is to become available on Freesat boxes starting from December, followed by ITV Player in 2010. December 7 sees a trial rollout of the iPlayer on Freesat, but the full one will make available 450 hours of programming and will not be completed until next year. There will of course be no fee for using the services.

Around 200,000 new Freesat boxes were sold in Q3 2009, and 1m homes are expected to be using the platform by March 2010.

Impressive quarterly results from BSkyB, whose net profit leapt by 75% year-on-year to £128m for the three months to the end of September on revenue up 10% at £1.38bn. Operating profit before exceptionals was up 8.8%.

Subscriber numbers rose by 94,000 during the quarter, taking the total to 9.5 million.

Project Canvas, the joint venture currently being developed by the BBC, ITV and BT as a successor to Freeview, has taken a step forwards after the BBC moved to reassure the consumer electronics trade association Intellect over anti-competitive issues. Intellect had raised concerns that Canvas could have a 'negative impact' on the digital TV market as it feared its partners were seeking too much control over the project and had shown little interest in collaborating with the trade association.

However, yesterday Canvas said it would allow technology companies to use its set-top technology without insisting on the use of its own EPG, allaying worries about possible domination of the technology by BBC and ITV channels. The BBC has also said that its own ad-free PSB status will be irrelevant: Canvas will allow channel developers a range of options for pricing models for their content to ensure the project is commercially viable. These reassurances would seem to bring the eventual launch of Canvas closer.

The analogue signal for BBC Two was turned off permanently in the Torbay and South Devon area last night, the first area to complete the full switchover to a digital television service.

The second stage of the switchover is set for April 22, when analogue signals for BBC One, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five will also end.

The analogue signal for the whole country will end by 2012.

The switch from analogue to digital broadcasts is currently being phased in region by region, but Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said that the government will not cover the cost of providing less mainstream commercial channels to some rural areas. If these households want to receive a full digital television service, they will have to buy a Sky dish:

People pay the licence fee and they get the core offer of the channels, and that wil be available. There are always other options: if i was living in an area where I cannot get the full set of channels then I will have Freesat or Sky or a different option.

Half of viewers in southern Scotland, Cumbria and Northumberland will receive just 19 of the 48 channels that will be available across other towns and cities.

The Telegraph reports that the recently merged Thomson Reuters plans to launch its own business TV channel to rival Bloomberg and CNBC. The channel is expected to be available both on the internet and via one or other of the digital TV platforms.

A spokesman commented:

"Television, video and a multi-media approach to news gathering and dissemination have long been a central part of Reuters' global editorial content. We continue to innovate across our business and look for new ways to tell this story."

A parliamentary committee has criticised the DCMS for handing over the entire £803m digital switchover budget to the BBC, since this has made it difficult to track the progress of the money. It claims that the government has not put in place appropriate procedures to enable accountability to parliament for the BBC's decisions.

The committee's report has expressed particular concern over the fact that half of all TV sets sold in the first seven months of 2007 were analogue sets, which will all become useless once the analogue signal is finally switched off everywhere in the UK in 2012. Chair of the committee, Edward Leigh, commented:

"Many viewers do not seem fully to understand the implications of the analogue switch-off and are still buying analogue televisions, unaware that they have built-in obsolescence. The evidence is that the 'digital tick' label is a mystery to many retail staff, let alone the people to whom they sell TVs."