A record number of people downloaded and watched the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who via the BBC iPlayer. The first episode with the new Doctor, Matt Smith, and his new assistant, Karen Gillan managed to clock up the most downloads over a 7 day period.

The first episode, called ‘The Eleventh Hour’ had reportedly received 1.27 million viewings in the first 7 days after it was shown on BBC 1.

Doctor Who continues on BBC 1 at 6:20pm on Saturday, http://www.ontvnow.co.uk/search/Doctor-Who/

Ofcom has told Sky that is must cut the wholesale price of its Sports channels, this is the price that it charges rival cable, terrestrial and internet television providers.

They will have to sell Sky Sports 1 and 2 for up to 23% less than the current wholesale price. Ofcom have said the decision should come into effect immediately, allowing other providers to offer the channels at a more competitive rate.

As part of this however, assuming Sky implement the required changes, they have been given permission to change the channels and system they use on the Freeview digital terrestrial system. This could enable them to provide a pay to view system over Freeview too.

Panasonic has revealed that during the first week of sales for their brand new 3DTVs they have sold out of the new sets.

The 3D HDTVs won’t be available in the UK for another few months but demand is high due to the blockbuster films and upcoming sports events due to be filmed and broadcast in 3D where viewers can receive it.

Prices are looking to start about £2,000 for a set and glasses, this will fall as the technology takes off. If this is a little out of your price range soon you will be able to head to your local pub to watch sports via Sky in 3D as they are about to roll out 3D to pubs up and down the land.

Channel Five has lost out on its chance to appear on Freeview HD for the time being because it failed to satisfy Ofcom that it was fully committed to the venture.

As yet the bandwidth isn’t allocated to anyone else, but it is likely to go to the BBC to allow them to expand their HighDef service on the Freeview platform.

The allocations will be reviewed again in 2012, so Five will be able to apply to take it back then.

Virgin Media have announced today that their cable digital TV customers will be able to watch this years World Cup in full High Definition as the ITV1 HD channel joins Virgin Media’s TV line-up on April 2nd. All matches in this years World Cup will be shown on ITV1 HD or the BBC’s HD channel.

Virgin Media have started to add to their HD lineup with new services. Eurosport, Discovery and E4 will be added to the top level service during this spring. Film4 HD will be made available for all.

The BBC has been granted provisional approval to introduce a DRM system into the upcoming High Definition Freeview Service. While the system is currently being trialed, it hasn’t officially launched yet.

The BBC believes that having no copy protection on the platform would pose a barrier to getting content onto the network, believing that providers wouldn’t want their work to be broadcast in HD free to be copied especially with DVD burners and hard disk recorders so readily available now.

Having DRM on the High Definition service, will allow the BBC to impose limits on what you can and can’t do with the service however, which some viewers will not like.

While the decision isn’t final yet, it is likely to be unless some serious objections are made by April 5th.

Sky TV has announced that it plans to broadcast football matches in 3D before the end of the year. The broadcaster has already started testing the technology by filming in 3D at various stadiums across the country ready to roll out the technology further.

To watch the 3D content, viewers will need a Sky HD box and a 3D compatible TV along with a set of 3D glasses. This does limit how effective it may be within a pub or large social environment but at home viewers will be able to see it too.

Sports will probably make up a large part of 3D content to start with on Sky, until there is more content available, made for 3D.

BT has said today that it wants to start a price war over sports content provided to the consumer by offering consumers access to the premium sports content at a lower cost than its competitors.

It is waiting for a judgement from Ofcom as to whether the wholesale price of the premium content provided by Sky must be reduced to allow fair competition across platforms.

If Ofcom force Sky to reduce the fees they charge other provides, this could start a price war between them to get and keep viewers. It would allow both BT and Virgin Media, along with others, to slash their prices to their users.

This could benefit viewers all round, by offering more competition and thus more choice for where to access the premium content. Currently Sky hold most of the viewers, more than double that of BT and Virgin Media combined.

During the month of December, 2009, the BBC’s iPlayer service dished up an incredible 115 million show requests across all platforms that it is available for. The popularity is driven by Top Gear and Doctor Who. The most watched single program was the Top Gear special, racing across Bolivia.

This just shows the popularity of such a service and that the BBC and Internet Service Providers are going to have to work together to help each other out with the increased work load put forward by high definition on demand services.

As it becomes more integrated into TV sets and set top boxes, this figure will only increase, during December a massive increase in requests coming via consoles was noticed – up 74% on the previous month. This can be attributed to Wii and PS3 users (the iPlayer isn’t available on the Xbox 360).

During the year, expect to see new innovations on the service and it being more widely available via Freesat and built into new televisions using various technologies. I believe this year will see a big increase in the amount of on demand TV watched by all.

The BBC has been given the green light to start development on an internet based TV platform, along with other providers including ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT and Talktalk. Project Canvas is this platform, and is a partnership between all the above groups to bring a uniform standard to internet based television.

A uniform system would allow a range of internet tv set top boxes, or compatible televisions to display media from iPlayer, ITVPlayer and other similar systems without the need for custom work for each individual system.

As yet, Sky has not shown any interest in joining in the platform, but it has its own competing systems in its Sky boxes and SkyPlayer system where as all the other broadcasters show free to air content.

Once the platform is finalised, it will allow set top boxes and televisions to be made that will be compatible with the system. This needs to happen well in advance of any launch date.