The Gadget Show, a highly popular TV series that airs at 8pm on UK Channel FIVE each Monday, last night re-launched its long held campaign to have the words "up to" removed from how broadband ISP services in the UK are advertised. The show referenced Ofcom's latest broadband speed study (here), which found that ISPs who advertised "up to 8Mb" actually only delivered an average of 3.3Megabits per second (Mbps).

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Google's popular video website, YouTube, has teamed up with Blinxbox to offer UK visitors access to a FREE broadband movie streaming service (YouTube Movies), which initially includes 400 full-length films for your viewing pleasure. Sadly most of the films are either very old or simply not very good, which explains why they're free .

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The Project Canvas joint venture, which is developing an "open standard" for putting UK broadband television services directly into homes via ISPs and IPTV set-top-boxes (STB), has regained the support of Channel Five.

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Arqiva's largely free UK broadband internet TV and video-on-demand website, SeeSaw, has signed a major new multi-year licensing agreement with NBC Universal that will bring popular USA programmes (e.g. "Heroes", "House", "Battlestar Galactica", "The Office" and "30 Rock") to the service. Existing partners include the BBC, Channel 4, Channel FIVE, MTV and Disney.

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Ofcom has just released its fifth annual Communications Market Report 2010, a mammoth research document providing insight into the trends of the UK's TV, radio, telecoms, internet industries and their users. It reveals that total UK broadband take-up has now reached 71% (68% in 2009), with 2% of households still using narrowband dialup to go online.

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The Financial Times (FT) newspaper, which these days sits behind a subscriber-only wall, has spoken to BT Retail's UK Chief Executive, Gavin Patterson, and discovered some juicy hints about what customers can expect from future updates to its slow-growing BT Vision broadband IPTV platform. New HD content is also anticipated.

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A new report from the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) - 'Global Player or Subsidy Junkie? Decision time for the BBC' - has been doing the rounds this week after it called for the BBC TV Licence fee to be "abolished" and for the BBC itself to instead become a "subscription service". One of several reasons given is that universal UK broadband coverage and the internet will make "a 'licence' to broadcast obsolete".

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Cable giant Virgin Media has carried out its earlier threats by lodging an official competition complaint against Project Canvas in the UK. Canvas claims to be an open standard for delivering subscription-free broadband internet TV services directly into homes via your ISP and special £100-£200 set-top-boxes (mix of freeview/freesat and other tech).

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