Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
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‘We have the biggest director, because we are the biggest group on the planet,’ Will.I.Am tells Vibe. By James Dinh Black Eyed Peas Photo: Bryan Bedder/ Getty Images From “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” to “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” the junction of music and cinema has grown very popular in recent years, and the Black Eyed Peas want in. In a recent interview with Vibe, BEP frontman Will.I.Am dished on the group’s plan for the ultimate concert experience with the help of mastermind director James Cameron. “Right now, we are planning our 3-D tour movie, and James Cameron is directing it,” Will revealed. “We have the biggest director, because we are the biggest group on the planet. The Peas are filming it in South America. People will be able to see us in the theater with the 3-D glasses and everything.” With Cameron onboard, Will is convinced that the yet-untitled musical film will stand out among the rest with a “dope” story line. “It’s a full-length film, and it’s based around our tour activities,” he said about the film, tentatively scheduled to hit theaters early next year. “We’ve toured from America and Europe, to the Middle East, South America, Asia and Africa. It’s not like we go, ‘Yo, we are international, you know what I’m saying? London and Paris!’ Nah, that’s just two cities. We want to go across the planet.” Despite Fergie telling MTV News that she wasn’t “even thinking about another solo album” last fall, it seems like she might have had a change of mind. Will.I.Am revealed to the magazine that the songstress does want to do another album on her own to follow up her smash debut, The Dutchess. “Fergie wants to do another solo record, so of course we are going to do that,” he said. “We have material ready for that. But right now, we are focused on the Peas — our world tour and the movie.” Just last week, Will denied rumors that he and Fergie were dueling in a band battle. “Don’t believe gossip about Fergie leaving the group (we are never breaking up) it’s all lies!!!” he tweeted. Would you like to see the Black Eyed Peas hit the big screen? Share your thoughts in the comments below! Related Artists Black Eyed Peas
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Black Eyed Peas To Work With James Cameron On 3-D Tour Movie
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music
Tagged ailing, biggest, black-eyed, europe, Family, fergie, middle-east, movie, News, news article, stars, thoughts, TMZ, tour, Videos
Leave it to the Russians to not understand that the Cold War is dead and buried. The 10 alleged deep-cover operatives who were arrested on Monday may number more spies than were here in the 1950s, when there was a real possibility of war between the U.S. and Russia. (An 11th suspect was apprehended in Cyprus but released on bail.) You have to wonder what the Russians could have been thinking to spend the tens of millions of dollars that such an espionage infrastructure costs. Were they planning for a new Cold War? The other odd thing is that the suspected Russian operatives seem to have been stuck with a Cold War spy's craft, with secret writing, dead drops and money stashes. What was wrong with flying to Europe to meet your control officer once a month? On top of that, there was a comic sloppiness to the whole operation. At one point, an undercover FBI agent introduced himself to one of the suspects, claiming to be a substitute-control officer. Not only did the alleged Russian operative fall for it, she didn't notice that afterward, she was followed by more undercover FBI agents to a Verizon store, where they observed her buying a prepaid phone card. They then observed her as she apparently dropped the Verizon bag into a trash can — with the receipt in it. The name on it was Irene Kutsov — not the Americanized alias she reportedly used in the U.S. — and the address “99 Fake Street.” Indeed, the suspects were not charged with espionage but, much less glamorously, conspiring to act as unauthorized foreign agents and conspiring to commit money laundering. Moscow has called the accusations baseless. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2000396,00.html?xid=rss-topstorie… added by: Sexirobot
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Tagged accusations, control-officer, current, europe, Sex, spend-the-tens, suspected, the-accusations, verizon
Photo: The Pico by Puma Bike “PUMA Bikes redefine and reinvigorate the city ride with a bit of radicalism and a whole lot of practicality. They fold, they carry, they cruise. They’re everything and more, packed tight in a sweet, colorful ride.” Well, that’s how the marketing types for Puma and Biomega see it anyhow. What we see is another entrant in the human powered, urban mobility market and that has to be a positive move. If it gets people out their oil fuel cars, then we can turn a blind eye to a little extra robust PR. And when it comes down to it, a couple of models do conveniently fold, while some can be o… Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Puma Teams Up with Biomega To Make Bikes. Again
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Tagged bennyhollywood, bicycles, bikes, california, discovery, entrant, europe, green news, Hollywood, Memory, peaceful-city, stars, united-states, vision
Benny Benassi, Swedish House Mafia and more draw 185,000 to L.A. festival. By Lara Kelley Taboo Photo: MTV News Remember when Eminem said nobody listens to techno? The times have certainly changed since that infamous rant, considering the fact that more than 185,000 people attended the Electric Daisy Carnival at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Exposition Park last weekend, according to a rep for the fest, making it one of the largest dance-music events in the country. The party spanned two days, five stages and boasted over 150 of the most notorious DJs in the world, including Armin Van Buuren, Benny Benassi, Deadmau5 and Kaskade. Even Will.I.Am had a prime slot on the main stage Saturday night, and Lil Jon came out to host on the mic both nights. Free carnival rides, art installations, state-of-the-art lighting and sound also helped to create a one-of-a-kind electronic music experience. “EDC, I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life, and I’ve DJ’ed everywhere in the world,” Steve Angello of the Swedish House Mafia announced to the crowd during their headlining set Friday night. “Los Angeles, this is unbelievable!” Dance music has been bubbling just below the surface of urban alternative culture and in underground clubs for over two decades now, but with the recent success of mainstream artists like Lady Gaga, the genre is now riding radio airwaves and crossing over to the masses. “What’s going on in the U.S. nowadays is very exciting,” Dutch DJ and producer Laidback Luke said. “House [music] crossed over to the mainstream in Europe about 10 years ago, but America was always struggling with it. Now, there are many talented singers and rappers cross-breeding with dance music, and it gives us a great opportunity.” In its 14th year, Electric Daisy Carnival has been growing exponentially. In 2008 the event broke its maximum capacity with a crowd of over 50,000 people, and in 2009, an estimated 140,000 people attended. The event’s promoters, Insomniac, decided to expand the show into several other cities this year, creating an Electric Daisy tour that touches down in Dallas, Denver and Puerto Rico. The park gates opened on Friday at 2 p.m. to a sea of scantily dressed, happy-faced ticketholders who had been waiting in line since as early as 10 a.m. to enter. Dirty Dutch DJ Chuckie got the main stage bumping with popular remixes of LMFAO, Akon and Estelle. By 8, over 60,000 were crowded into the main stage for Dirty South, who had the entire audience singing to his Red Hot Chili Peppers “Otherside” remix. Swedish House Mafia then blew the roof off with hit singles like “Leave the World Behind” and their new collaboration with Pharrell, “One.” Oon the side stages, smaller crowds were treated to stellar sets by Basement Jaxx, Infected Mushroom, Moby and Steve Aoki, who brought out Lil Jon and Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo to sing tracks off of his forthcoming album. Deadmau5 closed out the show in the Coliseum for a packed audience that included many fans wearing his name on their shirts and some who even built custom mouse heads to mimic his signature costume. “EDC was friggin amazing!” Deadmau5 posted to his Twitter page soon after his set. “Thanks so much to my fans; you know this mouse loves L.A.” Come Saturday, the show was completely sold out, with well over 100,000 attendees. By 6, the main floor of the Coliseum had already reached maximum capacity, and security began directing fans to the stadium seats as Will.I.Am took the stage. He opened with crowd-pleasers “Going Back to Cali,” “Joints and Jam” and later a Michael Jackson tribute that had fans dancing and bashing around. Suddenly, several kids from the seats started rushing the main floor, pushing past security guards and hopping the two safety fences that stood between them and the ground. What started as a few rapidly became dozens of unruly fans. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that more than 100 people were admitted to the hospital for injuries that occurred over the two-day fest. It got so disruptive that at one point, Will.I.Am stopped the music in order to calm the storm. “Y’all gotta stop hurting each other and quit jumping fences!” he screamed into the mic. “Stop acting like motha—in’ fools. I’ve been all over the world to perform, and I’ve never seen anything like EDC in my life. Please respect the culture and what’s happening here!” That quieted the crowd and got things more composed, but security continued to restrict fans from entering the main dance floor. Laidback Luke, up next on the decks, once again had to turn off the music, and Lil Jon got on the mic to facilitate crowd control. “Do you mutha—-as wanna get this party shut down?! If you see someone climbin’ a fence, pull that mutha—-a doooown!” Lil Jon joked with the fans for a few more minutes, conjuring up a call-and-response to his popular catch phrases, “OK!,” “What?!” and “Yeah!,” bringing things back to a more positive vibe. Kids began to take their seats or file out to other stages. Benny Benassi’s set came complete with fireworks, pyrotechnics and an immaculate laser light show. He played seamless renditions of his hits “Satisfaction,” “Love Is Gonna Save Us” and the new “Spaceship” single, featuring vocals by Kelis and Black Eyed Peas rapper Apl.de.ap. The Cosmic Meadow stage featured some heavy hitters in the electro-house scene, including Wolfgang Gartner, LA Riots, MSTRKRFT and Duck Sauce, the collaboration between DJs A-Trak and Armand Van Helden. Special guest Boys Noize put on a powerful performance on the Circuit Grounds stage with his trademark beats and a stage armed with six massive screens and scorching lights that were set up to surround the entire audience. The Bass Pod stage held a very hyped crowd for the smooth sounds of LTJ Bukem, Brazilian drum-and-bass DJ Marky and the world-renowned turntablist Andy C. Finally, Armin Van Buuren closed out the Coliseum with a two-hour set of all his classic tracks and a grand finale of fireworks. The festival officially ended at 2 a.m., but the Insomniac afterparty, featuring yet another set by Benny Benassi, went on until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Were you at the Electric Daisy Carnival? Talk about it in the comments! Related Artists deadmau5 Will.I.Am
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Deadmau5, Will.I.Am, More Draw Huge Crowds To Electric Daisy Carnival
Andrew Wallenstein at The Hollywood Reporter suggests more than Al Gore’s marriage is crumbling. Gore’s cable channel Current TV is facing a dramatic makeover with an injection of MTV executives. Wallenstein tried to sugarcoat the inconvenient truths: For all the brilliance he has displayed grasping the meteorological dynamics governing the globe, Gore has miscalculated those of a slightly less complex world: the TV business. The radical ambitions he brought to the environment didn’t pan out the same way in cable; the television will not be revolutionized. Gore tried to sell off Current to his Google pals for half a billion dollars, but that didn’t take. So they’re taking the content away from small-d democracy and toward the persistent formula of other youth-culture channels, loaded with young-skewing documentaries and “reality” TV: For much of the past year, Current TV has been quietly undergoing an overhaul that will change just about everything but the struggling channel’s name. Current declined comment for this story. It’s a revitalization project Gore & Co. embarked on after exhausting a more lucrative possibility: selling the channel. Current’s founding partner, Joel Hyatt, spent much of 2009 shopping the network with a price tag that wildly overestimated the company’s worth, confirmed sources at several conglomerates. Current even had extensive sale talks as far back as 2007 with Google, where Gore serves as a senior advisor. Now the focus has shifted to fixing Current, perhaps with an eye toward a sale down the road. Last July, Hyatt was replaced as CEO by Mark Rosenthal, the former MTV Networks COO who is rebuilding the channel in the traditional mold Gore avowed to avoid, only to suffer the consequences. Rosenthal has brought in a crew of colleagues from his MTVN days including an unlikely ringer: Brian Graden, the programming genius who masterminded hit series from “South Park” to “The Osbournes,” before leaving last year. He’s on retainer as a consultant. Graden helped found the gay channel Logo and expressed joy last year at bringing documentaries to MTV with titles like “I’m Changing My Sex” and “I Work In the Sex Industry.” So here’s where the format change comes in: Forget bite-sized clips created by anonymous viewers; the new Current will consist of full-length series from the usual suspects in unscripted production who are getting the word that Current is open for business…. Several senior MTVN colleagues were brought in as consultants to engineer the turnaround including Hank Close, formerly president of ad sales. Several more key full-time hires have been made as well. But original programming is at the heart of any successful cable network, and for that he’s turned to Graden, who’s known for his knack for hits. Graden and Current make for an unusual combination. A network that has devoted significant time to serious topics ranging from AIDS in Africa to New Age spirituality is in the hands of Graden, who didn’t exactly win Peabodys for shows often criticized for corrupting America’s youth. Graden did not respond to an email seeking comment. The MTV infusion at Current is ironic considering the channel is essentially facing the same fundamental problem MTV confronted so successfully in the 1990s: a TV schedule comprised of multi-minute clips is far less advertising-friendly than the half-hours that ensure viewer tune-in isn’t so erratic. In other words, MTV “so successfully in the 1990s” dumped all the music videos in favor of “The Real World” ad infinitum, et cetera. [HT: Dan Isett]
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Al Gore’s Current TV Is Struggling
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Tagged africa, america, Breaking News, consequences, europe, government agencies, Hollywood, meteorological, Mtv, News, People, Street, united-states, words
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is admonishing the leaders of other countries attending the G-20 summit in Toronto to keep spending like there’s no tomorrow, because if they spend like there’s no tomorrow, there will still be a tomorrow. But in the gospel according to Geithner, if they don’t spend like there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be a tomorrow. With such blubbery logic, is it any wonder that America’s stature with the rest of the world is plummeting? Earlier this evening, Brent Baker at NewsBusters pointed to an ABC report warning that a second recession might be on the horizon if the G20 nations don’t follow the spend-spend-spend recommendations of the Obama administration. In his attempt to convince the rest of the world of the folly of being fiscally responsible, Geithner has invoked a supposed “lesson” from the 1930s. Back in mid-May, I happened to stumble on the fundamental untruth of his assertion, and will demonstrate it shortly. The Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa let Geithner’s contention pass without challenge in her Saturday report on the summit. Here are the three relevant paragraphs from her report: Asked if the global economy could slip back into another “double dip” recession, Geithner said the answer to that question hinges on decisions made by world leaders. “It is within the capacity of the people who are going to be in those rooms together in the next few days to avoid that outcome,” he said. One of the mistakes made in the 1930s was that countries pulled back their recovery efforts too soon, prolonging the Great Depression, he said. Geithner said the United States doesn’t want to see that happen again. “What we want to do is continue to emphasize that we are going to avoid that mistake,” he said. “It’s only been a year since the world economy stopped collapsing … it will take some time to heal.” What follows is a chart showing U.S. spending and GDP from 1923 to 1940, with a partial list of unemployment rates from roughly the same time frame immediately to its right: Hoover began the federal spending ramp-up in 1931 and 1932, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal took spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to the 9, well over double the level of the Coolidge years. He kept it there until 1940, after which pre-war and wartime spending kicked in. Despite all of what FDR did and tried, unemployment stayed persistently and unacceptably high. The gospel according to Geithner, as well as hard-core Keynesians like Paul Krugman at the New York Times, would tell us that FDR held up his end of the bargain by keeping the spending spigots open during the eight years that ended in 1940, and that it was the Europeans pulling back who prolonged the recession (Krugman even believes that FDR didn’t spend enough). One would therefore expect that folks living in countries that didn’t hold up their end of the spend-spend-spend bargain during that decade must have endured even more hardships than U.S. citizens did. The trouble is, as I discovered quite by accident on May 13, is that this isn’t at all what happened. In a Wall Street Journal column , Daniel Henninger quoted an eminent European economist who had passed away less than two years earlier. In the process of making a point that Henninger used about the mediocre performance of Europe during the 1990s, this historian also, when seen in the context of the graphics just presented, also made a huge point about the Europe of the 1930s: Angus Maddison, the eminent European historian of world economic development who died days before Europe’s debt crisis, wrote in 2001: “The most disturbing aspect of West European performance since 1973 has been the staggering rise in unemployment. In 1994-8 the average level was nearly 11% of the labor force. This is higher than the depressed years of the 1930s.” Whoa. Maddison’s assertion leads to these key factoids and points: Europe’s unemployment during the 1930s seldom if ever topped 11%. U.S. unemployment during the 1930s was always above Europe’s level by a few points; another source I found indicates that U.S. unemployment at one point dropped to about 12% in 1937 , but the point still stands. Europe’s “failure” to spend as Geithner thinks it should have during the 1930s doesn’t seem to have hurt it nearly as much as FDR’s insistence on continued spending hurt us. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that, absent contrary evidence, Tim Geithner is wrong and the Europeans of the 1930s were right. It would also seem that Europe’s renewed intent to rein in government spending is a wiser course than the spend-spend-spend strategy of the Obama administration (how serious the European countries are about restraining spending remains to be seen; if Europe tries to solve its problem primarily with tax increases, all bets are off). Jeannine Aversa’s relay of Geithner’s more than likely false assertion about the 1930s deserved much more skepticism that it received. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
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Geithner Miscasts the 1930s at the G-20 Summit; AP’s Aversa Lets Him Get Away With It
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Tagged bennyhollywood, countries, economy, europe, government agencies, historian, Hollywood, jeannine aversa, labor, mma, People, secretary, Street, united-states
Cosima is the couple’s second child, joining 3-year-old sister Romy. By Eric Ditzian Sofia Coppola and Thomas Mars Photo: Getty Images Oscar-winning director Sofia Coppola and Grammy-winning Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars have recently given birth to their second baby girl, People magazine reports. Named Cosima, the girl was born “within the last month,” a source told the magazine. The newborn is the couple’s second daughter, joining Romy, who is now 3 years old. The couple began dating in 2005 and revealed that Coppola, who won a best writing Oscar for “Lost in Translation,” was pregnant in December. The duo have most recently collaborated on Coppola’s upcoming film “Somewhere,” with Phoenix writing what Mars has described as a “very minimal” soundtrack for the project. “She asked us to do some music, very in the spirit of ‘Love Like a Sunset,’ so we tried to put that track and elements of the track in the movie, and it worked well,” Phoenix guitarist Christian Mazzalai told MTV Radio. “And then we wrote very small pieces of music, very minimal music for the movie too. … We’re very proud of it.” “This is the first time we feel [that] the music fits to the picture,” bassist Deck D’Arcy added. “We’ve [been on] many soundtracks before, and it’s always weird for us — producers must like [our songs], of course, if they use them — but for us, it’s always weird to see them in the films.” Starring Stephen Dorff as a Hollywood bad boy, “Somewhere” takes place largely at the famed Chateau Marmont hotel. The first trailer dropped earlier this month, with the film expected to hit theaters in December. Mars, meanwhile, continues to tour with Phoenix, which won a Best Alternative Music Album Grammy last year. The band kicked off the latest leg of their tour June 11 in North Carolina and then headed off to Germany and the U.K. They’ll weave throughout Europe before returning to the States in August and finally wrapping up in Mexico City at the end of September. Share your well-wishes for the new parents in the comments below!
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Sofia Coppola And Phoenix’s Thomas Mars Have Baby Girl
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Tagged celeb news, couple, europe, Music, news article, Phoenix, sofia-coppola, songs, sunset, tour, translation
The Bachelorette certainly had its moments last night, including steamy hot springs action and a 2-on-1 date in which the two most out-there suitors squared off. But it was the preview for next week that really got fans talking after an episode that was more or less tame. Who has a girlfriend? Is this promo just a gimmick? We know the answer to both. You’ll have to see The Bachelorette spoilers for who it is, and surprisingly, it’s not just editing or character assassination by ABC. This legitimately fell in the producers’ laps, catching Ali Fedotowsky completely off guard and explaining her irate reaction as depicted in next week’s promo. Anyway, on to Monday night, and Kasey’s krushing farewell. Who’s emerging as the favorite(s)? THG breaks down all the action below in its plus-minus index … AWESOME ALI : The guys are falling harder and harder.
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Tagged ali fedotowsky, bachelorette, chris-lambton, europe, Gossip, hollywood update, kasey, know-the-answer, recently-signed, richard-luna, roberto martinez
Subscription model seen as best bet over long term, while analysts say Sky may load rival with poor content News Corporation is to put another of its services behind a paywall as it emerged yesterday that Sky Sports News is to be pulled from Freeview. BSkyB, which launched Sky Sports News on Freeview in 2002 with Sky News and Sky Travel, is to replace the channel with a one-hour timeshifted Sky 3+1 service later this year. Sky 3 replaced Sky Travel in 2005. Industry experts also believe that BSkyB could decide that its Sky News website, currently freely available on the internet, should go behind a paywall. The decision on Sky Sports News, which has an average daily reach of 2.1m according to television measuring service Barb, marks a significant shift in BSkyB’s attitude to the benefits of using the reach of the free-to-air service as a marketing channel to attract subscribers to its pay-TV service. With subscription charges about to start on the Times’s website as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire searches for new revenue streams, News Corp is undergoing a major restructuring of its business model. It is already looking to maximise revenues from its Sky TV channels by launching a bid for the 61% of the satellite broadcaster that it does not presently own. Despite the Sky Sports News service benefiting from advertising revenues on the Freeview platform, it is thought that BSkyB has decided that over the long term there is more advantage to be had from a subscription model. As part of the move, BSkyB is to boost editorial investment in Sky Sports News as it prepares to launch a high-definition service. When the service is removed from digital terrestrial service Freeview, it will be available on subscription services Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk TV. “As part of a subscription service, customers can look forward to expanded coverage and the launch of Europe’s first HD sports news service,” said Barney Francis, the managing director of Sky Sports. BSkyB is seeking to pull valuable free content and boost the “must have” factor of its pay services ahead of rivals introducing cut-price Sky Sports packages for the next Premier League season. In April Sky was ordered to slash the price it offers Sky Sports 1 and 2 wholesale to rivals including Virgin Media and BT Vision . Alexander Wisch, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, said: “In my view if they are forced to sell key content, like sport, at regulated wholesale prices, why give out anything for free? “Its pay TV platform may be under threat from the wholesale issue so if anyone can soon offer Sky Sports [at highly competitive prices] then BSkyB will be asking what they can offer as added value to subscribers. They are looking to make the pay TV service more interesting, the destination for sport.” Wisch also believed that it was unlikely but not out of the question for BSkyB to be considering the long-term strategy of keeping Sky News on Freeview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they pull other content out [of free platforms],” he said. “Sky News is important to them on Freeview, so far, and while I can’t see it coming off in the near term, I wouldn’t rule anything out.” BSkyB is expected to reach its highly publicised 10 million subscriber target this year. The weakening of Freeview would help shore up the pay-TV company’s longer-term position. Replacing Sky Sports News with a time-shifted version of Sky 3 was described by one former senior Sky executive as “a cheap way to fill airtime with relatively pointless TV”. BSkyB will pick up a fourth slot on Freeview when it takes over the Virgin 1 channel, assuming regulatory clearance is given to its £160m takeover of Virgin Media Television’s channels . BSkyB did not buy the licence to continue operating the Virgin 1 name. “Freeview delivers some advertising revenues for them, but is a potent rival for the pay TV platform, so they do benefit from a weaker Freeview, with a poorer content offering,” said one industry source. “Full conspiracy theory could see Sky put crap on the channel to make the inferior Freeview offering more so. Make a rival suffer, that is the pay TV way.” BSkyB Freeview Television industry Media business BSkyB Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk
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Sky Sports News to go behind paywall in battle with Freeview broadcasters
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