The BBC Trust has recommended that the BBC make a number of improvements to its website and has also called on the corporation to merge its online and Red Button operations. 

In a review of BBC Online and BBC Red Button, published today, the BBC’s governing body said that the BBC should look to improve navigation across the different parts of BBC Online, with an improved links and design consistency and better search functionality.

It also said that as the BBC Red Button “increasingly becomes a gateway to access BBC Online,” it would be sensible to bring them together under a single service license. This would help them to complement each other in the future, the Trust said.

The other recommendations put forward include calls for the BBC to “provide better local news and information,” following complaints that the BBC’s local sites are not as strong as its UK and international news output.

The Trust said it also supports plans to re-launch of the BBC’s Knowledge and Learning sites later this year, with better links to and from other BBC content.

“In the five years since we first reviewed BBC Online, the digital world has advanced rapidly and people’s expectations of online services have changed. For example, in 2008 the iPlayer was just launching, whereas now audiences consider it a ‘world class’ part of the BBC’s online offer,” said BBC Trustee Suzanna Taverne, who led the review.

Taverne added that the recommendations are designed to help BBC Online “remain the ‘go-to’ website for millions of users each day.”

The report marks the second service review of Online and Red Button, which were last reviewed in 2008 and 2010 respectively. A public consultation on the BBC’s proposal to merge BBC Online and BBC Red Button under a single service licence has now been launched and will run until August 13.

More than 75% of MPEG-DASH deployments are due to take place either the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014, according to a new study by the DASH Industry Forum. 

Based on a survey of major European broadcasters, the forum found that much of this adoption is expected to take place under the HbbTV 1.5 standard, with the majority of deployments due to take place in the second half of this year.

The biggest challenge noted was the availability of DASH clients – which are expected to be largely available in the second half of 2013 – while the availability of content packaging tools was the second biggest concern.

Live and on-demand services will be offered by almost all European broadcasters using the standard, while time-shifted content delivery will be deployed by half of them, according to the survey.

DASH allows delivery of both non-protected content and content encrypted with multiple concurrent DRM schemes. The polled broadcasters indicated that while some content will be delivered without DRM, Playready and Marlin were the two DRM solutions that they were considering most, followed by Widevine and Verimatrix.

US pay TV platform DirecTV is the latest company to be linked with a move for Hulu.

The pay TV company has reportedly been interested in Hulu before and the latest reports come as various companies continue to be linked to a deal for the on-demand service

Bloomberg reported last week that Time Warner Cable was in talks about taking a Hulu stake and a week earlier there were reports that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer and COO Henrique De Castro had met with Hulu representatives and were interested in buying into the VOD firm.

Financial firm Guggenheim Partners and Amazon have also been linked with Hulu as has Peter Chernin’s investment vehicle as its co-owners, Disney, News Corp. and Comcast, weigh their options.

DirecTV was first linked with Hulu in 2011, but its owners ultimately decided not to sell. The weekend reports originated in The Wall Street Journal and cited unnamed sources familiar with the situation. They said DirecTV could buy some or all of Hulu.

Belgian communications news site Bloovi reported that Netflix was gearing up for a Belgian launch before the end of the year, while Le Soir reported that France and the Netherlands were likely to go live first, followed by Belgium by the end of the year.

Netflix said last month that it plans to launch in an additional European market in the second half of 2013, promising more details on the deployment in July. In a posting on the firm’s job site earlier this year, it said it was looking to hire language experts “to provide localisation for the Netflix experience in the following languages: Turkish, Dutch, Hindi, French, and Korean.”

In a blog post to mark the video site’s eight-year anniversary, YouTube also said that each month more than 1 billion people visit the site – almost half the world’s internet population.

Thompson, who was at Arqiva until 2011, will work with WRN Broadcast’s board and executive management team to help inform the company’s strategic development plan and progress the company’s growth, WRN said.

“With our recent investment into key emerging areas and with several significant customer wins Nick joins us at a very exciting time for the company. We welcome the wealth of experience Nick brings and we are excited to have his guidance and support,” said WRN Broadcast chairman Tim Ashburner.

WRN Broadcast provides multi-channel playout, content management and distribution services for firms including Viacom, Top Up TV and Zuku.

Prior to Arqiva, Thompson worked as president of EMEA at Loral CyberStar, as managing director of the satellite division at Kingston Communications and as CEO of Inmedia Communications.

Launching ahead of the UEFA Champions League final this weekend, Sports 360 will let users select and replay action during the game from over 20 different camera angles.

Live multi-camera technology from EVS will also makes feeds from around the pitch available during the game, allowing fans to pick a camera angle and to watch highlights in slow motion.

“This is about putting the technology into the hands of the viewer and allowing them to recapture the big moments in the final. It’s the first time we’ve offered this through our app and it’s another example of our investment in the Sky Sports viewer’s experience,” said David Gibbs, director of Sky Sports Digital Media.

The channel broadcasts in two languages ​​- Russian and Belarusian – and airs documentaries, historical shows, talk shows, religious TV programs and programs for children and students.

Al Rostamani is currently head of Strategy and Planning at First Gulf Bank and was nominated by shareholder Emirates Investment Authority as a representative to replace Younis Al Khoori. Her appointment is due to be ratified at a board meeting on June 3.

All Things Digital reported Sunday night that the Yahoo! board had approved the all-cash deal, with an official announcement expected as early as today.

The deal will mark Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s biggest deal since taking charge of Yahoo! in 2012, and follows reports earlier this month that Yahoo! had also held preliminary talks with US video-on-demand site Hulu  as one of a number of firms considering making a bid for that business.