EXCLUSIVE: After extensive negotiations last week Sharp Sony Panasonic and LG have reached agreement with Freeview to work with them going forward Samsung have not yet come to the party ChannelNews can reveal.
Later today Freeview intend to release a press statement that is currently being vetted by lawyers for Freeview said Robin Parkes the CEO of Freeview. However several TV manufacturers that we have spoken to today have said that all they have ageed to is an “Intention to work with Freeview agreement” and not a full blown marketing agreement contract.
On Friday Laurie Nolan the Marketing Director of Sharp was telling ChannelNews that he had not cut a deal with Freeview to launch Freeview compliant TV’s. He even demanded a retraction of an earlier story that we wrote that indicated that Sharp was set to launch Freeview compliant TV’s with duel MPEG 4 and MPEG2 processors.
We can now reveal that late on Friday night and after demanding a retraction from ChannelNews and SmartHouse Nolan wrote to Freeview boss Robin Parkes saying “I can confirm that Sharp fully intends to work with Freeview to provide co-branded products”.
The about face came after Freeview released manufacturers from an original NDA, that restricted manufacturers from commenting to the media on any issues involving Freeview.
Several manufacturers that we spoke to last month said that they would not support Freeview in light of the current Freeview technical scoping document however during the past few weeks several TV vendors have negotiated with Freeview with several offering a compromise solution over the proposed MPEG4 TV’s.
What the TV manufactures is set to deliver later this year duel processor HD TV’s with both MPEG4 and MPEG 5 processors this will allow consumers to still record TV programs and ad skip commercials Vs an exclusive MPEG4 HD TV which would have restricted the ease with which TV commercials could be ad skipped.
Freeview which is a consortium made up of free to air TV stations is set to roll out a major TV advertising campaign in May to promote Freeview.
More to follow.
