Nickelodeon Talks About Their Brand New Adaptation Of "Peter Rabbit"; To Fully Premiere On Nickelodeon USA In March 2013; To Be Supported With Merchandise; "Peter Rabbit's Christmas Tale" To Air In The UK Christmas Eve On BBC1

From The New York Times:

Bet Your Camomile Tea, Peter, You're a TV Star Now

Nickelodeon approached “Peter Rabbit” with the hopes that the series would have built-in appeal to parents who grew up with the blue-coated anthropomorphic bunny.

[Above image courtesy] Nickelodeon;
Lily Bobtail, Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the holiday special “Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale,” appearing Dec. 14 on Nickelodeon. A series begins in March.
In Beatrix Potter’s first version of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” a menacing Mrs. McGregor leans over a kitchen table and presented a steaming-hot pie to Mr. McGregor, who holds a knife and fork at the ready. The pie, of course, is stuffed with the remains of Peter’s father.

An original illustration of Peter Rabbit from 1902.
Potter’s publisher, Frederick Warne & Company, said the image was too horrific for young children. She protested, and the publisher decided to keep the story line but remove the illustration from the 1902 edition.

You might think young viewers today would be much harder to shock. But Nickelodeon, which is remaking Potter’s books as a “Peter Rabbit” animated series, concluded that the death by pie was still too horrific for children even 110 years later. But executives did want the story to be set up around a single mother, which appealed to test audiences.

“Here’s a single mom raising four bunnies,” said Teri Weiss, executive vice president of production and development for Nickelodeon preschool. “That’s an important element we thought kids could connect with.”

Nickelodeon embarked on “Peter Rabbit” with the hopes that the series, regular episodes of which are to go on the air in March, would have built-in appeal to parents who grew up with the blue-coated anthropomorphic bunny. The network, which has seen its ratings decline recently, took a similar approach with older viewers in September when it introduced an updated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

But redoing “Peter Rabbit,” one of the most popular and beloved children’s properties, comes with potential pitfalls. Change too much, and audiences who loved the original will cringe. Don’t change enough, and it could come off looking like a stale imitation of the idyllic original.

“You can’t fundamentally mess with something that has been around for that long,” Cyma Zarghami, president of Viacom’s Nickelodeon Group, said. “It was about freshening up his look.”

The new “Peter Rabbit” features computer-animated imagery in soft pastel hues. Peter and his friends get into the same type of outdoorsy adventures as they used to, set against the backdrop of the sweeping landscapes of the Lake District in England, which Potter devoted her later life to preserving. Animators visited the district and took more than 3,000 photos before embarking on recreating the scenery.

[Above image courtesy:] Nickelodeon; The newer [Peter] rabbit.
A team of animators worked exclusively on the fur of the bunnies, foxes and badgers. They made sure it blew in the wind realistically as the characters slid down a frozen lake or looked sufficiently damp after a snowball fight. “Capturing that warmth in CGI is really important,” Ms. Weiss said. “You want to feel like you’re holding a furry bunny in your hands.”

But showing Peter’s father’s death didn’t seem so warm and fuzzy. “That would scare a 4-year-old witless, and it wouldn’t get past standards and practices these days,” said Waheed Alli, the British media mogul whose Silvergate Media bought the rights to “The World of Beatrix Potter,” which includes Potter’s library of animals, and is a co-producer of the Nickelodeon version.

The series instead portrays a fatherless Peter and a cruel Mr. McGregor but doesn’t go into gory detail. In “Peter Rabbit’s Christmas Tale,” a holiday special having its premiere Dec. 14 on Nickelodeon, Peter’s mother passes down his father’s journal, filled with chronicles of adventures, and several empty pages for Peter to fill in.

Peter and his risk-averse buddy Benjamin get into outdoor mischief similar to what was in the books. The only rule the Potter estate insisted on was that Peter wear his royal-blue coat, a hand-me-down from his father, in the television series. Nickelodeon added a character, Lily Bobtail.

Lily, a city rabbit whose doctor father recently moved the family to the rural Lake District, has a pet ladybug and a “just-in-time” pouch that stores an array of helpful items that get the bunnies out of problematic situations. “We wanted a strong female lead and that was Lily,” Lord Alli said.

In the British edition, which will be broadcast on Christmas Eve [Monday 24th December 2012] on BBC1, the bunnies will have English accents. (Mr. McGregor is English in both versions.) Lord Alli said the timing was fortuitous given the recent news that the duchess of Cambridge, the wife of Prince William, is pregnant. “Princess Diana was a huge fan, and William grew up with Peter Rabbit,” he said. “We’re really keen to have a royal baby with Peter Rabbit.”

Potter initially wrote and illustrated stories about a troublemaking rabbit named Peter in the 1890s to entertain the ailing 5-year-old son of her former governess. After several publishers rejected the book, she published “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” herself in 1901. Frederick Warne & Company put out a commercial edition a year later. “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” became one of the best-selling books of all time and, along with the next five titles in the series, sold more than 150 million copies in 36 languages.

Shortly after the first 28,000 copies of “The Tales of Peter Rabbit” hit bookshelves in Britain in 1902, knockoffs began to appear in the United States. With no United States copyright, unlicensed issues of “Peter Rabbit” started to emerge, and Potter and her publisher could not stop them.

“Nickelodeon’s series is just one of a long run of spinoffs going back to the original first edition,” said John Bidwell, the curator of an exhibition on Potter’s illustrated letters currently on display at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

And like the Nickelodeon series, in most of those spinoffs publishers and animators took out Potter’s scarier story lines. “I think it’s a just criticism of the modern Beatrix Potters is that they lack the sardonic humor that makes Beatrix Potter so much fun for kids and grown-ups,” Mr. Bidwell said.

Of course the Nickelodeon version is not a knockoff. Penguin Group, which now owns the “Peter Rabbit” publisher Frederick Warne & Company, is much more vehement about copyright. Warne retains underlying ownership and has global rights to all publishing based on the classic books and the new series. Lord Alli’s Silvergate owns merchandising, licensing and animation rights to “The World of Beatrix Potter.” Viacom partnered with both companies to bring “Peter Rabbit” to Nickelodeon.

In addition to the “Peter Rabbit” television series, a line of plush bunny toys, books and related accessories will arrive in stores soon. Nickelodeon already sells products to go with its aging “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Dora the Explorer” series. The company said “Peter Rabbit” clothing and stuffed animals could help it make inroads with babies and their parents, a group that a competitor, Disney, already appeals to.

That may initially sound like a big United States media conglomerate turning an artistic classic into a commercial cash cow, but it’s not far from what Potter herself did after she realized she had a hit. She had Peter-inspired dolls, wallpaper, tea sets and porcelain dishes, which she called her “side shows,” Mr. Bidwell said.

Lord Alli added, “She was the first person to do licensing and merchandising.”

Nickelodeon Brazil Preps New Teen Telenovela

Television news website C21Media has announced the Nickelodeon News that Nickelodeon Brazil is developing a brand new daily telenovela series following the success of its locally produced live-action teen drama "Julie & the Phantoms". Roberto Martha, director of production at Viacom Networks Brasil, told C21 that the as-yet unnamed series will feature 70 episodes 60 minutes long and will air on Nickelodeon Latin America. You can read the Nick News article, titled "Nick Brazil preps teen novela", in full here on the official C21Media website, c21media.net (paid subscription required).

"Ben And Holly's Little Kingdom" Producer Phil Davies Confirms The Preschool Shows New Mayor Is Not Based On The Mayor Of London, Boris Johnson

According to the following news article from Express.co.uk, Phil Davies, the producer of the popular Nick Jr. Channel UK and Ireland animated preschool series "Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom", has confirmed to journalists that the new Mayor of the shows enchanted magical kingdom is not based on the current (2012) Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (also known as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson):

BORIS JOHNSON HAS NEW ROLE IN BEN AND HOLLY'S LITTLE KINGDOM

The cartoon mayor in Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom
THE thatch of white-blond hair seems familiar and the plummy voice is unmistakable.

The new mayor in the imaginary land of the hit children’s programme Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom looks an awful lot like Boris Johnson.

The fairyland town hall chief, whose upper-crust charms mimic the style of London mayor Boris, appears in the premiere of the new series of Ben and Holly on the Nickelodeon channel.

The hit show for pre-school children is screened in 43 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. The enchanted magic kingdom home of elf Ben and fairy Princess Holly is also a favourite on Channel 5.

Last night show co-producer Phil Davies insisted: “Any resemblance to real persons, either living or dead is purely coincidental.”

Boris would not be the first politician to be celebrated in cartoon form. Tony Blair was animated for The Simpsons.

"Any resemblance to real persons, either living or dead is purely coincidental"

Phil Davies

Below is a photograph of Mayor of London, Boris Johnson:

US Mobile Network Operator Verizon Wireless Announces Plans To Close Down Their V CAST Service; To Focus On Viewdini

From Phones Review:

Farewell Verizon Vcast, so download focused viewdini

If you happen to be over in the USA and a Verizon customer that uses the Big Red's Vcast service, unfortunately as of the 15th of this month you will no longer be able to take advantage of what Verizon Vcast has to offer. This is because the Big Red has stated that they are to shut down the 7-year old Vcast service as of the 15th of this month.

Once the Big Red shuts down Vcast, the number one carrier in the USA will switch their focus towards a free video service known as viewdini, which is available as a mobile app for both Android and iOS devices. However Verizon customers should be made aware that the closure of Vcast will not affect current data or calling plans.

The viewdini mobile application for both iOS and Android devices have been available for both platforms for a while, and is a free application that enables users to search for and browse TV shows, web videos, and movies on their smartphone or tablet.

The viewdini app offers such services as Netflix, Xfinity, mSpot, Hulu Plus and more, whilst when is comes to NFL content, Verizon has stated that users will need to download and subscribe to NFL Mobile.

Verizon Vcast was introduced way back in 2005, and then came to the Android platform back in 2010, and offered such things as live sporting content along with TV shows from such networks as CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and NBC. However it appears that the Big Red feels the service is now getting on in years and has decided to shut it down.

The reason for the closure is apparently so that Verizon can better serve the demands of their customers, and the closure of Vcast will allow the carrier to focus on delivering the best video experience in wireless, namely viewdini, which they say is a new video service for 4G enabled Apple and Android devices.

For those Verizon user that will be downloading the viewdini app to their chosen device either from iTunes or Google Play, but would like to know a bit more about how the app works, we have a viewdini for iPhone review video for your viewing consideration below. So hit that play button to check out the footage.

However some users are not too happy with veiwdini, as some iOS users are saying the only carrier listed is Comcast, whilst some Android users are not too happy with Verizon taking away the free movie sites, and some have even found that the app stops and doesn’t play videos or even take them to where they can watch the content.

Thus is would appear that the viewdini app has some problems, so we’d like to hear from any of our reader that use the viewdini app to let us know their opinions by dropping us a line to our comments area [here on the official Phones Review website, phonesreview.co.uk].

Review Of Norwegian Cruise's Norwegian Epic – A Lifetime Of Entertainment In One Trip

From This is Grimsby:

Review of the Norwegian Epic

Advertisement Feature

If you’re thinking of booking a cruise holiday this year then make sure you pick Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Cruise lines newest, biggest and most spectacular ship to date. There’s a whole host of fantastic facilities and great European and Caribbean destinations to visit. With dining, entertainment and fantastic facilities all included in the price, you can have the holiday of your dreams without breaking the bank.

Norwegian Epic – A Lifetime of Entertainment in One Trip

One of the many benefits of choosing cruise deals aboard Norwegian Epic is that you can pack so much into your holiday. Not only can you visit a range of fabulous destinations, but you can also experience some of the best entertainment, dining and activities that cruise holidays have to offer on board this palatial ship.

Entertainment highlights include the out of this world Blue Man Group, Cirque dreams and Legends in concert, whilst kids will adore the messy fun of Nickelodeon Slime Time Live.

With more than 20 places to eat you can enjoy a different dining experience every day of the week. Indulge in an Italian feast at the friendly and informal Pizza 24/7, get traditional fare for all the family at O’Sheehan’s Neighbourhood Bar & Grill or sample the finest in French cuisine at Le Bistro.

Enjoy an after dinner drink at one of the many bars on board. Sip elegant cocktails at Shaker’s Martini Bar, enjoy the super cool atmosphere of the SVEDKA Ice Bar or relax with a post-show tipple at the glamorous Epic Theatre Bar.

At the end of each evening you can retire to relax and recuperate in a choice of top notch accommodation including suites, family villas and even a Penthouse complete with balcony. There’s plenty of smart and serviceable accommodation for everyone to enjoy.

On Board Facilities

When you’re not enjoying excursions on one of Norwegian Epic's Caribbean or Mediterranean cruises, you can make the most of on board facilities including a great kids pool complete with three multi-storey water slides, two adult pools for sedate sunbathing, a sports centre, jogging track, casino and even a market place where you can shop till you drop. So whether you want to relax and unwind or fill your vacation with non-stop activity and excitement, you’ll find what you need onboard this incredible ship.

Nickelodeon Consumer Products To Attend The Kazachok Licensing Forum In April 2013

According to the following Nickelodeon News article from Licensing.biz, Nickelodeon Consumer Products will have a exhibit at Kazachok Licensing Forum 2013, which is due to be held between Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th April 2013 at the Halle Freyssinet in Paris, France, where the Kazachok Licensing Forum will be celebrating its tenth anniversary:

Kazachok Licensing Forum dated for 2013

Paris show will be celebrating its tenth anniversary; taking place on April 17th and 18th.

The Kazachok Licensing Forum is gearing up to celebrate its tenth anniversary next year.

The show is due to run on April 17th and 18th, 2013 at the Halle Freyssinet in Paris.

The 2012 event saw 80 exhibitors showcasing 2,500 brands. 1,800 attendees came through the doors over the two days of the show.

Exhibitors already confirmed include CPLG, Alphanim, Nelvana, Nickelodeon Consumer Products, The Licensing Company, Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Sega Europe, Turner and Zodiak among others.

The Kazachok Licensing Gallery will also return after a successful debut in 2012. The multi-category showroom dedicated to distributors will be re-organised by brand/property next year.

In addition, a new feature called Agency Brands Dating will be introduced. During a special lunch on Thursday April 18th from 12.30pm to 2pm, a number of exhibitors will introduce their brands and unveil potential promotions they can offer to partners.

For further details on the show, simply click on this link to visit the official website.

Tags: kazachok licensing forum

Nickelodeon UK Announces Plans To Show The Brand New Nickelodeon Reality Show "You Gotta See This" From January 2013!

Nickelodeon UK has announced to NickALive! the Nick News that Nick UK is planning to start to premiere and show the brand new Nickelodeon reality show "You Gotta See This", which is hosted by Nickelodeon Stars Noah Caleb Crawford and Chris Richard O'Neal (who portray the characters 'Nelson Baxter' and 'Kevin Reed', respectively, in the popular Nickelodeon comedy series "How To Rock") on Nickelodeon UK and Ireland and Nickelodeon HD UK in January 2013 as part of "January on Nickelodeon UK 2013"!

The show that rolls the funniest celebrity interviews, bloopers, pranks, behind-the-scenes footage, and web clips of the week into one hilarious half-hour.

Viacom President And Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman To Appear At The Gabelli Best Ideas Conference On Thursday 13th December 2012

Below is a Viacom Inc. Press Release from PRNewswire announcing the news that Philippe Dauman, the President and CEO of Viacom Inc., will be making an appearance at the Gabelli Best Ideas Conference on Thursday, December 13, 2012, at approximately 10.00am (ET):

Viacom President And Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman To Appear At The Gabelli Best Ideas Conference

NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2012 /Viacom PR From PRNewswire/ -- Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) today announced that Philippe Dauman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the 5th Annual Gabelli Best Ideas Conference on Thursday, December 13, 2012, at approximately 10:00 a.m. (ET). A live webcast of Mr. Dauman's question-and-answer session will be available to the general public through a link on the Investor Relations homepage of Viacom's website, www.viacom.com. A replay of the audio webcast will be available in the "Events / Webcasts" section of the site.

(Download image - Viacom Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110811/NY51392LOGO )
About Viacom

Viacom is home to the world's premier entertainment brands that connect with audiences through compelling content across television, motion picture, online and mobile platforms in over 160 countries and territories. With more than 160 media networks reaching approximately 700 million global subscribers, Viacom's leading brands include MTV, VH1, CMT, Logo, BET, CENTRIC, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., TeenNick, Nicktoons, Nick at Nite, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV Land, SPIKE and Tr3s. Paramount Pictures, celebrating its 100th year in 2012 and creator of many of the most beloved motion pictures, continues today as a major global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment. Viacom operates a large portfolio of branded digital media experiences, including many of the world's most popular properties for entertainment, community and casual online gaming.

For more information about Viacom and its businesses, visit www.viacom.com. Keep up with Viacom news by following Viacom's blog at blog.viacom.com and Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/Viacom.

SOURCE Viacom Inc.

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http://www.viacom.com.

NowTV Vs Netflix Vs Lovefilm - On-Demand TV Showdown

From the International Business Times:

NowTV vs Netflix vs Lovefilm - On-Demand TV Showdown

With NowTV entering the on-demand fray, we take a look at how it shapes up against its two biggest rivals, Netflix and Lovefilm Instant, to find the best on-demand service in the UK

The internet has changed much of how we live our lives - from where we get our news and manage our finances, to how we purchase music, food and just about anything else you could imagine. But until recently the television had missed out on much of this.

That black box we point all of our furniture at performs much as it did 20 years ago. Sure, along the way we've seen a shift from analogue to digital, standard to high definition and even 3D, but how we use the television - flicking around aimlessly, catching the last 20 minutes of our favourite film and, more recently, deleting content from our always-overflowing recorders - has stayed the same.

On-demand hopes to change all this, putting the power back in our hands, letting us watch what we want, when we want and even where we want.

We've looked at the three main players in the UK - Netflix, Lovefilm and NowTV - to see if television can be viewed the way we want, in high quality, and for less money than our current satellite subscription.

Netflix

Boasting thousands of films and TV episodes across a wide range of devices, Netflix arrived in the UK earlier this year and costs £5.99 per month with no long-term contract to sign.

Netflix offers a free 30-day trial - although you need to enter valid credit/debit card details and remember to cancel if you don't want to start paying - so we signed up, downloaded the iPhone and Xbox apps, and got to work/watched a film.

Netflix: Catalogue and ease-of-use

We say iPhone app...Netflix is available pretty much everywhere, with apps for PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Xbox, iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Smart TVs, as well as access via PC, Mac and some Blu-ray players.

Being able to watch films and TV on the move is great - and the app always continues from where you left off, no matter which device you're watching on - but what we're looking for is a replacement to our Sky subscription, so high quality content on our TV is what we need.

When first setting up Netflix you are asked to input how much a range of film genres appeal to you. Doing this helps Netflix to serve up content that it hopes will be relevant to you.

There are 17 different sections of content to browse, from Action and Adventure, to Comedy, Horro, Romance and Thriller. A Section of HD content and TV programmes are included in this 17, and there's an entirely separate section for kids' content with 14 genres covering Action, Comedy, Superheroes, Talking Animals and content from Nickelodeon.

To try and quantify the range offered by each service, we've searched them all for the top 30 films of 2000 to 2009 as voted for by IMDB users. It's not the most scientific test, but we wanted to see if complaints of these services lacking recent films are justified.

Netflix had just three of the 30, with notable absentees including The Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, all James Bond films, The Dark Knight, and many more.

As for television content, there is the usual American favourites like 24, Breaking Bad, Lost and Prison Break, as well as older content from the BBC and Channel 4. But, as with the film selection, you'll struggle to find much from the last year or two, although new episodes of Breaking Bad are available.

Netflix: Quality

Netflix claims to offer HD content and there's even a separate section for it under the genres tab, but we found the quality to be no better than a standard definition DVD. It's good compared to most YouTube content, but no one is being fooled here - it's simply not HD.

This isn't a deal-breaker though, as there is a trade-off here between getting instant access to average-quality content, and waiting for HD video to buffer; and that £5.99 per month subscription makes us forgive Netflix's attempt at HD much more easily than if a £50 per month Sky package was of similar quality.

Both HD and standard video starts playing almost instantly - even on a connection of just two or three Mbps - and it's easy to skip through to a certain point in what you're watching, as a preview frame shows up when you hover over the timeline. Click, and there's just a couple seconds of buffering before the video resumes - of course, this isn't as easy on the Xbox, where fast-forwarding is the only option, but even then there is minimal buffering.

Netflix: Verdict

It's hard to fault how Netflix works; from the huge range of applications, to good quality video - even if it's not actually HD - and everything we watched streamed smoothly from the start, with no interruptions from extra buffering.

You'll only find a couple of films that are less than a year old, and very few less than two, but as we explain below, Sky has a stranglehold on new releases and to get them you'll be paying nearly three times more than the £5.99 per month Netflix costs.

Where Netflix has the upper hand is with television. There's a good range on offer here, with content from the UK and US, and while you won't find new episodes right after they've aired, it's a good place to start watching old box sets again and the interface makes it easy to dig out specific episodes.

Lovefilm Instant

As with Netflix, Lovefilm started as a postal service that delivered DVDs to your door from a wishlist that you filled out online. After already owning a large stake in the company, Amazon bought Lovefilm in January 2011 and has continued to run it as a separate company to this day.

At the end of 2011 Lovefilm Instant was launched, which streams high quality TV programmes and films to a range of devices and television sets - just like Netflix. Though it should be pointed out there is only a streaming app for iPad - iPhone and Android users miss out here.

However if you own a Kindle Fire HD, then Lovefilm is the default video service for the tablet and all video content is served by Lovefilm.

Lovefilm: Catalogue and ease-of-use

The service claims to offer 8,000 films, available to watch instantly and a lot of which can be streamed in HD, although in our case it was a far cry from actual HD (more on that below).

As with Netflix, you must create a user account and enter your billing details before starting the month-long free trial - and don't forget to cancel if you don't intend to continue using the servicve as otherwise Lovefilm will start charging you £4.99 per month.

A search for the top 30 films of 2000-2009 returned zero results. Every single film was available to rent on DVD (with a lot on Blu-ray, too), but Lovefilm's on-demand service was a letdown.

For television, partnerships with ABC and the BBC means there is a decent range of British and American programmes to choose from, but you'll struggle to find anything less than a year old.

Lovefilm's website isn't as intuitive as Netflix, but the Xbox app is very similar and makes finding what you're looking for completely painless. The website required us to install Microsoft's SIlverlight on our MacBook, which at first threw up a couple of errors, but a quick reboot soon solved these problems.

Lovefilm: Quality

Despite adding an HD stamp to much of its content, Lovefilm Instant's quality, as with Netflix, isn't HD and instead looks similar to DVD.

When we first tried Lovefilm Instant on a laptop the quality was terrible and buffering interrupted our film every few seconds, but we tried again through the Xbox 360 app and found no such problems.

The internet connection we used to test these on-demand services is quite poor, at around 5Mbps, but that same connection had no trouble playing Netflix content without any buffering at all, so we're still putting the blame on Lovefilm's doorstep here, even if our experience on the Xbox was better.

As we said, it's certainly not HD and is probably slightly less than DVD quality, but it's watchable, and our view a few feet away on the sofa was perfectly acceptable, although the picture became slightly blocky during scenes with a lot of fast movement.

Lovefilm: Verdict

From the amount of content, to ease-of-use and picture quality, we felt that Lovefilm wasn't quite as good as Netflix, even if it is £1 a month cheaper.

We had some pretty major problems with playback on our laptop, with lots of buffering and poor quality video - and this was over the same internet connection that saw good quality and no buffering from Netflix.

The whole point of paying for a service like this is because you enjoy films and TV, and want to see more, but sadly the experience Lovefilm offers isn't enough to compete with Netflix.

Up the quality, or throw in some exclusive blockbuster content, and we may reconsider.

Now TV [Powered by Sky]

The newest on demand TV service, NowTV comes from Sky and essentially lets you watch Sky Movies online without needing to subscribe to anything else, and there's no satellite dish or set-top box required, as it's all streamed over the web.

At £15 per month, it's three times as expensive as Lovefilm Instant and Netflix, but NowTV claims to offer big-name blockbusters a whole year before its two rivals, and there's plenty of exclusive content here, such as all the James Bond and Harry Potter films.

NowTV can be accessed via a browser on PC or Mac, apps on iOS and Android, and through the Xbox 360.

NowTV: Catalogue and ease-of-use

NowTV's ability to stream films just about instantly is great, and skipping to any part in a film buffers very quickly too, but the quality isn't all that good, sitting somewhere between its rivals.

The Live TV option is perfect for recreating the channel-hopping that on-demand services usually miss out on, as you can flick around the Sky Movies channels and watch films as they are being broadcast.

If you stumble across a favourite, then you can easily watch that film from the start, so it's a nice blend of aimlessly flicking around until something attracts your attention, and being able to watch the whole film whenever you want.

Films are spread across 21 genres, but the total number at first seems very low - there's just two films listed under Factual, for example, and one of those is about Justin Bieber...

The Action category claims to have 15 films on offer, although only one of them isn't a James Bond film. This seems to be more of an issue with how NowTV arranges films into genres, rather than a desperate lack of content, but that's still a major problem - we want to be able to browse, without being forced to search for specific titles.

Just like its rivals, NowTV keeps a record of what you've watched recently, so it's easy to carry on with a film you didn't have time to finish - although some request that you finish watching them within 30 days of starting.

Similar to how the Sky Go apps work, you can only have two devices registered to your NowTV account at the same time, and changes to this can only be made once per month.

For example, you can watch NowTV on your Xbox and iPad, but if you want to watch on your computer then you'll need to remove one device before adding it, and then if you want to watch on your phone you'll have to wait a month before you can make the change.

After signing up on our laptop and trying out NowTV on our iPhone, we were unable to watch anything on the Xbox. This, being the third device, was expected. But instead of offering us the option to remove one or both of the other devices, the Xbox app gave us an error message, with no option to manage our registered devices.

A trip to the website on our laptop was needed to fix this. Ideally, we'd like to see the option to unregister all devices via the Xbox app.

New content is where NowTV shines; with the buying power of Sky behind it the service can offer new releases a full year before they arrive on Lovefilm and Netflix, giving NowTV a huge advantage if it's new films you're after.

Of the top 100 highest-grossing films in the UK over the past 18 months, Sky claims to offer 32 through NowTV, whereas Lovefilm has just one and Netflix doesn't offer any.

Once again, we searched NowTV for the top 30 films of 2000-2009 as voted for by IMDB users, and the service offered up nine. That's nearly 30 percent of what we asked for and three times better than second-place Netflix, so perhaps forking out the £15 is worth it if new releases are what you're looking for.

NowTV: Quality

There's no HD option (we'd happily wait a minutes for it to buffer if there was) and older films in particular look distinctly average and not much better than something you'd watch on YouTube, which is a shame.

Overall, we'd say the quality of NowTV is still behind that of Netflix and a little better than Lovefilm, although thankfully it didn't suffer from any of the buffering problems of the latter; instead, video picked up quickly from wherever we clicked on the timeline.

Verdict

With backing from Sky, NowTV can offer a lot of films before anyone else, so if it's the latest and greatest Hollywood blockbusters you are after - or James Bond and Harry Potter, which are Sky exclusives - then this is the option for you.

The quality is good enough and the website is easy to use, while the iPhone app works as you'd expect.

We liked the ability to tap into Sky Movies and watch any of the 11 channels live, but the complete lack of TV programmes is disappointing, especially when you consider at £15 a month NowTV is three times more expensive than Netflix or Lovefilm Instant.

That's the price you pay for subscribing to Sky's exclusivity, and if you want to watch the latest films a year before the competition, then buying the DVD or Blu-ray at great cost is the only alternative to paying Sky.

Round up

On the face of it, on-demand television is a great idea that gives you TV and films when you want them and where you want them, thanks to instant streaming to a number of devices, but unfortunately it's not as simple as that.

With each service here offering different content to a different range of devices and at different prices, it's not easy to pick a clear winner.

Instead, we have a marketplace full of compromise. Want the best quality and flexibility across devices? Get Netflix. Want to watch the newest films? It has to be NowTV. And if you want to combine streaming with DVD and Blu-ray rentals, then it's Lovefilm.

No one service offers all of the above and investing £25 into all three seems like overkill, but if we had to pick one then it would be Netflix.

The American company wins for combining higher quality video than its rivals that is quicker and smoother to load across a wide range of devices. It misses out on NowTV's exclusive new titles, but wins overall for being a third of the price - £5 a month is very good value in our eyes.