In a press release today:

The BBC is also pleased to announce that Eddie Jordan will return to the BBC F1 TV presentation team in 2011, in an expanded role as primary analyst. Eddie’s role will this year see him take on a wider remit, as his fellow analyst David Coulthard assumes additional commentary duties.

Completing the TV line-up for 2011, Jake Humphrey will anchor the coverage for his third season, with Lee McKenzie and Ted Kravitz once again in place as reporters. It was announced yesterday that Martin Brundle takes on the new role of lead commentator, with David Coulthard as co-commentator alongside analyst duties.

Ben Gallop, BBC Head of F1, says

“It’s fantastic that Eddie is rejoining the team, and this year in a more expanded role. He’s such a core character with his outspoken views, unrivalled contacts in the sport and his ability to unearth the stories from the paddock. We’re also delighted to be broadcasting in HD, something we know fans have been waiting for and it will really add something extra to our coverage for 2011.”

Eddie Jordan says:

“It’s been a great two years so far and I’m really looking forward to getting back on the circuit, the 2011 season looks like it has plenty in store for us all. The new set up will give me even more opportunity to get to the heart of the issues in Formula 1 and tell the real stories to the viewers.”

Danielle Nagler, Head of BBC HD and 3D, says:

“Along with many, many HD viewers, I’m delighted that we’ll have a chance next season to see Formula 1 in all its glory on television. It’s fantastic news that FOM has decided to green light HD broadcasts, and we’re looking forward to sharing with the fans all the races in all their detail on BBC One HD and BBC HD.”

Formula 1 joins a strong line-up of sports already broadcast in HD on the BBC including Wimbledon, all live golf, the Grand National and the Six Nations.

Further scheduling details will be released in due course.

The news channel beat the BBC News channel, Bloomberg, CNN and BBC Radio 5 Live to the accolade.

Best Entertainment Channel went to E4 ahead of BBC HD, BBC Three and ITV2, while ‘Best Music Channel’ was given to urban music network Flava.

Food Network UK was a very popular choice as Best Lifestyle Channel, and the Horror Channel took home the accolade for Best Themed Channel.

BBC Cbeebies won the Best Children’s Channel competing against CBBC, along with Kix and Milkshake.

Best Shopping Channel was awarded to QVC, while the Judges’ Special Award went to ITV1 HD.

In the viewer-voted categories, shopping channel Ideal World was named TV Channel Of The Year and Planet Rock scooped Radio Station Of The Year.

Freesat managing director Emma Scott commented:

“I’d like to congratulate all the winners honoured for their massive contribution to Freesat’s continued success,”

“We”re proud to celebrate the original, high quality programming that keeps our audience entertained and informed and we look forward to bringing viewers even more exciting channels and services in the future.”

Subscription-free digital satellite TV service, Freesat, has delivered 1 million sales in a little over 18 months since its launch in May 2008. 

Freesat enjoyed an excellent Christmas and New Year, increasing sales by 250,000 over Christmas and New Year. As a result, the service now accounts for 30 percent of all set top boxes (STB) sold in the UK based on value.

The majority of Freesat sales have come from homes with existing satellite dishes, with 40 percent of all sales coming from Sky homes.

Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat comments, “Hitting 1 million sales is significant milestone for Freesat and gives us a great foundation for further growth, specifically with the millions of UK homes that have HD TVs but no HD service. 

“Freesat is a great opportunity for the millions of homes with existing satellite dishes who are used to quality TV but no longer want to pay a monthly subscription for it and we continue to see an increasing number of viewers moving across from pay TV.”

“Much of what we’re now working on is paving the way for next generation free TV with innovations like BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. We will continue to add value to the service by integrating Canvas if approved by the BBC Trust and we are following Ofcom’s Pay TV review with interest.”

John Cresswell, interim Chief Executive, ITV plc, said, “We’re delighted with Freesat’s success – a million sales in less than two years is a terrific achievement. Freesat is an important distribution platform for ITV, providing our audiences with next generation free HD services and the capability for further development. We’re confident Freesat will continue to go from strength to strength.”

 Mark Thompson, Director-General, BBC, said, “The development of Freesat has extended the choices available to viewers in allowing them to receive all of the BBC’s digital channels including BBC HD. I’m pleased to see that they have reached this latest landmark, meaning that more people are enjoying quality BBC content.”

Not all the regional variants of BBC and ITV services were available at launch. This was due to technical constraints associated with co-existence on the satellite platform, so freesat adopted a phased service launch.

Twenty BBC and ITV regional services were available at launch, and the remaining regional services have now launched as well as ITV+1 on channel 114.

All freesat digiboxes should automatically update with the new channels, however some Humax users with the FOXSAT01HD have had to run a manually tune.

The channel list has been updated reflecting the additions.

Project Kangaroo is a single platform for on-demand TV to broadband devices. The web-based service will provide viewers with the opportunity to access recently-aired programmes from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, as well as content from their archives. It is planned that it will replace the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4′s 4oD.

The plan also includes using the ethernet port on freesat boxes to connect them to a home broadband internet router to allow programmes to be streamed to TV’s controlled by the freesat set top box via broadband similar to Virgin TV’s Video On Demand.

The Competition Commission has been asked to decide whether the joint venture may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the UK for goods or services including the syndication of content rights for video on demand services in the UK.

The Competition Commission replaced the Monopolies and Mergers Commission an is an independent public body which carries out investigations into mergers, markets, and the regulated industries.

The Competition Commission is expected to report by 14 December 2008.

A second outage again occurred at around 9:20 with both BBC one and BBC HD both transferred to Radio 5 live radio audio commentary (during which time Germany scored), pictures was restored at around 9:24 , but with only Standard Definition live pictures on BBC HD but still carrying Radio 5 commentary, normal TV commentary with only SD pictures were available from around 9:34 on BBC HD. It is understood there might be a power outage caused by a thunder storm in Vienna where the game is being hosted which obviously disrupted this Euro 2008 live broadcast.