Covid-19 is complicated. Only an idiot would expect governments and their institutions to get everything, or even most things, right first time. But there is a premium on clarity of approach, honesty about mistakes and a commitment to learn from them. If you live in a country where any of those things happen, lucky you. […]
Does the world need another global streamer? ViacomCBS thinks so and has talked of plans to bring one to market, possibly an upgraded and rebranded version of CBS All Access, or maybe a refurbed Showtime. Bob Bakish, CEO, said it “will launch a broad pay streaming product in multiple markets over the next 12 months. […]
Is it okay to write about anything except Covid-19 just now? I think so; the only useful thing to say is good luck to us all. Actually, it is a little bit relevant to Quibi. Many have commented that they are unlucky to go live while we’re in lockdown and entertainment on the move isn’t […]
“Democracy is the worst way to run a country, except all the others,’” said Winston Churchill. The same may well be true of a licence fee and a PSB national broadcaster. But that doesn’t stop every new Tory government concerning itself with scrapping it, no matter how many much more urgent things they have to […]
There has been a week-long drum roll here in the UK leading up to today’s announcement about vendor inclusion in 5G roll out. When the ‘ta da’ moment came it was, of course, a completely predictable political fudge: Huawei (whose name wasn’t mentioned in the statement) will be allowed in, just not in the really […]
Most years in digital media could be captioned “a significant year of change [development], [evolution], [revolution]”, your precise description choice probably depending on your perspective. 2020 will, I think, be a year of very significant evolution of the revolution that already happened. The revolution was (is) OTT and all the technological, commercial and cultural consequences […]
Who’d have predicted that broadband would take centre stage in the UK election in such spectacular fashion? But then, who would have predicted much at all about the shambles that is British politics just now. The parties are united in recognising a market failure that has seen the UK languish at the bottom of developed […]
So, SoftBank has ‘rescued’ WeWork in a deal that will cost it at least $10 billion and pretty much guarantee WeWork’s departed Svengali founder $1.7 billion. The rescue was from a proposed $47 billion IPO that was becoming a car crash going over a cliff. SoftBank is a major shareholder in WeWork – some reports […]
In the latest issue of Euromedia we look at the dawning of the era of D2C. It is, I suppose, the natural evolution of the stunning success of the era of SVoD as exemplified by the ‘world domination’ of Netflix. Netflix has achieved much: it has disintermediated traditional gatekeepers, it has changed viewing habits and […]
The saga of the Viacom and CBS relationship is a strange one, worthy of the most unlikely of soap operas, or the most outlandish of Greek myths. CBS gave birth to Viacom, then spun it off, then married it, then acrimoniously divorced it and, now, has married it again. In the 60s, CBS was the […]