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Disney’s streaming Fantasia

In the most famous section of one of Disney’s emblematic movies, Mickey Mouse plays the sorcerer’s apprentice who, tired of the daily slog of fetching water in a couple of pails, uses magic in which he is untrained to animate a broom to do the work for him, with disastrous results. Mickey’s employers this week […]

The BBC and Discovery: getting back together

One of the signature movie genres of the 1930s was the ‘comedy of remarriage’: films – often starring Cary Grant and/or Katharine Hepburn – that featured married couples who split up, dallied temporarily with other partners, but who ultimately got back together again. Without doubt this week’s biggest story would be the classic among classics […]

Blocked streams

Public and commercial broadcasters’ efforts to band together to take on the transatlantic juggernauts of Netflix, Amazon and now Apple face a number of well-publicised challenges, but one of the most frustrating must surely be the extent to which such projects are still stymied by out-of-time regulatory concerns and procedures. Speaking at the Series Mania […]

Ovum: On Netflix’s quest for “moments of truth”

Since 2013, Netflix’s stated aim has been to win “moments of truth.” That is, those points in time when someone chooses to watch Netflix, rather than do something else. More recently, the company has said its greatest competitor for attention is phenomenally popular video game Fortnite, suggesting it has little to worry about from its […]

Ovum: Smart home vendors must tap into what their customers think

There are many factors that contribute to the success of businesses, and customer satisfaction is one of them. Offering a satisfactory customer experience is key, not only for brand differentiation but also for upselling and cross-selling. Conventional wisdom suggests that it is important to pay attention to what customers like and dislike, responding to their […]

Ovum: Reshaping pay TV for the new reality

Ovum’s forecasts indicate that growth across all TV and video segments is becoming increasingly elusive for most competitors across both subscriptions and advertising. With digital platforms such as YouTube and Netflix dominating most markets, the size of the opportunity that remains does not augur well for most competing OTT video platforms. Major western hemisphere OTT […]

BritBox: risks and rewards

This week produced an interesting note from analysts at Berenberg focusing on ITV’s prospects for success in the SVOD world and the launch of BritBox, the commercial operator’s planned UK JV with the BBC. Most commentators who are sceptical about BritBox and similar initiatives by public and commercial broadcasters have focused on the supposed weakness […]

Does BritBox signal the end of the linear EPG?

The BBC and ITV have announced (again) their plan to rule the VOD world with yet another SVOD store selling back catalogue box-sets, and in the latest news, ITV says they may make some new original content and add that too.  As the global media industry excitement at this news calms down, and Netflix and […]

Brits on the Box

This week brought the news that the UK’s two leading broadcasters plan to launch a joint domestic SVOD product later this year, having agreed a joint vision for the service. The BBC and ITV plan to produce a formal legal agreement for the service, which they say will be open to other partners. The pair […]

Ovum: Telcos have made inroads into re-bundling, but complacency is not an option

Last year was the year operators finally listened to consumer demands: we want new “sexy” bundles, and we will just buy Netflix-like services à la carte if we don’t get them. Ovum’s new bundling forecasts (that all include fixed broadband as a service) estimate that subscriptions to next-generation bundles will make up almost 41% (356 […]

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