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The challenges awaiting Chapek as new Disney CEO

Welcome to the party, Mr Chapek, I hope you packed your ears. Taking over from 15 year stalwart Bob Iger, the new Disney CEO is already well accustomed to the setting. After all, he’s been with the company for 27 years and has worked across pretty much every aspect of the business – most recently […]

Is BT’s flexible offer the answer to pay TV’s ills?

“As long as the pay TV incumbents continue to innovate, their services will remain sufficiently compelling to ensure their long-term success,” wrote Adam Thomas, lead analyst of global TV markets at Omdia in a Guardian piece from 2013.  While written almost seven years ago, this is the mentality that BT was banking on when it […]

How do you solve a problem like the BBC?

British broadcaster the BBC has historically had its ups and downs, but it’s hard to remember a time when it has been at battle with the government to quite the extent it is today. Even if the government does, as now ex-culture secretary Nicky Morgan said, want to have some “difficult conversations”, the government’s public […]

Geolocation: Pinning down the pirates of the EU

While illicit TV viewing is nothing new, it is getting harder to manage. The methods used to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) and access restricted content have become so sophisticated that, for many broadcasters, it’s difficult to identify or track the perpetrators. With the explosion in SVOD and OTT services providing more viewing choices than […]

The promise, potential and pitfalls of India for Western streamers

Amongst all the fuss around Disney+’s 28.6 million subscribers since its November 2019 launch, one big bit of news that mostly flew under the radar is an announced Indian rollout. This isn’t a months-in-advance kind of declaration. Disney+ isn’t launching in a distant season or quarter, but rather on March 29 – 54 days after […]

Will AT&T’s HBO Max gamble pay off?

AT&T’s WarnerMedia is not necessarily putting all of its eggs in the HBO Max basket, but it is certainly putting a lot of them there. One billion, two hundred million eggs, to be precise.  It’s often touted around how much streaming companies are spending to acquire content and produce originals, but for companies who already […]

Will Netflix look eastwards as the US becomes more congested in 2020?

The end of 2019 was an overachievement for Netflix. This is not an editorialised judgement, but rather one from the company itself.  In Q4, the company added 8.8 million subscribers, notably more than its forecast 7.6 million growth. Streaming ARPU increased by 9% year-over-year and it met its full year operating margin target of 13%. […]

Why 2019 was the year of Discovery

After a year that started with the global president of Animal Planet dramatically withdrawing from taking over as the CEO of the English Premier League, Discovery Networks International has revealed that 2019 was its biggest year ever in the UK.  Audience share for the broadcaster increased by 7% and VOD requests surpassed 60 million. This […]

There is little reason for consumers to buy an 8K TV in 2020

Each year, CES has some key themes that make their way out and into the mainstream press. This year, one of the most prevalent is 8K. Every major TV manufacturer made a large show of their 8K TVs at CES. Samsung showed off a huge and impressive-looking bezel-less screen which (for some reason) rotates, while […]

A month of plusses

Both Apple and Disney’s premium streamers have been out in the wild for a little over a month. While it is far too soon to pass any judgements about their long-term viability, it is still worth gauging their respective successes at an early stage.   That said, it is largely unfair to pit the two SVODs […]

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