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Ovum: 5G and foldable displays will not change smartphones’ fate

Multiple reports of failures of 5G and foldable displays have tainted the prospect of a smartphone market rebound in 2019. Smartphone market saturation has been a long time coming, and manufacturers and operators have already tried multiple times to reinvigorate the market. Despite bundling consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices with flagship launches (e.g., mobile […]

The new Freeview mobile app reflects demand for flexibility around linear    

With programmes such as Great British Bake Off and Love Island defying the growth of SVOD and OTT to attract record live audience figures year-after-year, there is no question that linear continues to sit at the heart of television viewing in the UK. However, in response to the unprecedented rise of viewing via mobile devices, […]

Ovum: SLIN overtakes SVOD as the overall number of services stabilises

According to Ovum’s latest (March 2019) update of its OTT Video Service Provider Tracker, the growth in new OTT video services globally has begun to slow down. In most countries, this is because streaming is already dominated by one to three transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) stores and three to five subscription services. The FAANGs (minus Facebook) […]

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 […]

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