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Counting; the first rule

To be able to count is often mentioned as ‘the first rule’, most usually of politics, but also of economics and of business. It can, and should, also be applied to streamers. And in so many ways. First: how many are there, and how many does the market want? Depending a little on your interpretation […]

November 16, 2022 Nick Snow

Sky dish off menu

The satellite dish is symbolic of the television revolution that took place in un-cabled countries in the 1980s. This is particularly true here in the UK where the ‘Dish war’ between Sky’s cheap bird baths and BSB’s new-age squarials was fought out. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky was victorious but had to merge with the ‘enemy’ rather […]

September 28, 2022 Nick Snow

IBC signals…

Being back in Amsterdam for the first global trade show since you know what, was quite something: Something good: even in a high-tech business people matter. It was noticeable that many companies saw as it important to reunite with colleagues, agents, resellers, as with customers and prospects. Whether it’s Zoom or the optimistically named Teams, […]

September 13, 2022 Nick Snow

Birthday Streamers

When the party-planners at Netflix first began to mull its quarter century celebrations, I’m betting they didn’t think they’d coincide with authoritative leaks about the new ‘budget’ ad supported version of the service. No advertising has been part of the fundamental mandate of the founding father of streaming since it first thought of cutting back […]

August 30, 2022 Nick Snow

It’s the economy, stupid!

That three-word slogan, famously pinned to the wall in the Clinton (Bill) campaign HQ in their winning 1992 run, has been deployed in many – sometimes quite random – circumstances since. It should be dusted down when looking around at near term prospects for the TV economy. In recent years there has been a significant […]

July 4, 2022 Nick Snow

Funding: What’s your bet?

The funding of TV of all kinds is under the microscope just now. For example; can public broadcasters justify collecting a tax from whole populations? Or, dare SVoDs run ads, or cut-off password sharers? Tricky. The BBC is the most-high profile of PSBs and, therefore, the alternative that does (or does not) emerge to the […]

June 8, 2022 Nick Snow

ANGA: Comfort from cable

At times, during the lockdowns, you began to wonder if you were actually missing getting up before dawn to drive to an airport to fly to a European city in order to walk around a show floor or sit in a conference. And then you get to do it again, and the answer is: “not […]

May 10, 2022 Nick Snow

Netflix: Watch the bonds

No regular reader will doubt that I’ve never exactly over-indulged on the Netflix Cool-Aid, so the latest news isn’t a big surprise. Price rises in a cost-of-living crisis and plateaued content offerings (both quality and quantity), matched with inflation in production, were never going to be a good mix. Add in vociferous competition and the […]

April 20, 2022 Nick Snow

C4: If it ain’t broke, break it

The UK government is pressing ahead with privatising Channel 4, though it is by no means guaranteed success as opposition is widespread, not least on its own benches. The case for, as put forward by the DCMS, is that the broadcaster needs to be private to compete better with Netflix, Prime etc. For example, a […]

April 5, 2022 Nick Snow

Streaming drama could be a horror show

This columnist’s conviction that Netflix’s business model is fundamentally a plate-spinning act, with the same potential mishaps, has waxed and waned as results have continued to boom, with just the odd bump in the road. But the conviction has never gone away completely, even as the company seemed to reach the status of 800lb gorilla […]

February 14, 2022 Nick Snow