The fact that a company with under $15 billion of forecast annual revenue and less than 10 per cent net margin can lose $25 billion of market value in a day gives some idea of how overhyped the stock was in the first place – it came close to $200 billion of value before the […]
The UK television industry – and by extension the whole digital media, tech and creative industries – need a hard hat as Brexit approaches. This is because the consequences that will rain down from a hard Brexit will be excrement of the toughest variety, polished or not. To try and avoid a hard Brexit for […]
To be honest, I think the surprise isn’t that Gavin Patterson has been ousted as BT CEO, but that it didn’t happen sooner. To start with the positive: no question getting BT back in the mobile business with the EE acquisition was putting right a terrible mistake – all be it a mistake forced on […]
The recent Royal Wedding can teach us some valuable lessons about the future of television suggests Larry Gerbrandt. The US viewership numbers are in for the recent telecast of the wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle and they tell a fascinating story on how viewers are still using traditional linear […]
Netflix has posted more stunning results; growth all round – subscribers, revenue, stock price and, yes, debt. The stock market, indeed business in general, is meant to be a gamble. Netflix personifies this, and its shareholders are backing its great big bet. In the relatively Wild West that is the disrupter territory of OTT, Netflix […]
Theresa May has delivered her clarification speech setting out what she wants from Europe in Brexit negotiations. Of course, ‘clarification’ is a relative term. Compared to the oratory of obfuscation that she has made her trademark, it was relatively clear. But it still amounted to a fairly vague wish list, or, as Brussels might say, […]
Unfortunately for me, I support a football team who often have the nil end of a score line and often, frankly, they play so badly they are lucky to get nil. If Sky and BT were in a pay-TV performance league there would be a lot of places between them: Sky headed for the Champions […]
You would think just making it to 86 years-old would make a man reasonably pleased. Add billions of dollars of wealth and being married to Jerry Hall and you’d think a grin would be in order. But Rupert Murdoch is all about the grimace just now. And he has some reason. The family empire he […]
About twenty years ago, a Judicial Inquiry following a notorious murder in south London found the police to be ‘institutionally racist.’ It was the first time an institution or organisation had been ‘found guilty’ of a behaviour that if displayed in an individual would be a crime. Mysoginism, as such, isn’t against the law, though […]
Predictions for 2018: A fool’s errand, so here goes. Everyone says that ‘the people’ have lost faith in their politicians. Who can blame them given the shower we currently have? Our own Brexiteer negotiators show a level of competence that would make you worry about leaving them alone with sharp objects. It is a terrible […]