This week I had the privilege to attended Mediatel’s Connect TV World Summit at the Royal College of Physicians in London. I’ve attended this event for many years, though it has been some years since I had the luxury of attending all the conference. There were many newsworthy presentation and discussions at the event that have already been picked over by industry journalists. I wanted in this article to just dig into a handful of themes that emerged from the two days. It is worth noting the excellent gender mix of the presenters and in the panels at the conference.... Read more →

As tech leaders, we know what Agile and Scrum are, most of us will be using it in some form. But do we know what it really means for our organisations? Read more →

In this series “The Future of TV”, I will explore concepts that I believe could have a big impact on television. Concepts beyond what most people are thinking about today. People often ask me what is the “next big thing” is for television? They sometimes ask this for true insight but generally it is just as an ice breaker. As with any industry, the history of the “next big thing” is full of successes and failures. For a while the “next big thing” was thought to be 3D. Early in the hype cycle for 3D I rejected it for being... Read more →

I've taken a look at the numbers to determine if the Internet Giants (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix) could take a big chunk of the English Premiership Football rights any time soon. Read more →

What is significant about the Apple TV App? Why is it worth writing about? Well, it does much of what TV operators have been trying to achieve for years and, maybe more importantly, it also does something the UK broadcasters should be doing without Apple. Read more →

My recent appearance at the Set-Top Box Gateway Summit in London picked up a bit of coverage (mainly from CSI who hosted the event). I've been meaning to post an article on the topic of the "OTT Tipping Point", which I have been researching, but the quotes, which I really did say, that were picked up by CSI summarise the topic well. Watch this space for the full analysis. Read more →

Broadband TV News amongst others recently ran an article comparing the top 10 most illegally downloaded movies from Bit Torrent with the Top 10 streamed Netflix movies. Now I had expected the lists to be roughly the same, but it is interesting that they are not, in fact they are very different. In all the coverage of these lists no one gave any real reasons or analysis. As I’m always willing to provide an opinion I thought I would present some potential reasons for this divergence. Read more →

There is a growing phenomenon which I call second screen inversion. This is where consumers see their handheld device (smartphone or tablet) as being their primary TV device and not their traditional television set. Read more →

In the pay-tv industry content is still king, but this statement doesn’t mean what it use to. The pay-tv industry is largely built on content exclusivity, exclusive rights to sports, films, channels and series. But that exclusivity is being steadily eroded. Today, consumers general have a choice to get the same content from either a pay-TV service provider or from a legal or illegal internet source, and finding content on the internet is getting easier and easier. A TV service provider’s defense against this is the user experience they provide. A strong and compelling user experience can actually make over the top services a positive addition to a service provider’s services. Read more →

Before I started to write a blog I had to ask myself why? Is it just pure vanity or for self promotion. Surprisingly enough I do actually have a real reason for blogging. Read more →