Why Comcast Bid £1.6bn for ITV’s M&E Business
Comcast’s (opening?) bid for ITV’s M&E (Broadcast) business last week was… unexpected. Aside from feeling like a lowball offer, it was puzzling even to former ITV veterans. Peter Fincham, for example, who was Director of Television from 2008-2016, told BBC Radio that the relationship between the broadcast business ...
ITV Revenues, 2019-24
Following Comcast's £1.6bn bid for ITV's Media & Entertainment (Broadcast) business, I've been looking at the broadcaster's financial performance over the last few years. Why did Comcast offer that number - £1.6bn? I've written a separate post about that but in this piece, I've outlined some of the ...
Riffs Episode #8 – BBC Resignations & Comcast bids for ITV
When the news broke that Comcast had bid £1.6bn for ITV, Lydia and I thought, hands down, it would be the biggest story of the week. But then Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC resigned. Cue hasty updates to this episode where we discuss both developments. On ...
Riffs Episode #7 – Netflix Numbers & Product Placement
Lydia and I were on a break last week (not in the Ross and Rachel in Friends kinda way!) so we didn't get a chance to comment on Netflix's Q3 financials. That's easily fixed - we discuss them in this episode where we particularly focus on what Netflix ...
The Industrialisation of Netflix
Whenever Netflix’s latest financials are published, the topline data is always the stuff the press focuses on: revenue, content spend, subscriber numbers. Totally understandable, obviously: they tell a story about the health, performance and strategy of the company. But what’s just as important – to me at least ...
Orchestrated Growth & the Seventh Major OTT Cycle
There’s an idea that it’s only after a decade is over that one can – retrospectively – characterise it; distil 10 years into a few words (fairly or not). So, the 60s might be Flower Power and/or civil action. The 70s: disco (and flares). The 80s: yuppies; get ...
OTT Question Time Online, Season 6, Episode 5 – The Changing Face of News
On this week's OTT Question Time Online we discussed the changing face of news provision - on linear and OTT - with Joe Harbinson, Head of Commercial Partnerships from Sky News, Stephen Hull, Head of Digital Content & Strategy (News) from ITV, and Jonny McGuigan, Executive Editor: Growth, ...
Riffs Episode #6 – Channel 4 & ITV
On last week's Riffs episode, Lydia and I talked about the BBC and potential changes to the licence. This week, and to share the love, we focused on Channel 4 and ITV, who have both made a number of announcements lately. Channel 4 Channel 4 had a stellar ...
New OTT Use Case: Man-Flu
I was in bed most of the weekend, and Monday too, with a cold. And whilst I was mostly sleeping, or reading, I did manage to stream some shows, mainly on the marvel that is Amazon Prime Video. Why “marvel”? For a number of reasons but, just initially, ...
New Studios from Channel 4 & Hearst Networks
The TV and OTT world is thrillingly complex. The glass-to-glass process, for example, the chain of events via which content gets from the first glass (the lens of the camera shooting the footage) to the last glass (the screen on which the viewer watches it) contains 30-40 links ...
Riffs Episode #5 – The BBC Licence Fee
At the Labour Party conference last week, Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, said that she was looking at a mixed funding format for the BBC to help protect it from future government interference. Options included a “mixture of licence fee, ...
OTT Question Time Online, S6, Episode #4 – Collaborative Content Strategies
At the recent RTS Conference, the key theme was "Where Do We Grow From Here?". Collaboration between broadcasters was touted as one way of doing this and over the last few months we've been seeing more and more examples of content sharing, FAST channel launches and strategic tie-ups, ...
Riffs Episode #4 – OpenAI & Trump Tariffs
On this week's Riffs episode, Lydia and I discuss a range of topics including Sora 2 - OpenAI's latest generative video AI model, Tilly Norwood - a new AI actor taking Hollywood by storm (or at least exercising human actors like Emily Blunt and trade unions like SAG-AFTRA), ...
OTT Question Time Riffs Episode #3 – RTS Convention Review & Kangaroo 2.0
In our third Riffs episode, Lydia reviews the RTS Convention - an event for the great and the good from the TV and, to a point, OTT industries - which she attended in Cambridge last week (18/19 Sept. 2025). She tells me about: The PSB roundtable (featuring Tim ...
OTT Question Time S6, Episode 3 – IBC Review
This year's IBC attendance was marginally down with 43,858 visitors - a decline of around 2,000 from 2024 - but exhibitors, anecdotally, reported an air of optimism, more customer meetings, and crucially, conversations with serious prospects rather than casual browsers. And, as industry veteran, Ben Keen, observed, IBC ...
Alchemy & OTT Leadership
Last week’s report that Paramount Skydance – which only closed its own merger in August – might be preparing a takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery got me thinking about how OTT leaders make big decisions. It’s a question I’d asked my panellists during a session at our ...
OTT Question Time Riffs Episode #2 – WBD Paramount Skydance + How OTT Leaders make Decisions
In our second Riffs episode, Lydia and I discuss reports that Paramount Skydance is preparing a takeover offer for Warner Bros Discovery. We talk about the particulars of any potential deal, how it could be funded and which bits of WBD the buyer might get. Lydia - who ...
OTTQT Riffs Episode #1 – Industry Rhythms & The Autumn Term
OTT Question Time Online is our regular debate show, where a rotating panel of senior streaming executives tackle the biggest issues facing the industry. OTTQT Riffs, on the other hand, is me and my new co-host, Lydia Fairfax, having a chat about all things OTT. Riffing, if you ...
OTT Question Time S6, Episode 2 – A Modern Streaming Operation
Two decades ago, OTT teams were often made up of seconded broadcast staff, building the first on-demand services as bolt-ons to linear TV. As streaming grew in scale and profitability, dedicated hierarchies and specialist roles emerged. In 2025, there’s no single recipe for success: today’s VOD organisations can ...
What Would Streaming Look Like if the Pandemic Never Happened?
We’ve been doing the prep calls for this week’s OTT Question Time Online with Leah Hooper Rosa, of Warner Bros Discovery, and Julie Mitchelmore of Hearst Networks EMEA - where we’re talking about the makeup and approaches of modern streaming operations – and an interesting question came up: ...