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, as …

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), and the …

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 …
  

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, …

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 …

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 involve …

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 …

Ofcom’s latest Media Nations report, drawing on Barb data, suggests that YouTube has now overtaken ITV in total viewing, second only to the BBC channels. But is that really the full story? Are we comparing like-for-like when broadcasters and streamers are measured side by side? And …

In its recent Q3 report, Netflix reported that its AVOD tier was proving to be extremely popular: ads memberships were up 35% quarter-on-quarter and, in the countries where it was available, the ad tier accounted for 50% of new sign-ups. Over at Disney, D2C streaming revenues were up 15%, …

Ben Keen, the renowned OTT industry analyst, recently published a report about the state of UK film financing for the British Screen Forum. In it he outlined some of the trends he’d spotted over the past 10 years including: total spending across all film and High-End Television (HETV) …