The gloves are well and truly off in the first major skirmish between organisations vying to control large proportions of UK entertainment and media spend in the web 2.0 era. In the blue corner, the heavyweight Sky Movies, with first pay TV window[1] deals with each of the six major studios[2]. And up until recently, standing proudly alone in the red corner, the relative newcomer backed by dot.com giant Amazon, Lovefilm. But 2012 has seen another contender sidle into the red corner, and with the arrival of Netflix in Europe – first stop, UK & Ireland – a previously predictable contest, a slugfest between Sky Movies and Lovefilm, is starting to hot up. The gloves are off, but what happens next?
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Social Television: A bubble within a bubble?
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012Facebook’s hotly anticipated flotation is finally in the pipeline for this spring. The biggest tech IPO to date, twice the size of Google’s, will see investors wary about Facebook’s capacity to transform itself from the darling of the free internet to an efficient profit maximising advertising medium.
While Facebook may get most of the attention at the tip of a new new media investment bubble, a bubble within the bubble has grown around social television, supposedly the latest in a long line of next big social media innovations.
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Can free TV successfully convert to pay TV?
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012On the 11th Jan 2012 TV2 in Denmark became a pay TV channel. The aim being to avoid cyclicality and uncertainty of advertising revenues when doing long term planning, although advertising will remain a substantial part of revenues.
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A Question for Ofcom (and Leveson) – Does the Internet Increase News Plurality – Maybe Not?
Thursday, January 19th, 2012In promoting consumer choice are we actually fragmenting the revenues that a more consolidated industry could use to fund more extensive, more in-depth coverage, without actually gaining the plurality that we crave?
To get an answer to whether the internet increases news plurality Ofcom (in its current study of the issue for the Secretary of State) needs to look at the news supply chain and the quality/investment in news provision not simply the headline number of providers or the headline number of different named news services used.
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Through the Looking Glass – UK Media Enters a New Age – O&O Event December 7th
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011It’s that time of year again. O&O’s annual review of important UK media consumer trends (from our proprietary internet survey now in its 5th year), plus a chance to reflect on what all the year’s developments mean for the medium …
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Who cares if the DVD dies? We all should…
Thursday, December 1st, 2011Will the next 5 years be the death of the physical DVD in developed media markets? Speculation is rife. As the market continues to shrink in the UK and US, having done so since 2006/07, many predict that the emergence …
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The Impact of Connected TV: Engagement Not Fragmentation?
Monday, October 24th, 2011The emerging view that broadband enabled TV sets will accelerate the shift from linear TV to true on demand TV, leading to the demise of TV channels and an atomisation of schedules is misleading. While there will be some shift from linear TV schedules to on demand play lists, current evidence from homes that have access to on demand content suggests linear channel based TV still has a lot of life left in it. Furthermore, by focusing upon on demand TV programmes’ total share of viewing people, the industry may have missed the most important implication of connected TV – the changed nature of the engagement with audiences and advertisers.
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And The Winner of Best UK Based TV Producer Group Is…
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011As UK based independent television producers continue to find themselves the targets of mergers and acquisitions, the metric with which their success is judged becomes ever more important. Production companies have tended to be assessed by the size of their turnover and profits. O&O has developed an alternative, a five part scorecard for all leading UK production groups measuring: refreshment, stickiness, longevity, stability and transferability. These yield a very different ranking from those based on turnover and profitability. Can you guess which production group comes top?
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Local TV Can Work In The UK – But Not As We Know It
Thursday, October 28th, 2010The interim report from the Shott Review, set up by Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt, has come to conclusions similar to those of Ofcom – the economics of local TV in the UK, even in the largest urban areas, look precarious at best.
However at O&O we believe that despite challenging economics, truly local TV can start to develop in the UK without the need for direct government support if we drop preconceived notions of what it might look like, how it might be delivered and who might end up providing it.
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National Newspapers – A New Dawn?
Friday, October 22nd, 2010Research by O&O suggests internet users tend to snack on news across a large number of different sites (newspaper, TV and news aggregator sites) with many users remaining loyal to their favourite newspaper in print form.
We believe internet news consumption is not a straight substitute for traditional print readership (many people continue to do both) and that multiple consumer offerings, with different levels of quality and price points will eventually lead to a healthier multi-platform national newspaper sector than today, investing more in new content generation – not less.
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