Category: TV
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Netflix and Disney
Last week came news that Disney would be pulling its movies from Netflix at the end of the current arrangement, and that Disney would in future launch its own streaming service. This licensing agreement generated a vast amount of coverage, much of it ill-informed, and ignoring wider issues in the market. There are a few…
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Free to Air Cricket
Today brings some interesting news, with the ECB actually allowing some free-to-air cricket on TV screens in the future. The BBC has done a deal to see the return of cricket to its channels for the first time since 1999. You will recall that in 1998, Channel 4 secured the rights to most international cricket,…
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Sky Sports Revamp
Sky Sports is reportedly getting a bit of a makeover, losing the numbered channels currently known as Sky Sports 1-5, and instead gaining sports-specific channels. Currently the channels are roughly being used as follows: Sky Sports 1 – Football Sky Sports 2 – Cricket, Rugby, Football Sky Sports 3 – Football, Tennis Sky Sports 4…
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What Should a Kids’ TV Channel Show When Kids Should Really Have Gone to Bed?
If your child likes watching CBeebies or CBBC in the UK, then you will know that both channels have cut-off times. At 7pm, the broadcast spectrum used by CBeebies is re-purposed as BBC Four, while CBBC’s spectrum will soon become a BBC Scotland TV channel. Either way, there’s nothing to watch on the broadcast stream…
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Daytime TV Killed the British Bank Holiday
What do the following film genres mean to you? War films James Bond Carry On films To me they all scream Bank Holiday TV. You may have had plans to go out somewhere, but an annoying drizzle meant that you’d rather stay at home and see what’s on the box. But in fact, that’d be…
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BBC Store is closing; Streaming v Ownership
Back in 2015 I took a look at the then new BBC Store. It had opened in a blaze of publicity after a relatively long gestation period. Visitors could buy to own BBC catalogue programmes as well as some of the latest dramas and comedies. Since then, announcers have mentioned the ability to buy programmes…
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Believe in Worse: Sky’s Streaming Options
You often hear that we live in a digital non-linear TV world. That’s not actually true. We very much live in a linear television world with lots of people watching television live. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story. But I digress. It’s certainly true that digital streaming is…
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The Nightly Show
Before ITV launched The Nightly Show into the 10:00pm weekday slot I said that we should avoid comparisons with US late evening talk shows since contrary to popular belief, it’s not trying to be one, and we should hold off looking at the ratings until it had settled into something a bit firmer. This kind…
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BT/UEFA Rights Deal
Last week, BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson was reported as saying that “rampant inflation in sports rights” had to end. Today we learn that BT is going to pay £394m a season for UEFA Champions’ League and Europa League rights from the 2018/19 season, up from £299m a season under the previous agreement. By my…
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In Advance of The Nightly Show
This evening, ITV launches its big new entertainment gamble – The Nightly Show. They’ve taken over The Cochrane Theatre near Holborn, and for the next eight weeks they’ve also taken over The News At Ten’s slot. (Recall, this is the slot that only a year ago, the then Media, Culture and Sport Minister was wondering…
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Sneaky Pete
I only seem to write about television very occasionally these days. I suspect I struggle because there’s so much to catch up on at any given time, there’s no time left for writing. Sneaky Pete is a new series from Amazon Studios provided free to their Prime customers. The hook as far as Amazon is…
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Hans Rosling – Forming His World View on Facts; Not Feelings
In my recent RAJAR piece, I made reference to the sad news that Professor Hans Rosling had died. Rosling was a Swedish professor of global health, and had found fame in a series of videos and programmes – notably beginning with a widely shared TED talk – that elucidated stories behind data in a way…
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YouTube-ing
YouTube is a wonderful thing. From music, to how to’s, to clips from films and TV, to game walkthrough’s and a myriad of thousand other subjects. But I confess, that I’ve always struggled with the “YouTubers.” Now that’s not to say that there aren’t personality-driven YouTube videos that I watch. There are the guys at…