It’s time for video to step out on its own

By April 24 2013, 7:25 pm 1 Comment

According to folklore Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses.” Although it’s never been confirmed if Ford actually spoke these words out loud, this quote is often used by business leaders in speeches about creativity and innovation – Steve Jobs most famously.

Well I’m starting to worry that the video industry is guilty of trying to “breed faster horses”, by chasing proof that video offers incremental reach versus broadcast television. Read more »

Please, can we get some perspective on industry numbers?

By February 25 2013, 4:31 pm 5 Comments

It was a busy Tuesday at Thinkbox towers last week – as well as telling us why, in their humble opinion, Netflix spent $100m on House of Cards, they also released the latest linear TV broadcast figures – and very happy reading they made for them as well.

According to the figures, total TV viewing in the home for 2012 was at four hours and one minute – a minute down on last year but 27 minutes up on 2002… do you remember 2002? That was the year Apple started to become the company it is today having just launched the iPod in November 2001. Is that a very comparable landscape? We’ve had a lot of change in the consumer technology landscape since then. Read more »

TV, the Second Coming?

By August 30 2012, 1:57 pm Comments Off

The Guardian believes it is Sky’s most significant strategic move since broadband, but does the launch of Sky Now TV, a pay as-you-go internet TV service, signify a new era of how we consume TV? VINDICO’s James Grant looks at the significance broadband providers will have in the battle for online content distribution and the impact it will have on the advertising industry as whole.

Read more »

“Footballers aren’t overpaid, it’s just their market rate.”

By June 19 2012, 4:48 pm Comments Off

Do you think footballers wages are too high? If you disagree, you are in a small minority (or a pro-footballer; in which case, what the hell are you doing reading MediaWeek?!). The bottom line is that those wages are set to rise – and whether you agree with this or not – there are good reasons for it.

BT and Sky have just bought the Premier League rights for the next block of three years, at a whopping 71% price increase. That is a massive raise, but importantly it is significant because it represents 1) the increasing value of great (and live) content, and 2) the massive disruption that our industry faces in terms of how we ‘purchase’ entertainment through subscriptions and advertising (or both). Read more »

The simple joy of advertising…

By March 13 2012, 10:41 am 1 Comment

In the last few weeks I feel like I have been inundated with the same repetitive message, it’s followed me when I check email, it’s followed me when I’m reading the trade press online, it’s even followed me when I’m reading my social media updates in trap one (c’mon on…we all do it – don’t we?)

Thankfully it isn’t re-targeting, cookie harvesting, trading desks versus networks, attribution models, VPAID definitions, or any of the above, it is simply – people debating the merits of good and bad advertising, and it’s great to see. It has to be a good thing to take the odd five minutes here and there to remind yourself of some of the great creativity our industry delivers, either via intelligent placement or simple, great messaging. Read more »

The future is here blah blah blah…

By February 20 2012, 4:00 pm Comments Off

What a start to the year it’s been for IPTV, scarcely out of the news each week since January moved in and the numbers are looking good. Once we moved past BARB’s attempt in January to tell us that online viewing had plateaued, (viewing on PC/Laptop only grew 3% YOY was the headline, buried in the copy was the news that users switched to accessing content through set-top boxes, mobiles and tablets instead) then the numbers started rolling in. C4 banked stellar numbers on 4oD in November, BBC iPlayer recorded half a million hours of viewing on Boxing Day and then posted 4.3m visits on 2nd January – its record day to date. Read more »

Decisions, decisions. Why shouldn’t we have the same choices in our online advertising as we do in other areas of our lives?

By November 22 2011, 3:34 pm 1 Comment

My wife is actually an excellent shopper – quick, to the point and she rarely involves me. Of course, this is shopping from my perspective only. Doubtless she shares the same viewpoint, plus I know plenty of men who are more than happy to devote an entire afternoon to shopping with their partner.

Data – the new oil?

By November 8 2011, 3:20 pm Comments Off

Data, the new oil apparently, at the very least that small, four letter word generates a lot of press coverage.

What is more difficult, fighting to get content on IPTVs or a seat on a train?

By October 19 2011, 12:16 pm Comments Off

It’s 6.35pm and as my, short on carriages, and over-crowded train pulls out of Waterloo, I’m left wondering whether people prefer for life to be easy, or just not too difficult. The difference? Well, I would argue that we all want an easier life, but it needs some challenges otherwise we get bored. As long as people don’t go out of their way to create difficulty, then we should be happy most of the time.

Jobs