Category: TV
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Marketing TV
If you’re a TV channel and you’ve got a new show you want to tell people about, it should be relatively simple. You make a trailer or two for it, and then you run that trailer around programmes that the audience for the new show are already watching. You might want to be a bit…
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Sexist Coverage of the World Cup
No, I am not talking about Patrice Evra’s applauding of fellow ITV pundit and England footballer Eniola Aluko (nor his muttered “no clapping” moan in a subsequent match). Nor am I talking about the various people who are upset that women deign to commentate on a football match. (Incidentally, “Remote Controller” in the new issue…
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Televising The World Cup Around the World
Two media stories which have interested me a lot about the World Cup so far. In the UK, we’re fortunate to still have Ofcom’s Listed Events. This is a list of sports events that are considered national events, and must be available to audiences free-to-air. Despite various attempts to either redefine the list, or scrap…
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The Complications of Streaming
I was as disappointed as many fans were when SF series, The Expanse, was cancelled by SyFy in the US a couple of months ago. Outside the US, the show airs on Netflix (on a six month delay), but it was Amazon that revived the series. Non-US viewers like me were left wondering whether Netflix…
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World Cup 2018 TV Coverage – A Few Early Thoughts
We’re only a short period into the third day of this World Cup, and we’ve already been lucky enough to see a World Cup classic in the Portugal v Spain fixture. That had it all, and although I really don’t like Diego Costa, and I really really don’t like Cristiano Ronaldo, I do recognise class…
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Premier League Football Rights – Addendum
Four months after the winners of the main TV packages for the 2019-2022 Premier League domestic football rights were announced, the final two packages have now finally been sold with Amazon and BT picking up the “remnants.” First a reminder that previously Sky and BT essentially maintained the status quo in this rights period, while…
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Bulletproof
Oh dear. Sky One’s big new glossy action drama is pretty awful. Before I explain why, I will admit that I’m not the target audience for this show. But nevertheless, this show is just all over the place. Bulletproof is trying to be a 2018-vintage action cop show set in London. Imagine The Sweeney or…
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Winding Down Local TV
In the dim and distant past of 2011, Jeremy Hunt, then Culture Secretary, kicked off “Local TV.” “For consumers, what this will mean is a new channel dedicated to the provision of local news and content,” he said. In due course, he saw through the legislation to create a series of local TV services. This…
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Netflix: $8 Billion and 700 NEW Shows?
How much programming is Netflix actually making? The answer is a lot, but I think that the widely reported numbers are a little misleading. Heavily retweeted earlier today was this: Wow. Fact of the day: Netflix plans to spend $8bn on content this year. That’s roughly 700 (!) new series and 80 films. Shows how…
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Premier League Rights Update
Yesterday evening came news that the bulk of the Premier League packages for 2019-2022 have been sold to the incumbents, Sky and BT. But revenues are actually down this time around. Sky is paying less than it was previously for a package of 128 matches across the year, both in overall terms, and in the…
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No Sense of an Ending
Warning: This piece contains spoilers for the 2014 series Amber, 2014 series The Missing and 2018 series Kiri. There has been a trend in recent years for drama series to give is slightly more nuanced endings than we have sometimes expected. Perhaps all the questions haven’t been answered. Perhaps its unclear by the end, which…