18/10/2018
I feel very fortunate to have been in this wonderful role for three months. For the media, and for the television industry in particular, trust is a vital commodity. It may not capture the imagination in quite the same way as a new drama, be as immediately celebrated as an overnight Barb rating, or even be treasured quite as much as new revenue....
18/10/2018
Earlier in the day, several speakers had drawn attention to how their tightly regulated organisations and companies were forced to compete with the generally unregulated Faangs. They called for a level playing field – but taming the internet will be an enormous challenge for policymakers and politicians.
Now it was the turn of Ofcom CEO Sharon...
18/10/2018
One of the hottest topics at this year’s conference was internet regulation. Fortuitously, Ofcom had released a discussion document about it on the morning of the RTS event, and its findings were explored in a session devoted to the issue.
The panellists learned from Ofcom that one in five Britons say they’ve been harmed by something they’ve seen...
18/10/2018
If Channel 4 was being set up for the first time today, “you would not plonk it in SW1,” observed Alex Mahon, its newish Chief Executive. She explained that she had an advantage coming in fresh to the London-based broadcaster in October 2017, when it needed a deal with government on a new national HQ and dispersing jobs to the regions.
“I went...
18/10/2018
Two programme “sellers” occupied the chairs vacated moments before by “buyers” from the broadcasters and Amazon in the previous discussion. Endemol Shine’s Peter Salmon and NBCUniversal’s Jeff Wachtel are TV veterans. After decades in the business, one could forgive them a little world-weariness. Yet both had clearly been energised by an...