I’m writing this in Dubai while watching events back in London on 24-hour news channels. It gives you a certain perspective on both the media and my location. The Middle East is haunted by its history both ancient and recent. In ancient times, it was the cradle of monotheistic religions and is still torn by […]
Connectivity promises much – much convenience, much saving, much service. All good. But a connected home is a vulnerable home, vulnerable to privateer hackers after plain mischief or your credit card details, and state-sponsored hackers after goodness knows what in the name of security. Governments around the world have wrangled with civil rights advocates and […]
I know, the question sounds ‘so last century’. Today, it seems natural that any organisation that possesses the infrastructure that can carry content to the home should do so – it is a competitive necessity. There is no argument on that, and many telcos have made a big success of their television proposition either acting […]
Journalism might be the first draft of history (as well as a lot of less honourable or important things) but, even so, it is too early to be bringing a name to our current era. But there can be little doubt that in the fullness of time, The Age of Unpredictability will be a candidate. […]
It’s like the 70s all over again, suddenly the world is all about brinkmanship. President Trump seems keen to confront all except President Putin, his only serious rival for biggest ego on the planet. But they’ll fall out and the planets will collide; hopefully in a hissy twitter spat rather than a shooting war. Talking […]
There was a kind of funny story all over the press here last week. Amazon Echoes in California (where else) started ordering doll’s houses for their owners. In a true case of echoes within echoes, a local TV show in San Diego was reporting how a young girl had told Alexa – the Echo’s operating […]
How often can a whole intricate takeover saga, ranging over months, be brought to mind by the phrase ‘the custard pie incident.’ The incident, of course, was patriarch Rupert taking one for the team when he made his mea culpa appearance before the Commons media committee in 2011 as he sought to limit the ever-spreading […]
Frustrated by the ‘don’t worry we know best’ negotiating stance of the UK’s incumbent telco BT, regulator Ofcom has finally made the first move to legally split the broadband provider from the rest of the company – specifically notification of the European Commission of the beginning of the separation process. Of course, this in itself […]
The mega-media- merger to end all mega… etc. That is until the next one comes along. Except – if it goes ahead – this really might be the last of this kind of deal. This takeover will be sold hard as a ‘traditional’ vertical integration play – a content owner and a pipes owner come […]
If I had to choose an industry not to be in as the digital world looms larger than ever, I might well choose printing (which reminds me: read the Sep/Oct issue of Euromedia here). In 2016, it is a savagely tough way to make a living. But not all that far behind on your list […]