Advanced Television

Nick Snow

Nick Snow

Nick Snow is the founder of Advanced Television Ltd and is publisher & editor-in-chief of advanced-television.com and Euromedia. In 1984 he worked on the debut issue of Cable & Satellite Europe, and over the years his companies have published many of the industry’s most highly regarded titles. He is also a screenwriter, producer and playwright.

Murdoch ducks day in court

Few have more admiration for Rupert Murdoch than me. He has been dominating the ‘new media’ space all my working life, and that is true for virtually everyone reading this. What I admire particularly is that KRM has – unlike any number of other faceless corporates or ‘characterful’ entrepreneurs – regularly bet the farm on […]

April 19, 2023

Virgin rocket fizzles out

Sir Richard Branson’s rocket company Virgin Orbit has filed for bankruptcy in the US after failing to secure new investment. The satellite launch company had already halted operations and laid-off staff but says it hopes to find a buyer for the business. In truth, it was always an also-ran contender in the competitive launch business […]

April 4, 2023

Bubble bursting and bundles

Everyone knows the old fable about the Emperor and his lack of clothing. One person eventually calls out his nakedness and, eventually, everyone agrees; the collective illusion, the group think, is broken. The first truth-teller has to be brave, or have nothing to lose. But, in some ways, the most important figure is the second […]

March 27, 2023

AMC on SVoD: “It’s broken”

It takes someone with the self-confidence born of being born into one of the founding families of second-generation television to call out that the third-generation simply isn’t working. James Dolan is the chair of AMC Networks, the content spin-off of Cablevision, one of the founding father companies of the US, then global, cable and pay-TV […]

February 21, 2023

BBC Sharp practice not good enough

Richard Sharp, the current Chair of the BBC, may have been an outstanding banker. He worked for both JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and, presumably, made them a lot of money, certainly made himself rich. Is that the definition of a good banker? Did he do it more outstandingly than any of the other individuals […]

February 14, 2023

Grown-ups in the room

On the same day the DCMS has confirmed an earlier leak that it is dropping its mad idea of privatising C4, Matt Hancock, the gurning TV celeb and former DCMS Secretary, closed his personal app (he launched it five years ago, in case you’re not a follower). Does this coincidence indicate that the grown-ups are […]

January 5, 2023

Counting; the first rule

To be able to count is often mentioned as ‘the first rule’, most usually of politics, but also of economics and of business. It can, and should, also be applied to streamers. And in so many ways. First: how many are there, and how many does the market want? Depending a little on your interpretation […]

November 16, 2022

Sky dish off menu

The satellite dish is symbolic of the television revolution that took place in un-cabled countries in the 1980s. This is particularly true here in the UK where the ‘Dish war’ between Sky’s cheap bird baths and BSB’s new-age squarials was fought out. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky was victorious but had to merge with the ‘enemy’ rather […]

September 28, 2022

IBC signals…

Being back in Amsterdam for the first global trade show since you know what, was quite something: Something good: even in a high-tech business people matter. It was noticeable that many companies saw as it important to reunite with colleagues, agents, resellers, as with customers and prospects. Whether it’s Zoom or the optimistically named Teams, […]

September 13, 2022

Birthday Streamers

When the party-planners at Netflix first began to mull its quarter century celebrations, I’m betting they didn’t think they’d coincide with authoritative leaks about the new ‘budget’ ad supported version of the service. No advertising has been part of the fundamental mandate of the founding father of streaming since it first thought of cutting back […]

August 30, 2022