Feature
Feature
Silver Surfing in the time of streaming
Euromedia is 25 years old in 2024 . It ’ s funny isn ’ t it ? When you consider twenty-five years in the future it seems an era away – particularly as you are twenty-five years younger at the time of contemplation . When you look back
developments in global media technology and the new content and business models they have enabled . Plus , the regulation , policies and personalities that inhabit the stage of the digital media industry . Our mission statement is very simple – and applies to all Advanced Television ’ s portfolio : we cover all things digital media delivery from Glass to Glass , as they say . Except we don ’ t touch cameras ( no money in cameras ), or monitors ( no money others . It is a dichotomy ; the blizzard of PR we continue to be in receipt of implies companies and brands still value their news and opinions being , curated , analysed , and amplified via b2b media . The quality and growing quantity of audience , particularly in digital formats , suggest the readership is happy with this arrangement also . But the commercial support the industry is prepared to invest suggests otherwise . If you do value b2b media , the message is simple : Use it or lose it , back it or lack it .
Looking back over twenty-five years , the broad themes have been the steady shift of power away from Free-To-Air broadcasters – public and commercial – towards pay-TV . That pay-TV was delivered via cable , DTH satellite and , occasionally , DSL broadband . on twenty-five years , it feels like it disappeared in an instant .
Anyway , Happy Birthday to us ! The magazine was founded in 1999 by the late ‘ big beast ’ California-based media analyst Paul Kagan . Its aim was to be the first pan- European journal dedicated to the business of broadcasting . In 2000 , Paul sold his business to Primedia , one of those buy-out shops so popular in the noughties , and so prone to blowing themselves up to the point where they burst .
Which was an opportunity for us at the newly forged Advanced Television and we bought the title in 2003 .
Since then , we have covered all the major
Happy Birthday to us !
in TV sets ).
Speaking of money ( this is a business journal after all ): It has been a ‘ mixed picture ’ for our fellow b2b journals in 2024 . And by mixed , I mean disastrous . In the last six months Informa has closed DTVE ( previously Cable & Satellite Europe ) and TBI , Television Business International , both of which , in a previous incarnation , I had a hand in launching . Future has closed Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News in the States – B & C was only seven years short of its centenary .
Losing competitors is always a mixed blessing . It is particularly so here as their demise is emblematic of the existential dilemma for b2b press in this sector and , I suspect , many
The shift was characterised by linear , and then VoD , film services , some innovative drama – The Sopranos was the progenitor of all longform multi series drama – and , most importantly , the outbidding all comers for major sports rights .
The provision model was normally bundling – surrounding the expensive stuff with other channels to make it all look better value . Many of those channels weren ’ t viable without piggybacking on the core premium channels . The move away from over the air was facilitated by the move to digital signals , and
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