So this is it. After two decades I am closing down IPTV Times. The last post was Murder on 5th: the last breath of democracy in the US. It will fade in the rear view mirror. Barely anyone will see it go or mourn its passing. The world of online TV remains a fascinating space, but not one for me. I did my time over thirty years and had successes and failures. As with most people in everything they do, mostly failures. The blog will remain as a testament and archive to a time and a place and an evolution. Follow my new adventures at Kwedl Sparks. xping.pubsub.com/ping ..read more

The towering blocks make the street seem like a canyon. He smirked as he was driven in the black monster vehicle up the street he knew so well, where he had shuffled property like cards. He owned this town, even if they did not respect him. “Stop!” He exclaimed and the driver drew to a halt, along with the secret service entourage. He opened the car door and took the blade from his pocket, striding out onto the sidewalk. He saw the guy in the cheap suit and thought, ‘he will do’. He strode over in front of him and saw the confused look on his face as he stopped him in his tracks. Then he ..read more

This was going to be a tweet, where, my dear followers, you will know I post my rantiest rants (with thanks for your indulgence). But I’ve elevated this thought since I’ve started to question how we got here, with an incompetent megalomaniac and his college mates running the country and killing tens of thousands of people and still enjoying 45% approval ratings. This is Mussolini - he was a journalist too.  ‪We’ve had some bad ‘uns in British politics, but Nick Clegg must be the biggest chancer ever. He propped up a dreadful Tory regime and is now is in charge of Global Affairs and Com ..read more

Back in 1982 I attended the first lecture of my Educational Broadcasting degree and our lecturer wheeled in a trolley with a Laserdisk 2000 and video camera on it. These were highly exotic beasts back in those days and we oohed and aahed over them. However, he then reached under the trolley and pulled out a slate and a chalk, proclaiming “this is the best education technology ever invented; it’s cheap, easily available, does not need electricity and can be used by almost all of the world’s schoolchildren.” That was quite a lesson, and as you can tell, has stayed with me even as I have ..read more

The first thing I do when engaging with a new company as advisor, NEX or Chair is to do a basic risk assessment. First of all over the viability of the company’s business model, but then, more fundamentally, over the bad things that could happen to the company. I’m involved with one person companies that have three hundred page security risk documents, let alone what they have to cover GDPR, etc.  If your job is to look after a whole country, your first, second and last concern should be risk management. Not exciting new policies, but putting in place a fundamental framework that secu ..read more

For decades fashion retailer Marks & Spencer eskewed basic fashion retail trends such as accepting credit cards and advertising. Yet, they were held up as the retail paragon. Then came major competition in the form of high street chain stores such as Top Man, Next and then H&M, Zara and Primark. The company was forced to change its ways and accepted both credit cards and undertook major ad campaigns. It goal was to attract a younger, more youthful clientele. But it failed, badly. Young people didn’t want to buy their clothes at the same store as their grandparents. Rather than acc ..read more

I’ve been guilty of a lot of negative blogging recently, so let’s try and bring in some balance. It may seem counter productive, but I have built many companies in the face of recessions (actually, not directly, but riding the recovery wave is often a great place to be as a start up - note the two year after a crash gap in my startup history - in 1991, 1997, 2002, 2010). These can be good times for a number of reasons: There are a lot of able people available cheaply Everyone is looking for ideas to take them out of recession and are willing to engage with new ideas and suppliers Capita ..read more

If you’re a non exec or Chair of a company your role obviously have fiducial duties - making sure the management are behaving themselves, maximising shareholder returns and thinking through their plans and strategies. But I firmly believe that there is another key role for Board advisors to play. Looking to the future. The management is, quite rightly, in the here and now. They have a plan and they need to execute and achieve their numbers. So who is looking at the big picture and thinking about the impact of bad things, good things, opportunities and threats ? I have always thought of ..read more

My wife’s 93 year old grandmother used to say that the problem with common sense was that it wasn’t very common. She should be running our Government. We’re in the middle of the most complex and devastating pandemic in a century, accompanied by the worst financial crash in human history, and all kinds of data models are being espoused. The UK government actually show graphs every day and then publicly say they’re wrong. How reassuring. So, let’s get it straight. In February, or at least very early March the UK government needed to do three things: 1) Lock down the country and prevent an ..read more

Well, it’s a Saturday and I would, in normal times, be down the pub watching rugby, but that’s a distant dream now. In looking for the alternatives it has become apparent that there is a massive gap in the market for a sports Netflix. Let me summarise what is available for me to watch on a rainy Saturday in the UK: BBC - two Scottish internationals from the last century ITV - nothing Channel4 - nothing Five - nothing S4C (Welsh language TV) - two Scarlets games and a lockdown show about rugby players Netflix - nothing Amazon Prime - decent doc on the All Blacks but no games BT Sport - a ..read more