BBC chairman hits back at suggestions of Netflix-style subscription model November 20, 2019 Replacing the BBC’s licence fee with a Netflix-style subscription model would destroy its ability to serve everyone, the corporation’s chairman has said. Sir David Clementi urged advocates of a subscription service to be “realistic” and recognise that the broadcaster’s “principle of universality would be lost”. Read more: BBC signs on-demand deal with Sky as it [...]
World reserve currencies: Is the US Dollars’ days numbered? June 30, 2020 “Every dog has its day” is an expression believed to have come from 405 BC when a Greek playwright, Euripides, was mauled and killed by a pack of dogs. An analogy to this tale could be the US Dollar. Is the end nigh? Has the mighty Greenback ‘had its day’? Having been on the boards [...]
Tesco Go: The UK supermarket chain is trialling an Amazon-style version of checkout-free shopping June 29, 2018 Tesco has said it is testing a way of paying for your shopping in-store without going through a checkout, using a smartphone app to scan items and pay online. The app is being tested in a Tesco Express near its headquarters in Welwyn Garden City, which is also one of the retail chain's cashless stores. [...]
Transport to Europe crippled as French national strikes take hold December 5, 2019 Travellers trying to get the Eurostar to the continent have been thwarted today, after 78 trains linking London to Paris, Belgium and the Netherlands were cancelled amid ongoing strikes in France. Most affected routes are for trains from St Pancras to Paris, with the cancellations taking place between 5-8 December. Read more: Eurostar warns customers [...]
Activists call for break up of Google June 19, 2019 Protesters are calling on Google’s parent company Alphabet to break itself up before it is forced to by regulators. Sum Of Us, a US-based activist group, will ask shareholders to vote on breaking the company up at a meeting at the company’s offices in California today. Read more: Amazon overtakes Apple and Google as world’s [...]
SailGP is aiming to make a splash in its second year after the arrival of Sir Ben Ainslie December 10, 2019 If the first season of SailGP was about making a splash and proving that there is an audience for the sport, then the second is about expansion. The worldwide sailing series, the brainchild of American software billionaire Larry Ellison and former world champion yachtsman Sir Russell Coutts, enjoyed a successful first season this year. Teams [...]
Netflix boss says The Crown will ‘look like a bargain’ as streaming battle begins September 20, 2019 Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings says the its drama about the British Royal family, ‘The Crown’, will “look like a bargain” as the arrival of streaming rivals Apple, Disney and NBC will push content costs up. The series, which will include 60 episodes over six season, cost a reported £100m to produce. Read more: Netflix [...]
Why digital infrastructure could emerge stronger from Covid-19 August 28, 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need to modernise digital infrastructure networks. We expect that this will create new investment opportunities. Surging online activity Whether we like it or not, the Covid-19 pandemic has cemented our addiction to fast and reliable internet access. While speaking to colleagues remotely, food shopping online or monitoring our ‘smart [...]
Which stock markets look cheap as we enter the final quarter of 2020? October 23, 2020 While the virus itself hasn’t gone away, as far as financial markets are concerned, the pit of misery was back in March. At that point, a typical global market stock market portfolio had haemorrhaged around a third of its value in just six weeks. Stocks have soared As is often the case, peak despair turns [...]
Iceland Food rules out deal with Amazon as Food Warehouse attracts new customers June 15, 2018 Iceland's boss has ruled out a deal with Amazon, telling City A.M. that "we don't want anything to do with them". The retailer reported steady sales growth this morning, as it eyes expansion into sites left vacant by the recent wave of store closures and grows its online business. But managing director Tarsem Dhaliwal said [...]