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HBO Max and Paramount+: What It Might Mean For Sports
Today the deal was done, and Paramount took over Warner Bros. Discovery in a massive deal that has much of Hollywood quaking. There were some last minute wrinkles with a deal being struck a couple of weeks ago with a group of US Attorneys General, with the general view being that they folded and didn’t…
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HBO Max in the UK… Or Not
Yesterday AT&T held an event called WarnerMedia Day that largely detailed the launch plans for their new streaming service HBO Max, which builds off the successful HBO. So lots of announcements of how you’ll be able to see Friends episodes and watch the new Game of Thrones sequel on their platform. From a UK perspective…
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Further Apple TV+ Thoughts
This Friday Apple TV+ launches globally. In the UK, the PR launch is already well underway. Stars from some of the first tranche of Apple shows have been made available to various media outlets – Jason Malmoa was on Graham Norton for example. And there has been an absolute blitz of outdoor advertising for the…
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RAJAR Q3 2019
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product,…
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Super Pumped
As I write this, WeWork, the office sharing business, has just been taken over by its primary backer Softbank, themselves having invested more into the business that its current valuation. I confess that I’m a sucker for stories like this – over valued Silicon Valley “unicorns” that can’t possibly deliver everything they’re promising investors. Having…
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UCI World Championships – Harrogate 2019
With the first home cycling World Championships since they were at Goodwood in 1982 (which very much predates my interest in cycling), I was always going to be spending late September in Yorkshire. There were a series of events held over a week, but I headed up after the time trials had taken place, reaching…
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Amazon Prime Premier League Fixtures – Redux
I’ve repeatedly tried to explain why the Premier League was foolish to package rights to every fixture across two of their Match Days as a single TV package when they sold their latest UK TV rights last year. Amazon Prime ended up buying those packages after neither Sky nor BT felt they were worth buying.…
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Final Thoughts on the 2019 London Film Festival
Every year for the London Film Festival, I either see a whole load of films, or I basically don’t see any at all. This year was in the former category, but even then, I only managed 11 films – although that feels like a lot. Especially if you see three films on a single day.…
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LFF: The Irishman
I saw The Irishman at one of the satellite screenings that the BFI has tended to organise for the closing film. I didn’t come up lucky in either of the draws for the opening or closing films – perhaps because the Odeon Leicester Square – or Luxe – is now so luxury, that there are far fewer seats than…
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LFF: La Belle Epoque
La Belle Epoque is a high-concept romantic comedy with a top-notch cast. Daniel Auteil is Victor, an aging cartoonist who’s newspaper has gone online only and no longer needs him. As a result, he feels lost and left behind. His wife Marianne (Fanny Ardant) is trying to keep up. She’s a psychiatrist who gets excited by the digital possibilities of things…
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LFF: Official Secrets
Official Secrets could easily be paired with The Report, in that it tells the true story of someone who helped reveal state wrongdoings in the wake of 9/11. In The Report, it was torturing prisoners captured by US forces, and in Official Secrets, it’s about the legality of going to war in Iraq in 2003. Keira Knightly plays Katharine Gun, a GCHQ translator who…
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LFF: Earthquake Bird
The Earthquake Bird of this film’s title is said to be the bird sound you hear after an earthquake, when all is still and aside from car alarms, the only thing you can hear are the birds. We are in Tokyo of the later 1980s, where Lucy Fly (Alicia Vikander) is working as a translator. We realise…
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LFF: Uncut Gems
The London Film Festival has a tradition of showing a surprise film each year. They normally frame it as something they’d have liked to have shown, but which was only settled upon too late in the day. The fact that they hold screenings in just about the biggest cinema at their disposal also means that…
Hadrian’s Wall
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