View of the future
Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:26:00 GMT
Chris Ramsden - his TV King website aims to free viewers from the schedules
A TV revolution is underway – sweeping away the tyranny of the schedules – and innovative young entrepreneur Chris Ramsden aims to be a big part of it. He’s launched a website that enables viewers to find out where they can watch any episode of any TV show at any time.
Chris, aged 25, a recent graduate of the University of Huddersfield, where he studied software engineering, has launched a service named The TV King. It is a one-stop shop for information about global television programmes that are legally viewable online.
“There are huge changes in the way that people consume TV,” says Chris. “It will be less and less a case of abiding to a schedule. It will be a matter of watching what you want, when you want it and how you want it. It will be a major shake up.”
He compares the impact of online TV viewing to the effect that services such as Napster and iTunes had on the music market. He aims to position his service in this new field, and already he is being tipped for success.
For example, he was Highly Commended when he entered the 2011 Yorkshire Graduate Entrepreneurship Awards. He joined graduate and student entrepreneurs from universities across Yorkshire who pitched their ideas and plans to a panel of business experts.
Now Chris, who lives in Mirfield, aims to make an impact at the prestigious Venturefest, taking place in York in February. He has been a confirmed as a stallholder – meaning he will meet large numbers of potential investors – and may be selected to make pitch that could result in £30,000 being injected into his venture.
Chris currently runs The TV King as a one-man business. It means that he personally crawls the world’s legal online TV sites and collates the information so that site users have instant access in one place.
Some of the sites he lists – such as the BBC iPlayer – are free. Others, such as iTunes and Amazon, are paid-for viewing services. Chris’s revenue comes from advertising on The TV King site and he also earns a percentage when a user signs up to a paid-for service.
The TV King is getting at least 1,000 hits a day, but Chris plans to expand by employing at least three assistants, and that means he needs investment. He is exploring a wide range of options and is convinced that his business start-up will be part of the future of TV. He also aims to develop a parallel website dealing with movies that are available online.
The TV King is a free-to-use service although users can register, enabling them to contribute reviews and comments about TV programmes. They can also receive email alerts about their favourite shows. To sample the site visit http://www.thetvking.com/.
Chris gained and Master of Engineering degree at the University of Huddersfield, and The TV King took shape during the later stages of his studies in software engineering.
THE Yorkshire Graduate Entrepreneurship Awards, in which Chris was highly commended, is run by the Graduate Entrepreneurship Project, which is led by the University of Huddersfield and includes nine other higher education institutions in Yorkshire. The goal is to promote entrepreneurship among the region’s students and graduates. The Project, which has been funded to the tune of £1.3 million from the European Regional Development Fund, was announced as the winner of the Enterprise Champions Award at the 2011 National Enterprise Educators Awards.
The project is managed at the University of Huddersfield by Louise Bermingham. Commenting on the 2011 Yorkshire Graduate Entrepreneurship Awards, she said: “The Graduate Entrepreneurship Project provides students and graduate with a platform to explore and develop their business ideas. Although the concepts presented by the finalists at the awards were all different, each demonstrated a level of business acumen which was a credit to the individuals and testimony to the support each university provides for its young entrepreneurs.”
