Current and Future Inspire New UK Data Firm

In London four former employees of Screen Digest have launched Ampere Analysis, a new company backed by a panel of investors. The firm aims to shake up the information sector with a combination of new methodologies and techniques based around big data.

Guy Bisson, Richard Broughton, Ben Colbeck and Dan Stevenson all worked at Screen Digest - the London-based entertainment research specialist acquired in 2010 by US electronics and media market intelligence specialist iSuppli. Between them, the four have spent more than 40 years providing data and consulting to clients including the major film studios, telecoms and pay TV operators, technology companies and investment banks.

The new company is focusing at first on the pay and multiscreen TV sectors, along with next generation content distribution.

Among those responsible for the start-up's 'significant' initial investment are William Reeve, co-founder of LoveFilm and co-CEO of Hubbub.co.uk; Neil Bradford, currently COO of Argus Media and formerly CEO of WGSN; and John Sanderson of Whetstone Group, currently an NED of Somethin' Else and Audio Network. The first two of these founded the early Internet sector specialist Fletcher Research, and sold it to Forrester Research in 1999.

Stevenson, the new firm's MD, comments: 'The media and technology research sector has been slow to utilise the huge swathes of Big Data available in the digital world and we aim to capitalise on this. Our research will feed off Big Data as opposed to the traditional analyst-led market modelling that still dominates the industry.'

Bradford, who is Ampere's Chairman, describes Ampere as 'the research firm for the Netflix generation' and comments: 'As an admirer of Screen Digest since the 1990s, I was thrilled to be asked to invest and chair Ampere Analysis. The team brings unrivalled experience but also a new approach, based on Big Data and new analytical techniques.'

Web site: www.ampereanalysis.com .