FEH Media Insight’s principal, Dr Farid El-Husseini, has extensive experience in leading and executing major strategic consultancies for key broadcasters and regulators, including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, UKTV, NBCU, Discovery, Turner and Ofcom. He has also worked on radio for PPL, and as a statistical expert for PRS. He has a particular specialism in the UK market, but also has significant international experience having led or contributed to projects for Turner in Poland, RTL in Croatia, and BBC Worldwide in South Africa. Areas covered have included:

• Assessing the impact of competitive channel launches (including SVOD) on existing channels
• Competitive landscape assessments, including impact of the FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google)
• Predicting the likely performance of new channels
• Assessing the value of launching on additional platforms
• Modelling the audience and revenue impact of scheduling changes
• Cost/Benefit analysis of legislative changes
• Programme repeat cycle optimisation
• Promo and content strategy evaluations
• Giving extensive evidence in court as an expert witness

A fundamental issue in the current environment of rapidly evolving media technologies is what impact these will have on existing business models, and whether a given innovation ultimately constitutes an opportunity or a threat. Dr Farid El-Husseini has been involved in analysing the impact of changing technologies on audience behaviour since the beginning of his professional career, starting with the rapid proliferation of digital multichannel television in the early noughties, through to the advent of PVRs, HDTV, Online Catch-Up, VOD, Smart TVs, Smartphones and Tablets. His forecasts have featured in the Guardian, and the impact of technological change on television viewing habits (most notably the rise of the SVOD services in recent years) is also one of the core topics of his blog.
 

Dr Farid El-Husseini is the leading UK expert on the viewing impact of EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) positioning and has led major projects in this area for: UKTV, Discovery, Virgin Media, QVC, NBCU, ITV, Discovery, Channel 4 and Ofcom. His work for Ofcom on the audience impact of EPG prominence is in the public domain.
 

The key to generating robust evidence based forecasts is a combination of sound industry knowledge and expertise in applying statistical forecasting and modelling techniques. From micro-level forecasts looking at the impact of a range of very specific scheduling changes on the channel portfolios of broadcasters like the BBC, UKTV and AMC Networks, to more macro-level forecasts assessing the impact of different EPG reshuffle scenarios and future audience behaviour for ITV, Channel 4 and Ofcom, Dr Farid El-Husseini is able to combine expert industry knowledge with a sound understanding of statistical modelling and forecasting techniques to generate credible and reliable forecasts. He has also been extending his media landscape forecasts to cover Total Video Viewing by combining his projections for more traditional schedule based TV and catch-up, with non-linear BVOD (BBC iPlayer, Sky OD, etc.) and SVOD (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) estimates, as well as YouTube, Facebook, and other online video forecasts.
 

Handling large and complex datasets, combining these with other data sources where appropriate, and using statistical analysis and data mining techniques to extract robust evidence based insights, is an area in which Dr Farid El-Husseini has a particular expertise. This has been built up over many years of experience working with TAM (television audience measurement) data across a range of international markets, as well as online video viewing data and more specialist datasets like the music usage records held by music licencing agencies. Another area of expertise is designing and managing specialist surveys, Farid having been the chief statistician on a number of major audio-visual media industry studies for the UK Film Council and the European Commission.
 

Key areas of expertise include advertising revenue estimations, ranging from specific shows to the likely revenue potential of an entirely new channel or service, as well as estimating the likely impact of broader screen industry income shocks (as would result from the loss of a major subsidy for example) and their multiplier induced macroeconomic implications. Another area of expertise is in auditing and validating in-house revenue and performance forecasts, either as part of a due diligence process, or to provide an external expert evaluation/opinion to help inform a key strategic objective.