John Bentley

International media, entertainment and communications entrepreneur

Chief Executive of Prize Mobile Group Plc.;
the world's first providers of mobile prize reward video games

Record of achievements
 
First with digital Gamecards 2003 Electronic Game Card, Inc.
Chairman & CEO
First with Net television (Internet on TV) 1995 Viewcall America, Inc.
President & Founder
First with point to multipoint satellite fax 1990 Faxcast Corporation, Inc.
Chairman
First with video rental in Europe 1980 Intervision PLC (UK)
Chairman & CEO
     
Former CEO of United Kingdom’s largest movie studios corporation
Former CEO of the largest global outdoor advertising corporation

 

 

John Bentley

He started his career on the London Stock Exchange in positions as dealer, arbitrage and analyst and later in investment banking specializing in mergers and acquisitions field. He re-organized and developed a number of UK public companies in varying fields culminating in the building of a major media conglomerate; later to be followed by a series of media and entertainment communication tech start ups.

In 1994 he founded Viewcall Europe and Viewcall America to implement the then radical concept of accessing internet on television, for which he is internationally recognized. Through Viewcall he financed and organised the development of the world’s first thin client set top box (STB) in June 1995. The Viewcall STB at $200 was designed to suit a mass audience against the standard PC cost of $1,500 at that time and was launched a year before Oracle’s network computers  or Microsoft’s Web T.V. opened up for business. In 1980 he brought to the U.K. stock market Europe’s first and largest video rental distribution chain (Intervision, PLC); in 1984 he financed the world’s first individual word processor (Wordnet International); in 1987 through A. Brown & Sons he was the main satellite TV installer in the U.K; and in 1990 he introduced  the world’s first point to multipoint global fax by satellite in the USA (Faxcast Corporation).

In the 70’s he built a major entertainment and media conglomerate from scratch acquiring 14 public companies by merger and acquisition in three years. They included British Lion Films and Shepperton Studios (Britain’s largest movie corporation); Mills and Allen, the world’s largest billboard corporation outside the USA, and the largest UK owned advertising agency, Dorlands. The group eventually employed over 10,000 people overall with over a $1 billion of sales and saw earnings per share increase by 900% over five years while he was Chairman and CEO. In the late 1990’s he was a director of a number of internet orientated companies and CEO of Net Media Consultants, a company specializing in advising and funding new and existing internet companies as well as advising bricks and mortar companies on internet strategies. From 2002 to 2005 he was Chairman and CEO of Electronic Game Card Inc., a company specializing in the delivery of digital pocket games to the lottery and sales promotion industry in the USA.

For further information please contact John Bentley via email, j.bentley2@btinternet.com


Articles  
Mr. Internet TV - Internet TV for the People;
Interview with John Bentley, Inventor of Internet on TV

Ruel's Set-Top Net Page - Feb 1999
Couch potatoes armed with Viewcall
can surf the Web through the tube

From the Ether - Bob Metcalfe - Dec 1995
British firm first to Web TV.
Azeem Azhar - Jan 1996
First Web PCs Arrive
Dave Andrews - April 1996
Financial Times
July 1995
Viewcall: VW beetle of the superhighway
Business Age
June 1996
John Bentley's reputation precedes him. His on-line shopping 
venture is already stirring up trouble on the small screen.

Business Week
June 1996
These may really be PC's for the rest of us
New Media Age
January 1997
Partners strike Internet TV deals
Telecomworldwide
January 1996
Viewcall Europe PLC
Unigram/x
January 1996
Viewcall ARM Set-Top Box Launched
as $250 Webster in US

USA Today
December 1995
Viewcall America tunes TV's in to Internet
Wall Street Journal
December 1995
Interactive TV From Internet May Be in Sight
Daily Express
August 1991
Finance wizard working like a charm
Daily Telegraph
August 1991
Bentley reaches for the skies
Financial Weekly
April 1981
John Bentley's Video Rental and Distribution Business
City Affairs
Company Analysis
Intervision
US Business Week
December 1972
Britain: Parliament zeros in on a fast dealmaker
Economist
The art of financial metamorphosis
NTN press release
NTN Canada, Inc. and Faxcast Broadcast Corporation plc jointly 
announce letter of intent for NTNC to acquire Faxcast