The Identity of "Mr. Internet TV" in Historical Context
Conclusion: A Legacy of Ingenuity and Risk
John Bentley remains one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in the history of British enterprise. His journey from a stockbroker’s clerk to the "Inventor of Internet TV" is a narrative of constant reinvention. He has been, at various times, a corporate predator, a media mogul, a global sailor, a tech pioneer, and a historical sleuth.
While the term "IPTV" is now a standard technical designation, Bentley’s early use of "Internet TV" was a marketing and conceptual masterstroke. By framing the internet as something that belonged on a television screen rather than a computer monitor, he anticipated the mass adoption of streaming by decades.
The failure of Viewcall to become a permanent giant like Netflix or YouTube does not diminish the fact that it was the first to demonstrate the mechanism of streaming to a global audience at CES. The destruction of Viewcall through legal and corporate conflict with Oracle and Acorn is a classic example of the "first mover disadvantage," where the pioneer paves the way but the followers reap the rewards. However, Bentley’s own preservation of this history ensures that his role as the architect of this convergence is well documented.
His life’s work is unified by a singular piece of advice he offers to aspiring entrepreneurs: "Imagination and ingenuity. Make life an adventure". From re-shaping the billboard and ad-agency industries to the introduction of video rental to the authorship of The Royal Secret on the life of philosopher Francis Bacon, Bentley has spent his life looking for the underlying truth of humanity that explains how power, money, and information truly operate.
Despite a life described by some as raucous and hedonistic in a series of affairs and divorces and family breakups, his memoirs and historical works stand as a definitive record of a man who didn't just witness the 20th century's media revolution, but actively sought to engineer it.
His life is marked by a refusal to be defined by a single role. He is the man who produced The Wicker Man, the man who brought video rental to the newsagent, the author of a revelatory investigation into the life of the true Shakespeare, and the man who first put the internet on a TV screen. His legacy is a complex tapestry of financial conquest, technological innovation, and philosophical inquiry—a life lived firmly on the edge of the next big thing.
His entertaining yet introspective book Mr Internet TV the Ego and the Id wryly reveals a man of both passion and passiveness; from periods of intense focus on invention to those of contemplation to unbridled hedonism, in seeking to obtain a balance of discovery of his own identity between the Ego and the Id, and which ruled his existence.