Enders News

Douglas McCabe was quoted by BBC News in an article on the surge of billionaires buying newspapers and magazines. "The wealthy have always been attracted to news media, chiefly because influential media buys access and influence for owners," he said, before explaining that the "enormous pressure" placed on media outlets by their dwindling advertising revenue, makes them quick to embrace tycoons. 

Thomas Thomson was quoted in The Mac Observer in an article on Amazon’s coverage of the US Open tennis. Viewers complained of poor audio and video quality, but Thomas says that “These issues are a recurring theme, not just for Amazon, for other new entrants in sports video. Amazon has had a brief history of playback and picture quality issues with last years livestream of NFL Thursday Night Football; YouTube TV suffered regional outages in its World Cup coverage in the summer; and, Perform Group’s [experienced] high-profile problems in Italy with the Serie A [Italy’s top soccer league] over the last fortnight.” Starting next year, Amazon will be broadcasting 20 coveted Premier League football (soccer in the U.S.) matches on Prime. While there is time to correct the problems seen at the US Open, Thomas said there are “most certainly” concerns. “This will be a key litmus test for sports OTT as a sector,” he said. “Whilst their outlay on this Premier League package was low, the reputational risk is significant. The User Interface will need to be revamped, and if they can’t deliver at least an SD quality picture to 100% of viewers, then they will not be able to realistically compete with Sky and BT with traditional satellite and cable transmissions.”

Claire Enders was quoted in a Euronews. article on the announcement of Mark Read as the new WPP CEO. "The conditions under which Martin left were such that there is a premium in appointing someone who knows the ropes and can smooth things down," analyst Claire told Reuters, ahead of the announcement.

Alex Fenton was quoted in The Guardian in an article on the competition between the BBC’s Bodyguard and ITV’s Vanity Fair. “Premium drama remains the crown jewel content for broadcasters and streaming services. It has become a fiercely competitive arena over recent years, and its importance has only increased as the deep-pocketed Netflixes and Amazons of the world have entered the fray,” said Alex. “The competition for eyeballs has opened up and driven up production costs and standards, and bigger, better dramas are a good way for content providers to differentiate themselves.” He said there was still a substantial value for traditional channels to make appointment television that brings in viewers at a set time every week. “ITV tends to skew older in its viewership, but younger viewers tend to be the most valuable demographics to advertisers, so any content which can reassure younger people of the relevance of broadcast television programming is a big win for them.”

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an FYI Music News article on the latest media movements. Despite the decline in print advertising somelarge-scale companies are expressing optimism. “In the magazine sector as a whole there has been enormous over-supply problem, and why we’ve seen such a car crash in the middle market where advertising has practically collapsed,” says Douglas. “But high-end magazines with a commitment to high-end editorial values, well-heeled demographics and a high-end supply of advertising have been living in a much less volatile market.”

Joseph Evans was quoted in The Guardian on Snaptchat, Facebook and Twitter’s declining growth. Following an unpopular redesign and a public disparaging from Kyle Jenner Snapchat suffered a 1.5% drop in daily users. “Kids are fickle and Snapchat definitely seems to be falling out of favour with young people, who are its biggest fans,” said Joseph. “For young people there are a million ‘next big things’ every year – look at the global craze for the Fortnite game – it’s difficult to keep their attention for any length of time, as Snapchat is finding out. It doesn’t help when Kylie Jenner, a Pied Piper for kids, blasts Snapchat – then its definitely not cool.” Meanwhile, Twitter has lost 1 million users and share prices have dropped by over 20%. “It is perfectly possible that Twitter has topped out,” said Joseph. “Twitter is a spent force if you are just thinking about user [growth]. From a user point of view it is definitely stalling at best. I wouldn’t want to say we are definitely at peak Twitter, but it is not going to reach that next order of magnitude. Until recently the strategy was to grow users and become a Facebook competitor. But it is never going to be a billion-user business. The recognition now is that is never going to happen. But with 300 million users Twitter is a decent product and you can sell a business off that.”

Alice Enders was quoted in BBC News on the accusations from Prager University that Facebook removing its content was not a mistake, but the deliberate censorship of conservative ideas. “Facebook is caught between a rock and a hard place,” commented Alice. “It is simultaneously exhorted to ‘do something’ – employing human monitors or tweaking the algorithm – to identify take downs, and then vilified by those whose freedom of expression is ostensibly prevented.”

Douglas McCabe was quoted in The Guardian on the relaunch of Interview magazine. Douglas said “In the magazine sector as a whole there has been enormous over-supply problem, and why we’ve seen such a car crash in the middle market where advertising has practically collapsed...But high-end magazines with a commitment to high-end editorial values, well-heeled demographics and a high-end supply of advertising have been living in a much less volatile market.” 

James Barford was quoted in the MailOnline on the fact one in ten homes in the UK are still not connected to the internet, with less than two thirds of over 65s online. James said "It's very much an age thing,' he added. 'As with most new technologies, older people have been slower to adopt. It is a question of choice – some people aren't yet interested."