Enders Analysis provides a subscription research service covering the media, entertainment, mobile and fixed telecommunications industries in Europe, with a special focus on new technologies and media. We cover all sides of the market, from consumers and leading companies (e.g. Vodafone, Iliad, ITV, BT, BSkyB, Virgin Media, Apple, Google and others), to regulation. A complete list of our research can be found here.

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News

  • the Financial Times 20 January 2015


    Thomas Caldecott was quoted in an article on The Sun's decision to end forty four years of Page 3 in print, instead making its photos of topless women only available online. This may be seen as an attempt by Murdoch's media empire to improve its image following the hacking scandal. However it also represents a move by The Sun to boost its digital subscription numbers, by adding topless women to its exclusively online mix the tabloid could attract more of its core audience. Thomas said "They clearly think it's going to have some positive effect. Otherwise they wouldn't bother setting up the new online access". 

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  • the Financial Times 6 January 2015


    Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on Waterstones plans to open more stores in light of news that book sales are on the rise, with sales of the Kindle ebook reader falling this Christmas as the physical book market shows signs of improvement. Physical book sales at Waterstones rising 5 per cent in December, as the company reveals plans to open at least a dozen stores in 2015. Douglas McCabe said "The rapid growth of ebook sales has quite dramatically slowed and there is some evidence it has gone into reverse".    

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  • the Financial Times 1 December 2014


    Michael Underhill was quoted in an article about premiership TV rights, with the next auction of live matches for the 2016-17 season expected to take place early next year. Sky, which has long dominated the sports rights market, is facing greater competition. Currently, Sky pays an annual £760m for five packages to broadcast 116 games a season, while BT pays £246m for 38 games. However BT is expected to pose a greater threat to Sky this time around. Michael said "Sky is a more diversified business than it was even five years ago", adding that "Sport is crucial for its subscribers, but Sky would survive even if it worked as a 50-50 provider with BT".  

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  • the Guardian 30 November 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article about mergers in the UK telecoms industry, as BT attempts to buy its way back into the mobile phone market. With speculation spreading that this will trigger copycat mergers across Britain's fragmented communications industry, the idea of 'communication supergroups' already an established in continental Europe. James said "One major trade sale alternative would be market consolidation and I would observe that Three Ireland bought O2 Ireland".   

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  • the Telegraph 25 November 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article regarding the news that BT is working on a takeover of either EE or O2. A deal would mean that the vast majority of Britain's broadband, home phone, mobile and pay-TV requirements would be served by just three giant providers. Each would own fixed-line infrastructure and one of the main mobiles operators. However the question remains whether British customers are interested in such bundles of services. James said "The UK sticks out like a sore thumb among European markets. In most countries the top fixed line operator is also the top mobile operator. The same goes for the second fixed-line operator and the second mobile operator". However "To believe consolidation is necessary you first have to assume the consumer demand is there".  

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  • the Financial Times 25 November 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article on Gavin Patterson; the chief executive of BT. James said "He has imposed his own direction after a very strong chief executive [Ian Livingston]. But the sport strategy was inherited and mobile could be his first big decision to make". The acquisition of a mobile business would fit the bill by launching BT's ambitions to re-enter the consumer mobile market. 

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  • the Wall Street Journal 24 November 2014


    James Barford is quoted in an article as BT enters into early talks to buy Telefonica SA's UK mobile business, O2. If the transaction goes ahead it would see BT return to consumer mobile services. BT also confirmed that a second UK cellphone operator, rumoured to be EE, had expressed interest in a potential sale. James said "Defensively, BT has [mobile] covered through the [EE mobile virtual network deal] anyway. It would be a strange decision to do this because of quad-play", adding that "part of the justification is likely to be an ability to cross-sell products".   

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  • the Financial Times 24 November 2014


    Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article discussing the fact that The Sun newspaper has doubled its number of digital subscribers to 225,000, but has failed to offset a decline in its overall paid readership. In August 2013 it introduced a pay wall and 102,000 people started paying in the first four months, however the new figures show that the rate of sign-ups has slowed substantially since. Douglas said the figures were "reasonably positive", while cautiously adding that there was a lack of historical data to judge them on. 

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  • the Independent 19 November 2014


    Toby Syfret discussing the launch of an Ofcom investigation into the £1bn-a-year Premier League TV rights deal, following the successful lodging of a complaint in September by pay-Tv firm Virgin Media. Ofcom suggesting that the shortage of live games is distorting competition and driving up prices unfairly. The premier league currently only sells the live rights to 154 games a season out of a possible 380. With the last auction in 2012 seeing a 70 per cent increase on the 2009 auction, following a bidding war that broke out between rivals Sky and BT. Toby said that Ofcom's intervention was likely to result in "more live games". However he suggested that this might suit Sky and BT as "they each have a reasonable number of games in the next auction". BT with 38 at present and Sky 116.  

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  • the Financial Times 14 November 2014


    Claire Enders is quoted in an article about Youtube and whether it is rewriting the rules of broadcasting. The rise of so called 'vloggers', such as Zoella, becoming disproportionately important to YouTube - despite only representing a fraction of the overall programming upload to Youtube, with music videos still accounting for more than half the six billion hours of content. With more than 6.5 million subscribers Zoella is a dream advocate for many fashion and beauty brands. However Claire points to the difficulties of making this pay "Companies don't want to find their brand placed alongside tasteless user-generated content". 

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  • the Guardian 14 November 2014


    Toby Syfret was quoted in an article about the rising costs of pay-TV, as increasing production costs and competition for talent and sports rights mean consumers are now facing bills of up to £100 a month. As the threat from streaming services, such as netflix, drives the cost of television. The consumer being left confused as the choice of services to subscribe to has exploded, and TV companies often 'upselling' so that individuals buy more premium services - increasing costs incured by the consumer further. Using the example of the Premier League auction mechanism Toby said "the current PL auction mechanism gives the Uk consumer little cause for cheer".

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  • Telegraph 13 November 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article discussing BT's plans to scrap their £2.4bn Wholesale division, subsuming the multi-billion pound busiess into Openreach. A move that will concern BT's  rivals who already fear its power. If the plans go ahead Openreach would overtake the outsourcing division to become BTs biggest business, with a turnover of nearly £7.5bn, 41% of the group total. James said "The main concern for competitors would probably be that the merger might make it easier for BT to wholesale bundles of services at a loss with regard to regulated input prices but then recoup its margins via Openreach". 

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  • the Financial Times 12 November 2014


    Alice Enders was quoted in an article as YouTube launches a music subscription service, called 'YouTube Music Key'. This will offer advertising free videos, offline viewing and the ability to play music while the phone is locked. At full price it will cost $9.99 a month, with the people who play the most music on YouTube being given a free trail for six months.  The introduction of this paid-for tier bringing it into closer competition with Spotify, with Alice pointing towards this being a "negative for Spotify" asserting that "this is a much-needed expansion of music streaming into audiovisual streaming". 

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  • the Independent 11 November 2014


    Toby Syfret was quoted in an article regarding Vodafone's plan to launch home broadband and TV to British customers in the first half of next year, as the mobiles giant looks to take on Sky, BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk by offering a complete bundle of telecoms. Toby points towards the convergance of TV, internet and mobile as key in Vodafone's new venture. "It's an inevitable trend that if you're going to offer telecommunications, you're going to offer video communications", he said. "You want to be able to package it together".

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  • the Guardian 6 November 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article on the prevalence of mobile signal 'notspots' in the UK. With twenty percent of people living in the UK experiencing patchy coverage. James comments on the plans proposed by Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary, who wants to eradicate partical 'notspots' by introducing national roaming. The idea being that it would allow users to freely use other networks if their own provider fails to supply coverage. James argues that national roaming is a bad idea, saying that it would eradicate innovation. 

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  • The Media Show - BBC Radio 4 5 November 2014


    Claire Enders discusses the competition between BT Sport and Sky Sports, as BT accuses Sky of 'bribing customers'. With Sky hitting back saying that this was on the day BT ran full page adverts attempting to entice customers with free broadband and sport. Looking ahead to the next cycle of domestic Premier League rights Claire shares her views on the continuation and sustainability of this highly competitive atmosphere.

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  • the Independent 18 September 2014


    Ian Maude was quoted in an article on Alibaba stock market launch which is set to be the biggest ever, valuing the Chinese e-commerce an estimated $160bin. This will affect also Yahoo, as it owns 22.5 per cent stake in Alibaba. Ian said " it's going to put much more pressure on the Yahoo board and the team there because the performance is not going to be masked by what's happening on the other side of the world."

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  • Telegraph 17 September 2014


    Michael Underhill was quoted in an article regarding the fall of 3D TV, as Sky omits Premier League matches from schedule. Michael said 3d has been "very buzzy two or three years ago", with manufacturers believing it would be a "big breakthrough". It is now understood that across the industry, consumer demand has not been as high as expected, results were not as impressive as hoped and the costs of filming and specialist technology had been high. He added that viewers had signalled they "want to come home and sit in front of the television without having to find a pair of glasses."

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  • the New York Times 16 September 2014


    Alice Enders was quoted in an article discussing how compact discs still account for about 85 percent sales in Japan, despite the global shift to downloading and streaming music. Ironically, the music industry has focused on "turning Japan around", as it is, after all, the world's second largest music market, after the United States. The fear is that an inevitable decline in CD sales will further damage the industry; a similar fear grips the German market, which also remains reliant on CD sales. Alice said " if Japan sneezes and Germany catches a cold, that's it - we're done." 

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  • Bloomberg 11 September 2014


    James Barford was quoted in an article in regards to the possible effects on the mobile market if Scotland votes to separate from the U.K next week. James said that Vodafone, EE, O2 and other carriers operating in the U.K. will have to review everything from plan prices to regulatory changes if Scotland wins independence. He added that while Scotland is relatively sparsely populated, making it more expensive to build and maintain networks, carriers tend to charge subscribers the same prices found in the rest of the country, creating a subsidy. That will evaporate if Scotland goes it alone. "Somebody sitting in Dundee pays the same as someone in London, and Scotland is less densely populated than the U.K." he said in an interview. After independence, "there's no reason to charge the same amount in Scotland as the rest of the U.K., so either service levels would deteriorate or the prices would go up."

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