Enders News

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on news content in the digital era which, despite the overflow of information available on the internet, consumers are keen to digest from trusted news brand. Douglas said “they want the news in a timely way and they want to understand the context and the implications of the news, the weekend newspapers and news magazines are particularly good at the latter, and as information and news moves more quickly, these digests grow in importance rather than otherwise.”
Consumers are being updated on how their world is changing constantly throughout the day, and get their news not only from traditional news suppliers, but also brands, social media and other platforms. He added, “But, that in no way reduces the need, indeed, it could be argued it increases the need for a news provision that details the context, that provides commentary and analysis, that provides an authoritative view and opinion on what is happening and why it is happening,”. The rapid pace and creation of news content online means people can be constantly up to date with events as they happen. However, having a detailed commentary, background, analysis or opinion on the event is not something people want to necessarily read every minute, according to Douglas. “There is something just that intuitively feels right about a digest on a weekly basis,”. He added “How often do you need a commentary and digest of what has happened? Is it appropriate to provide that on an hourly basis, a daily basis, a weekly, a monthly basis? A quarterly basis? Weekly just feels right.” “That is why, generally speaking, weekend editions of quality newspapers or weekly magazines are holding up a bit better than weekday newspapers. News magazines are clearly doing very well. Circulations are fairly stable and they tend to have quite high subscription volumes and so on.”

Toby was quoted in an article on the decision to move the popular show “Great British bake off” from the BBC to Channel 4. Toby said that even if Channel 4 drew less than half the audience that Bake Off had on the BBC, it would still prove financially beneficial. He estimated that advert and media buys would bring in about £3m per episode, with each series currently made up of 11 episodes. He says “if Bake Off gets even half the success on Channel 4 that it got on the BBC, it will more than cover itself,” adding that “Channel 4 are likely to charge premium rates in terms of airtime, in the region of £50,000 to £100,000 for 30-second slots, even if it just gets audiences of around 3 million, and if Bake Off draws in 5 or 6 million then that will be another step up. “It doesn’t have to get anything like the audience it had on BBC1 to be successful and make back the £25m it spent.”

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article which confirms Telegraph Media Group is not for sale rebuffing expressions of interest from potential buyers in the past six months. “The Telegraph is better placed than most. It has a large subscriber base and circulation seems reasonably robust. Newspapers, even great and profitable newspapers, are not quite the prized assets they once were, but the Telegraph is a powerful voice in the British political and cultural landscape.”

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on British publishers, who are enjoying a Brexit bounce, as media sales and traffic are up. However, the question now is, how long will the Brexit sales spike last? Douglas said “Not everyone is so upbeat” adding that the outlook for U.K. publishers remains gloomy. For years, revenues from publishers’ print editions have been diminishing as readers and advertisers move to the internet. Despite building large audiences online, media companies have struggled to replace print income with digital advertising or subscriptions. Those long-term structural changes would’ve continued regardless of the referendum outcome, McCabe said. In fact, Enders Analysis is forecasting that, if anything, Brexit will probably make it worse, as the wider economy slows. Companies will be nervous about spending money on advertising, and the shift away from print will accelerate. In support to this Douglas said in an email that “Circulation growth and site traffic growth have been very encouraging, at times of crisis consumers go to trusted sources, and the aggregated levels of consumption and engagement through Brexit have evidently been very high”. “However, print circulation will of course return to the pattern of before Brexit very quickly. Consumer interest will not be sustained indefinitely. As important, the structural advertising change engulfing the news industry has continued throughout”. Moreover, in the first three months of this year, advertising in the print editions of the U.K.’s national newspapers fell by 16 percent, according to a closely-watched measure of spending published by the Advertising Association and advertising specialists Warc. Enders predicts newspapers’ revenues from print advertising will fall again by as much as 20 percent in 2016 and 2017, wiping out a huge chunk of the publishers’ incomes.

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on the Guardian’s owner, Guardian Media Group (GMG) which reported a £8 million decline in revenue on Wednesday. Douglas told Radio 4 Media Show “One of the big and truly unexpected issues that The Guardian faces and indeed, is in a sense an existential long-term question for the entire news medium, is that online advertising is not growing at anything like the levels that one would have hoped for. The key issue here is that online display advertising has moved away from publishing services, particularly news sites, to social media sites. Facebook and Google are growing massively in market share."

James Barford was quoted in an article on the Brexit aftermath for telecom firms, as UK phone users may suffer higher charges as a result of the vote to leave the EU. James said "a fall in gross domestic production or in population could be significant for this industry". He added "a phone is pretty much regarded as an essential service, and if there are less people in the country using your products, that leads to lower revenues. The fall in population may come about through caps on migration, or because slower growth means fewer migrants will come here to look for work."

Francois Godard was quoted in an article on the France’s Euro 2016 soccer tourney and the outcome for the TV business. Euro 2016 matches punched spectacular ratings: yet the broadcasters who bought rights mostly lost millions; but most will be back bidding for rights to Euro 2020. Francois said “you’re always hearing broadcasters say that they don’t recoup on events like the Olympics and World Cup, but their calculations take in much more than direct advertising revenues. The exposure sets them apart from competitors and allows for in-house promotion”.

Francois Godard was quoted in an article on the Vivendi’s Canal Plus and Qatar -controlled BeIN Sports deal, which was blocked last month by Bruno Lasserre, president of France’s antitrust board. However, on Thursday the country’s competition authority confirmed that it would consider easing the Canal Plus anti-trust regs in a yearlong regulatory review. Francois said that in France, Canal Plus competition rulings are “very restrictive and prevent the group from operating in the same way as its European and U.S. peers,” investment bank Exane/BNP Paribas said in a note Thursday.
Will they change next year? France’s competition watchdog “has to relax Canal Plus’ conditions. Some rules will lapse for sure,” Francois said. Those conditions were drawn up 10 years ago, then revised in 2012, in a far less competitive environment for France’s dominant pay TV operator. Just how anti-trust regs may change, or if the watchdog would thumbs up a Canal Plus-BeIN deal, is anybody’s guess, however. “Next year, everything will be open,” he said.

Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on UK publishers, who in the aftermath of Brexit, are capitalizing on the heightened public interest by offering new products. Douglas said launching additional print products can be an effective use of print presses, which are more idle currently than the days when print flourished. He added that “there are a lot more publishers looking at sending out additional publications, due to simple economics like that”. However, he added that it’s unlikely publishers launching “pop-up” print products are banking on big print ad revenues. “Print advertising is under a lot of pressure. No one seriously believes these kinds of products will generate lots of good print ads”.