Enders News

Douglas McCabe was quoted in The Guardian on Between the covers: how the British fell out of love with magazines. Douglas said “There is a crisis in the industry, given how much circulation has fallen there really haven’t been as many outright closures as you’d think. Some publishers are just hanging on. We would expect to see more closures in the next five years than the previous five.”

He added that “There is social media, Instagram, Mail Online. So why go out and buy a magazine, even a strong brand, when you can get updates every second? And that’s without the wider fight for consumers’ attention from services such as YouTube and even Netflix. In terms of TV listings their resilience is because there still isn’t anything out there online that is better."

Tom Harrington was quoted in Wired on ​Bad news, Brits: Disney+ may not launch in the UK until 2020. Tom said "Across five European markets Disney and Sky are bound by large content deals—which apparently run into 2020—worth in the vicinity of $1 billion/year (£800m) when including Sky’s deal with Fox. Until the UK deal runs its course, Disney+ won't launch in the UK, with the same for the other Sky territories."

Francois Godard was quoted in the Financial Times on Berlusconi and Bolloré set for latest media showdown. Francois said “I don’t buy [Mediaset’s] motives for doing this. They have been operating in Italy and Spain for a while and have not achieved significant savings in these quite similar markets. But if they achieve [the merger] it will considerably strengthen the control of Fininvest — as a shareholder it will become unassailable.”

Francois Godard was quoted in The Times on Mediaset plans to merge Spanish and Italian companies into Dutchco Media For Europe. Francois said “The whole concept is challenging to say the least. No-one has ever created meaningful synergies by acquiring interests in free-to-air television across Europe,”  TV and film rights and advertising are bought and sold on a country-by-country basis, he added.

Andrew McIntosh appeared on BBC 5 Live discussing how The Great British Bake Off is good for Channel 4 and advertisers. Andrew said it has been a success for Channel 4, roping in the kind of viewers advertisers like. "Bake Off has more than paid its way, not just through the programme itself but through all the spin off programmes as well."  (Interview at minute 34 via link below)

Tom Harrington was quoted in Les Echos on The BBC wants to broadcast its series in catch-up television for a year. Tom said "I can not see the BBC risk losing them to players like Netflix or Amazon Prime who will pay. On the other hand, many programs can only have the BBC as a buyer: for their producers, this means that it will be difficult for them to value the lengthening of this window, which can have consequences for their financing, often completed by the intervention of co-producers or debt finance specialists."

Julian Aquilina was quoted in Medium on The potential of Twitch as a sports media platform. Julian said that this audience “can’t be reached through other mechanisms, like traditional TV or even other online video services, because they spend all their time on [Twitch].” 

He added that “Twitch has that social side going for it, but for a lot of people that’s… a real detraction from the viewing experience. Younger audiences may be more comfortable in that environment. There is a real question whether that [will] change over time, whether they’ll revert as they get older and prefer to be in an ecosystem where they are just watching content themselves, not having this window running down the side of the screen where they are chatting with complete strangers about the football match they are watching.”

Alice Enders was quoted in the Financial Times on Tencent plans to buy 10% of Universal Music from Vivendi. Alice said, "the stake sale would be an “equilibrium move” for Tencent, given it would have struggled to justify a 50 per cent share of Universal at such a lofty valuation". She said Vivendi had missed out on a huge windfall by selling such a small stake. “Selling 50 per cent of UMG at an inflated level would have been a really big score".

Julian Aquilina was quoted in The Drum on the Ofcom Media Nations report. Julian said TV ad sales houses are jointly promoting TV to a new generation of digital-first agencies and buyers. The Drum got a taste of this joint pitch at The Big TV Festival last year.

TV broadcasters are also increasingly attracting online spend. “Online is a growth area for broadcasters too, with online video-on-demand services like All 4 and ITV Hub growing audiences and revenues year after year, and online-friendly investment is going into programmatic buying and more sophisticated targeting.”

Despite a decline in TV ad revenue, “TV advertising is uniquely effective for many brands, which is TV's first line of defence.”

To grow TV advertising’s share, younger viewers must be attracted to the proposition. “Whilst young people are watching plenty of Netflix and Amazon, the programmes are largely what you would find on traditional TV, in fact mainly produced by traditional broadcasters." He pointed to the likes of Love Island or major sporting events. "[Different TV formats] serve different purposes, and it’s very hard to see why young audiences would desert TV completely.”

Questions remain over a Netflix move into advertising, but YouTube has already seized TV ad spend. The broadcast TV ad revenue drop was less in 2018 (-3.9%) than in 2017 (-7.5%) indicating a return to health.

Aquilina concluded: “There are some massive differences between the broadcast and online worlds. TV, rightly, is a tightly controlled environment, with content and advertising regulations and age restrictions. Online still feels much more like the wild west, with its scale and nature proving to be a significant challenge for regulators. Brand safety is key for advertisers, and we have seen many issues over the last couple of years with platforms like YouTube".