Big tech platforms are extending their advertising lead by deploying existing AI strengths to expand functionality and offer advertisers streamlined performance.
A cohesive model for chatbot advertising is still elusive. While in the process of defining its positioning, it currently impacts discovery more than search.
Scale no longer guarantees agency advantage: value capture is shifting away from providing services and towards owning the processes, tools, IP, and media.
VMO2’s broadband and mobile segments both worsened in Q1 to decline at 3–4%, with altnets hitting the former and an over-publicised price rise change hitting the latter.
Subscriber trends however improved on both, with the broadband base notably reaching near stability as altnet pressure gradually recedes.
2026 will still be a tough year for the company, with service revenue/EBITDA guidance of a 3–5% decline for both looking realistic, but momentum thereafter is likely to be much improved
Disney's Entertainment revenues rose 10% year-on-year to $11.7 billion in Q2, part of a company-wide lift of 7% (to $25.2 billion), with parks remaining resilient despite headwinds. New CEO Josh D'Amaro has begun to outline his vision for the company.
Corporate reorganisation has created a unified marketing vertical, while interactive entertainment and gaming has finally been brought under Entertainment and into the core of Disney's content creation engine.
In the UK, the impact of Disney+'s near-blanket availability to Sky subscribers has so far been muted, indicating that there are few shortcuts to growth in a mature streaming market.
The low price, low quality vicious cycle in UK mobile is becoming ever more apparent in both revenue pressure and in network quality surveys.
Policymakers meanwhile demand better quality, coverage and resilience which will be tough to deliver without a more robust revenue outlook.
Without radical change, the government’s affordability priority looks set to win out over its growth one, driving the industry towards (self-reinforcing) sub-optimal outcomes for both consumers and growth.
G.Network and Gigaclear have emerged from debt distress to (seemingly) carry on as before, with sales processes having failed, and a reset that may end with a not-dissimilar outcome.
The altnet consolidation game appears to be in stalemate as VMO2/nexfibre seeks approval for its Netomnia acquisition, but this will result in continued cash burn, with which investors may lose patience.
Altnet pricing is broadly staying low, as they balance the need to maintain subscriber momentum and conserve cash, resulting in continuing pricing pressure on the ISP incumbents.
Q1 saw Netflix continue to display revenue growth, up 16% YoY (to $12.3 billion), with UCAN (+14%), EMEA (+17%), LATAM (+19%) and APAC (+20%) all contributing strongly.
Netflix has thrived in a decade where TV content has been increasingly siloed. With TV appearing to be moving towards more liquid viewing environments, increased direct competition will disadvantage primary TV destinations.
HBO Max’s launch has so far proceeded as expected, although its decision to not commission locally raised eyebrows: this is in contrast to Netflix, whose UK originals continue to garner the most viewing globally.
UK mobile coverage/quality significantly lags that of its European peers; this really matters, for both consumers and the wider economy, and for both existing services and a range of potential new ones.
Improving coverage will likely require a variety of techniques, from antennas in space to antennas inside shopping centres, and fully utilising the entire range of available spectrum, from sub-1GHz to mmWave.
Network quality competition sparked by the VodafoneThree merger and network rebuild could drive improvements from all three operators, but significant government help is required to ensure this.
Referral collapse and AI summarisation have made it harder for content investment to capture commercial value. Original reporting remains the authority anchor of the bundle, but the economics of serving habitual news users have become structurally harder.
High engagement does not automatically translate into loyalty. Sustainable growth depends on three engines: engagement (depth and distinctive voice), habit (repeatable utility driving daily return) and community (shared identity binding users to brand).
Distinctive voice and personality are the moat in an AI-mediated environment. Publishers building branded formats, creator programmes and deliberate pathways from platform presence back into owned products are constructing defensible, post-platform economics.
European service revenue growth declined to -1.3% in Q4 as trouble in France weighed even more heavily.
In contrast to a couple of years ago, the Italian and Spanish markets have the most positive momentum.
Network sovereignty is driving satellite direct-to-device strategies, and may cause some regret about mobile tower sales, which are also proving more contentious than hoped.
We forecast broadcaster viewing to decline to 50% of all video viewing by 2031 (from 54% in 2025), driven by continued declines in live viewing, albeit at a slower rate than the sharp year-on-year drop seen in 2025.
Non-live broadcaster viewing will increase its share, supported by older demographics as viewing plateaus among under-35s—a trend also true of SVOD services. YouTube is projected to continue its advance on the TV set across all ages.
Although total TV ‘usage’ is flat versus pre-COVID levels, a material and seemingly growing proportion of it (~9%) is when nothing is being watched (e.g. pausing, browsing): this is correlated with smartphone usage and impinges on actual viewing volumes.