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Niamh Burns, of Enders Analysis, says the latest changes mean “consumers can offload more and more of their cognitive effort, and their website visits, to AI”.
“There needs to be a functioning economic grounding here if the open web isn’t going to wither,” says Burns. “Google does rely on this ecosystem, so this is Google’s problem to solve too.”
BT, Virgin Media O2 and VodafoneThree lost a combined 972,000 mobile subscribers last year according to data compiled by Enders Analysis, which estimated that low-cost rivals including Lebara, iD Mobile and Sky gained more than 1.5mn by comparison. They lost 724,000 in 2024.
“Great deals for MVNOs have arguably been a collective strategic mis-step by the operators, but the VodafoneThree remedies now tie them to that for many years to come,” Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis said.
Its rivals, meanwhile, seem to have slowed their rate of sprawl. No longer fuelled by cheap funding, they are building about 40 per cent less than they were in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs research. Not all of the hundred or so will make it out alive. Most would need to more than double the average altnet’s market penetration of about 19 per cent to break even, according to Enders Analysis.
BT’s own capital expenditure has tailed off, set to fall about £1bn this year as it aims to complete its fibre coverage of UK homes by 2032. Keeping up the pace is also easier for BT, where the investment required to build infrastructure that runs past a single home is about half what altnets spend, according to Enders Analysis.
Enders Analysis said 2025 had been “a somewhat stable year” for Channel 4, helped by a better advertising performance than ITV after three years in which the reverse had been true. However, it warned that the broadcaster now faces a volatile advertising market with its lowest cash reserves in more than 20 years.
At the last count, the “altnets” posted losses of more than £1.5bn in 2024, according to Enders Analysis. After accumulating some £9bn of net debt as of 2025, some companies have already been placed into administration, while others have fallen into the hands of lenders.
The share price reaction to Vodafone’s FY26 results appears to be centred around the outlook for European EBITDAaL in FY27, with consensus hitherto optimistically expecting a very marked turnaround in underlying performance.
Similarly, there should not have been an expectation of further buybacks, with prospective leverage towards the top of target range given recent deals.
Vodafone’s value over volume strategy cost it dearly in subscriber numbers in Q4 – a dangerous strategy in a scale industry. Less demanding guidance would give it more commercial flexibility
2025 was a somewhat stable year for Channel 4, with revenue generally flat (–1%, to £1,027 million), bolstered by a better advertising performance (–2%, to £922 million) than ITV, after three straight years of the reverse.
There was growth in non-advertising revenue, although it still remains a small contributor—10% of the total— but Channel 4’s production efforts are gradually taking shape while its IP acquisition strategy is moving faster. Remit delivery continued to outperform.
With new leadership in place, the future remains tricky: a volatile ad market must be navigated with the lowest cash reserves in over twenty years.
Tom Harrington, head of Television at Enders Analysis, said Sky sees ITV as a second platform to show already aired on the satellite broadcaster, “potentially at the expense of current levels of new ITV programming. Whatever the initial intention, this will inevitably occur to some extent.”
Harrington added: “Gangs of London or (Sky comedy) Brassic might actually be a supportive complement to (ITV’s) Trigger Point and Midsomer Murders, and an altogether better outcome for Sky than their current onward destination, Netflix.” Those shows could be marketed prominently on ITV and generate more advertising revenue there than on Netflix.
Abi Watson, head of publishing at media analysis firm Enders, said the medium-term play isn’t really about productivity, but what new product categories AI makes possible. “Where AI shortens the cycle from idea to a launched paid product — [like] a new newsletter tier, a verticalized data product, an agentic research interface for subscribers, a B2B agent licensing line — the upside is real because it’s tied to subscription or enterprise revenue rather than internal efficiency,” she said.