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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.

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.

“There are ferocious negotiations going on, on really fundamental issues — for instance whether the BBC will take advertising on its website, iPlayer or somewhere else,” said Claire Enders, founder of the media research company Enders Analysis. “These fundamentals have yet to be hammered out, and it’s a negotiation with the Treasury as well. The BBC has never walked out of a charter process without more to do for less.”