Claire Enders appeared on Here Comes Pod podcast
7 June 2023
Founder Claire Enders spoke to the Here Comes Pod podcast about the nature of the British media industry and Enders Analysis' place within it.
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Claire Enders was quoted in iNews on "Conservative media is in flux – just as the Tories are gripped by power struggle"
19 November 2023Rupert’s standing-down manoeuvre looks like a strategic ploy to improve optics on Wall Street ahead of a $2.7bn Smartmatic defamation suit against Fox News, says Claire Enders, a media analyst. “I don’t think anything has changed about Mr Murdoch’s life. This was a market, stock-driven event.”
The deep-pocketed Marshall, a chief investor in GB News and founder of the opinion-based website UnHerd, is on a mission to influence British political debate. “Sir Paul Marshall will bid with his whole heart for the Telegraph,” says Enders. “He is really deeply interested in having an impact on conservatism.”
Tom Harrington was quoted in iNews on "Netflix dramas with Knightley and Cumberbatch to fill hole left by The Crown"
19 November 2023Tom Harrington, head of television at media consultants Enders Analysis, questioned whether the line-up would retain enough of Netflix’s early-adopters, who first signed up for The Crown and innovative award-winning series like House of Cards and Stranger Things.
Mr Harrington told i: “The Crown is limping a bit to the finish line in terms of critical resonance but its viewing remains very strong. The gap it leaves is an important one.”
He said Netflix should explore a Crown spin-off, in the way that the hit historical drama series Bridgerton spawned a prequel, Queen Charlotte.
Vodafone: Ticking one box, others await
17 November 2023Metrics in Vodafone's Q3 results pointed in various directions with the main positive being revenue growth in Germany, but there were also concerning data points including continued subscriber decline there, and EBITDA across all of Europe.
The company reiterated its guidance for EBITDA and FCF for the year which looks achievable but a stretch. More importantly, these numbers exist only in theory with the Euro-based results looking set to be lower—with implications for the outlook and dividend cover.
Ridding the Group of its Spanish business, and possibly the Italian one too, will be helpful in delivering on the promise of growth, but whether it creates value for shareholders is another matter.
The Multibank Initiative: Join the UK-wide coalition of compassion
16 November 2023Our country is facing a deepening social crisis this winter, with millions of people living in poverty or destitution, including 1 million destitute children.
Multibanks offer an emergency service for families fighting poverty, providing surplus essentials like nappies, toilet rolls, toothpaste and school uniforms, donated by businesses like Amazon and others, reducing waste, and shipped to beneficiaries.
Co-founded by Gordon Brown and Amazon UK, supported by many donors and volunteers, two multibanks serve each of Fife and Wigan, the next will serve Wales, and the aim for 2024 is to reach six multibanks in the UK.
Market revenue growth was robust in Q3 at 1.4%, but heavily supported by price rises whose effect will wane over the next year.
Broadband net adds remained negative, with pay TV and telephony more negative still, mainly thanks to strained consumer finances.
Declining volumes and waning price rise boosts are likely to lead the market into decline next year, with a recovering economy needed to reverse this.
James Barford was quoted in the FT on "BT Group raises prospect of pension refund after scheme deficit halves"
14 November 2023James said BT shareholders were now “exposed to much less risk than they once were”. He added that this was because the funding deficit was “much less volatile than it used to be, as the pension trustees have hedged most of the fund assets to match future payout obligations, and also much lower due to BT’s ongoing payments reducing the deficit”.
Disney Q4 2023 results: Freeing up cash
9 November 2023CEO Bob Iger has announced that Disney is now in a "building" phase—indicating that the strategic turnaround is complete—however, upcoming breakeven of streaming products owes much to cuts on programming spend
With the rest of Hulu soon to be acquired, Disney looks as if it is pulling out of India—this will make the company's presence outside of the US even more peripheral
In the UK, Disney+'s advertising-supported tier is now live, however, there are forces at play that limit Disney's ability to execute its tiering strategy as effectively as its biggest streaming competitor
Joseph Teasdale was quoted in CityA.M. on "What’s going on with X/Twitter’s Community Notes?"
9 November 2023This is a way to save money by “outsourcing moderation costs to users [allowing Musk to] avoid paying professional fact checkers by getting the punters to add context and vote” according to Joseph Teasdale.
However, overall Teasdale “likes” community notes. He told City A.M. notes are “a nice middle ground between doing nothing about false or misleading posts and simply removing them.”
He pointed out the “problems with a central platform applying content policies designed on the West coast of the USA to products that people all over the world rely on for information”.
“I’m sure community notes are open to abuse, if enough users organise against a given tweet or opinion,” Teasdale agreed.
Teasdale was more charitable to the platform, saying: “I can’t judge how community notes have fared recently, but I will say that when an event like the Israel/Gaza war occurs, there is no informational product that is going to go uncriticised.”
BT: Strong financials, but challenges still to come
8 November 2023BT continued to perform well financially in Q2, with revenue and EBITDA growth remaining robust, and full year cashflow guidance nudged up.
ARPU growth remained robust across fixed, mobile and Openreach, but subscriber growth was weaker, especially in mobile and Openreach, and this will become more of a concern if it persists.
Maintaining growth across retail divisions will be a challenge as the price rise effect wanes, especially in weak economic conditions, and while Openreach’s FTTP roll-out is going well, full success is still not assured.