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Claire Enders was quoted in the Financial Times on Pressure mounts on ITV after Jeremy Kyle show death. She said “Markets may have gotten spooked, but investors and ITV are more concerned about broader issues that the whole industry is facing. Jeremy Kyle is bigger in the Daily Mail than in reality. People are assuming they have lost a bigger star than they actually have.”
Disney announced that it would acquire Comcast’s 33% share of Hulu in a put/call agreement that can be enacted by either party from January 2024, while taking full operational control of the vehicle immediately.
Under the agreement Disney will pay Comcast a minimum of $9 billion for its current stake, provided Comcast fulfils agreed capital calls, which going forward would be just over $500 million/year.
Disney secured the continued licensing of NBCUniversal content for Hulu, contributing about 30% of Hulu’s library, but Comcast can loosen obligations to Hulu for the launch of its own SVOD service in 2020.
Karen Egan was quoted in the Financial Times on Vodafone faces growth test after cut to dividend. She said "The company has been cutting costs, looking to form network-sharing deals and investing for 5G. But it is still underperforming. The dividend cut is a casualty of that underperformance rather than a solution for it."
Claire Enders was quoted in The Times on BBC may strip free licences from millions in means test. She said “It is bound to outrage millions of people that they will be paying for their licence fee. There will be 3.5 million extraordinarily angry people.”
After the most challenging period in its history since 2012, Facebook has been able to stabilise its fundamental metrics and announce a major product overhaul
Despite talk of a business model pivot, Facebook’s focus remains on advertising, whose growth will remain concentrated in developed markets
News publishers wishing to stay relevant on the upgraded product set need to target exclusive layers of social interaction, with groups particularly important
Francois Godard was quoted in the Financial Times on France’s Iliad to raise €2bn by selling mobile towers to Cellnex. He said “Selling towers to Cellnex makes sense, the French group was taking advantage of the fact that financial markets are ready to give a higher value to towers when they are set aside in a separate corporate shell than when they are buried in an operator’s balance sheet. But it does not change the Iliad business model.”
Sky made a surprisingly weak start to 2019, with revenue growth decelerating to 1.9% (the first time below 4% since the European businesses merged in 2015), due to weaker ARPU trends.
However, Sky expects improvement to follow, blaming one-off factors in the quarter. The ARPU weakness drove EBITDA down 11.3%, but this should bounce back across the rest of 2019 as football rights costs turn from a drag to a positive.
Comcast highlighted collaborations with Sky across tech, advertising, content distribution and even news, stating it is on track to achieve the anticipated $500 million in annual synergies over the next couple of years.
Tom Harrington was quoted in the Times on Dame Carolyn, are you sure we will be amused by your TV streaming service? He said “They are wishfully thinking that BritBox’s subscribers will be in the millions, but look at something like the streaming service Disney Life; that has only 100,000 subscribers. Then there is Now TV, which has fewer than 2m, and that has been around for seven years and has some of the best content in the world.”
Douglas McCabe was quoted in the Financial Times on Guardian owner hits profit benchmark after decades of losses. He said “The leadership team has done very well to bring this phase over the line, but the next phase, covering both the sustainability of the business and a core audience retention, will be more complex and challenging.”