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Karen described Vodafone’s decision as “inevitable”. She said the likely expectation was that rival operator Virgin Media O2, plus virtual network providers such as Tesco Mobile and Sky, would now follow suit on re-introducing roaming charges.

Joseph said “Advertisers and agencies have woken up to the potential of podcast advertising, and the money is pouring in. Podcast ad targeting and attribution has historically been pretty primitive, but it’s starting to catch up with other online ads.”

In turn, this has fed into advertisers seeing “value for money” in podcasts.

It comes as Times reported 8.3 million digital and print subscribers, and an ambitious goal of reaching 10 million subscribers by 2025.

According to PitchBook, The Athletic, which has more than 1.2 million subscribers, has raised around $145m (£107m) in venture funding since 2016. However, the company is yet to turn a profit, recording a $41m (£30m) loss in 2020.

François said it was nevertheless a “good move”, praising The New York Times’ shift into industry verticals.

Comparing the renowned publication to a tech company, he said: “As a tech company, they are doing what other tech companies are doing; they are buying promising young companies that will reinforce their market position.”

James said ‘Apple designed a user-friendly device that did a few useful things very well, rather than a mass of complicated-to-use features that only techies knew how to use properly."

Douglas said “We have entered a frenzied phase of media innovation, both from inside established businesses and start-ups."

Tom said the potential for the business "remains enormous", but its priorities are starting to change. "I think Netflix will approach pre-Covid like growth in 2022, but that growth will continue to be mostly outside of the US, UK and Canada."

"This is why the corporate narrative now concentrates on its non-English speaking content pipeline, its market-leading dubbing, subtitling and meta-tagging operations, which give the service a boost in those territories. The response from investors will depend on how much they mind about the tougher conditions in Netflix's domestic market."

He added that the move pre-empts the prospect of tighter regulatory scrutiny. "The scaling up of Netflix's operations in the past decade has been impressive, and its transition to becoming part of the establishment was intended."