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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."
The UK net neutrality rules are up for review; as usual, the operators are pressuring for relaxation, and there are strong arguments that the competitiveness of UK telecoms markets make such rules innovation-quashing with no consumer benefit.
The chances of mainstream video content providers producing a windfall for telcos are slim, but there are a host of more intensely commercial content providers which have far greater potential to pay extra money for higher quality content delivery.
Future services such as virtual and augmented reality will stretch even FTTP/5G networks; allowing the telcos to develop custom business models to facilitate their delivery may well speed up the development and implementation of the metaverse in the UK.
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."
Claire said “Without the debate on privatisation, it would have been impossible for those 60,000 organisations to make their views known.”
She explained that by reopening discussion it was actually “strengthening the remit for Channel 4”, which could lead to a codification of its essential functions, like reinvesting back into talent. This could then be passed on to a buyer, whoever that may be.
