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“[Under the Broccolis] they were very restrained and disciplined about what they were producing, but you’d think the opposite is going to happen now,” said Tom Harrington, head of television for the research service Enders Analysis. “Amazon spent a lot of money on this and they’ll want more content for it.”
Telcos are increasingly developing APIs to share selected network data with third parties, with the goal of supporting useful end-user applications.
Capabilities are still nascent, but the potential is real. Telcos need to adopt a pragmatic approach that looks to match API capabilities to useful products, and build increasing scale over time.
Security is the largest near-term opportunity for API products, but AI is the key emerging area, with telcos potentially able to play an ambitious role in providing APIs to help manage the growth of autonomous AI agents.
US big tech companies are deploying hundreds of billions of dollars to remake the global economy in their image, as enviable growth contrasts with layoffs and low morale.
The cost of using AI models will fall in 2025 and make more AI applications possible. Regulation is caught between pressure from Trump and investigations that must go on, such as digital markets.
Microsoft and Google have tied their fortunes to AI. Amazon and Meta stand to realise business gains from AI, while Apple is the outlier: capex declined in 2024 as it focuses on iPhone and services.
Why is Canal's mayonnaise not taking off? The channel would be difficult to value. "The company has no peer in Europe, except for Sky, but the British group left the stock market in 2018," emphasizes François Godard, analyst at Enders Analysis. Analysts need to have points of comparison. Especially since Canal sends a complicated message to the market, by being both a producer and aggregator of content."
“This will either go nowhere or there will be a settlement,” Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis predicts. “There’s only a limited life left on the original IP, the original version of the character would only be usable in niche circumstances, and it isn’t clear whether there would be an appetite for someone else to exploit it on a major scale. There are only a few companies that could make a Superman film of the standard that the public expects.”
But for Enders Analysis’s Tom Harrington, soaps are actually crucial to streaming services like iPlayer as well as Netflix and Amazon. Cool, edgy 10-part dramas can be binged in a month, then viewers drop their subscription. Keeping audiences hooked is what soaps have always been good at.
“Soap opera, as a format, is not dead,” he explains. “Netflix licences a lot of soaps and telenovelas in various territories and is now moving into commissioning its own – it commissioned the first one in France, called Tout Pour la Lumière, last November. The rationale being that this sort of content brings more urgency and different mood states to the platform than just a library of content that isn’t going anywhere.”
What's happening in France could be a warning to the rest of Europe's sports media markets, according to Francois Godard, media analyst at Enders Analysis.
"Dazn's attitude in France may also send a message to the Serie A in Italy,” Godard said. “They have no contractual option to back out in Italy (unlike in France), but the broadcasting economics there are as challenging as in France, and competition for rights is minimal.”
True, some regions may have greater potential, including the US where average revenues per user are more than double those of the UK, according to Karen Egan of Enders Analysis. And applications can be expanded. If you can beam direct to mobile phones, then why not laptops, cars or tractors?
A study published last week by Enders Analysis showed that the BBC increased its total viewing hours by 3 per cent in 2024, while ITV fell by 5 per cent and Sky by 6 per cent. Disney Plus recorded a drop in UK viewing hours but BBC iPlayer grew by 24 per cent.
Enders co-author Bella Monkcom believes the BBC is succeeding because of the breadth of iPlayer, in comparison with subscription-based streamers dominated by scripted drama and film.
“They are honing in on those,” says Monkcom. “They know that is what is going to bring in viewers, especially young viewers.”