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DMGT proposes to acquire Telegraph Media Group (TMG) after RedBird Capital pulled its bid.
TMG has a pristine balance sheet and is ready to be sold by RedBird IMI for the reserve price of £500 million to DMGT.
Lacklustre results for the topline in 2024 are partly due to the lengthy period of limbo since May 2023, but EBITDA is steady at £61 million.
“All things lead to some sort of innate quality or relevance relative to other production markets,” says Tom Harrington, at Enders Analysis.
“You would assume that the near universality of the English language drives it – and it can’t not be helpful, but it’s more than that.”
“Everyone is already making less content and consolidation will only add to this downward trend in production volumes – nobody merges to spend more,” says Harrington.
Harrington is sceptical about how much money UK producers can make through this strategy.
“The one rule of TV is that no one knows if something will be a success, let alone if they will then buy a T-shirt,” he says.
With still way more than 100 altnets across the full length of the UK, highly respected digital media and telecom sector research firm Enders Analysis laid bare today quite how economically constrained they are, in a new report published for its subscribers and entitled UK altnets: Something's got to give. In its summary, the Enders Analysis team noted that the collective losses reported by the altnets totalled £1.5bn in 2024, “as EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] losses persisted and interest costs rose sharply, with ARPUs [annunal revenue per user] weakening and operating costs stubbornly high, and the increasing interest burden looking unpayable under any reasonable scenario.”
Aggregate losses at the UK's alternative network operators (altnets) reached £1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) at the end of last year, up from £1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) in 2023, according to a new report from Enders Analysis. The report claims that even the best-performing of the altnets can "barely make EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization] breakeven, and not make sufficient margins to cover ongoing customer acquisition investment, resulting in a perpetual cash drain for their investors."
Big tech, even the US economy at large, is betting the house on AI. Some air might come out of the bubble, but AI investments’ trajectory will stay the course over the next 24 months.
UK national media and content creators face an acute challenge as they exploit global platforms’ ‘export’ opportunities, with AI’s ‘glocalisation’ potential a key new trend for future online video.
AI platforms could create an even tougher online media environment over the next few years. OpenAI’s spending plans are predicated on resetting how people shop, search and access entertainment.
Paramount wins the rights to the largest packages of Champions League matches for 2027-31 in the UK and Germany, taking over from TNT Sports and DAZN.
In the UK, increased fragmentation of premium football coverage strengthens Sky’s attractiveness as an aggregator.
In Germany, Paramount will accelerate the market reshuffle.
Looking at the UK PSBs alone, a Sky/ITV tie-up would control an estimated 70% of the market, creating significant distance between it and fellow commercial PSB Channel 4. However, when considering the wider video ad market, including Meta, YouTube, Netflix and Amazon, the combined entity would be significantly smaller, with Enders Analysis estimating its market share at 30%.
“In this unchanged and tepid business climate, only rivalry between US streamers facing a mature market could fuel rights inflation,” Enders Analysis wrote in a note earlier this month. “But besides Amazon, none have demonstrated interest or capability to spend significantly in European sports rights.”
The latest annual report from analyst firm Enders Analysis – seen by ISPreview – has calculated that the UK’s largest alternative gigabit broadband networks (i.e. BT / Openreach challengers) collectively suffered losses of £1.5bn in 2024 (up from £1.304bn in 2023 and £755m in 2022) – driven by high interest rates and rising build costs. But it suggests that many may never make a profit.