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Alice Enders, at Enders Analysis, said the fact that English is such a global language will always keep the UK on the front foot.

She added: 'There is also a pool of educated young people who have all the right skillsets.'

But Enders emphasised that the data is more complicated than it first appears as the Office for National Statistics does not provide a detailed breakdown. As well as direct ad sales, it includes conferences and events, making it more difficult to gauge the impact of specific parts of the industry.

“Proprietors entering the news agenda — or at least being seen to do so — is never a winning formula,” said Douglas McCabe, who covers media at the research group Enders Analysis. “The key question is whether it will affect his relationship with KKR, measured by asset reputational damage.”

McCabe said that, for now, the damage “feels containable” but he added: “It won’t have done him any favours.”

Analysts say BuzzFeed got the market economics for news wrong. Joseph Teasdale, head of technology at Enders Analysis, said BuzzFeed bet that free journalism distributed by large tech platforms with their wider audiences would bring in profits, but instead, the advertising money stayed with their bigger rivals.

“We are at the end of the tide turning for these groups. They were valued incorrectly as tech groups — making news content is expensive,” he said.

Analysts say the future of profitable news is likely to be behind a paywall. “Can you support a digital newsroom just through digital advertising? The evidence suggests not,” said Teasdale.

The gaming industry is sometimes touted as an example of how micropayments can work. Gaming and news, however, do not have much in common, says Joseph Teasdale of media analysts Enders.

While the economics of gaming is supported by a small fraction of heavy users that will spend hundreds of dollars per month on in-game currency, “you’re not going to find someone who’s spending $1,000 a month on news articles,” he says.

While companies like Axate and other micropayments platforms are solving some of the technological hurdles, a widespread solution is still elusive.

“It will probably take quite a large shift to to make the micropayments model viable for more media. You want a standard payments protocol that enables very small payments that everyone was using all the time and for it to be low friction, highly familiar and for it to be a kind of approved model,” says Teasdale.