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Francois said “All of its competitors have sports. Netflix is alone without sports, so you could see it bowing to market pressure.”
Godard credits Netflix for showing “discipline” and for not “losing its mind” by overbidding for the rights. It does of course raise the question of whether it can afford to.
James said “Virgin Media has been saying for a few years that it would be interested in a discount sub-brand so it makes sense. Virgin Media could also over time shift TalkTalk over to its network, which would be very lucrative,” he added, noting that TalkTalk only bought internet services from wholesale providers such as BT’s Openreach.
BT’s share price fell more than 8 per cent before the close on Friday.
“I think that regulators will remain extremely sceptical of mobile-to-mobile mergers and fixed-to-fixed mergers."
Press reports suggest that VMO2 is in the early stages of negotiating a deal to buy TalkTalk, which has reportedly been for sale since April.
There is strong industrial logic to the deal, with a sub-brand useful and significant synergies from moving the TalkTalk base to VMO2’s network, with the latter gain at Openreach’s expense.
The main hurdle for the deal would be regulatory clearance, with there being major issues for the CMA—from a range of angles—for such a large in-market merger.
With the publication of the Media Bill (expected to include details of the sale of Channel 4) seemingly delayed to at least after the recess (September), privatisation appears to now be on ice.
2021 was another demonstration of Channel 4’s resilience—showing record-breaking revenues, high content spend and encouraging rates of digital transition—setting a credible platform upon which the broadcaster's PSB credentials can be placed.
Some queries remain: Channel 4’s main viewing drivers are ageing, with fewer new shows being commissioned to replace them. Online engagement isn’t a substitute for declining linear viewing, while digital advertising growth may get harder with more players, such as ITV and the streamers, entering the space in earnest.
Alice said "The only thing news publishers can do is try and accelerate the migration of print customers to digital."
But that's easier said than done. Free print titles are particularly exposed, according to Enders.
"By its very nature, a consumer of print is not hooked into the digital subscription and there's no obvious path to take them from print to digital. The only inevitable consequence in my view is to have a decline in margin."
With 54 million daily active users, half of whom are under the age of 13, online games hub Roblox is much more popular than Fortnite, and still growing rapidly even on top of a sizeable pandemic boost
Roblox is a window into metaverse-like value exchange. The platform pays out about $150 million to developers each quarter through its thriving real-world economy without calling on blockchain―the company must avoid the distraction of NFTs as it attracts more brands
Roblox's success suggests that platforms will remain at the heart of virtual worlds; Roblox itself is a (relatively laissez-faire) gatekeeper, though subject to app store rules in an ongoing financial and policy headache
Joseph said “The D2C market is set to consolidate, as the many, many businesses with unsustainable unit economics are exposed by a downturn. Add to that the fact that targeting and attribution are getting harder, due to technical and legal restrictions piling up.”
Abi described the BBC’s results as “really good” but added that they followed a year full of lockdowns, meaning that a production rebound and pent-up advertising demand were likely to have helped.
WBD has “figured out that, actually, the only axis they need to pay attention to, given the importance of these businesses and their core markets, is — No. 1 — the U.S., then the U.K., Germany and France,” says Claire Enders, founder of leading London-based media consultancy Enders Analysis.
“There isn’t any other place they need to play,” she adds. This axis “drives their business to an extraordinary extent, and they can have much thinner services elsewhere. It’s absolutely the right strategy.”
She added “All that mystery of, ‘Are HBO and Sky going to sign a new deal?’ ‘Is pay TV going to die in Europe?’ Well, that question is over. There isn’t going to be the death of pay TV. These companies are going to be relicensing material that their aged 50-something audiences are really going to enjoy.”