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Claire Enders, who has studied the Murdoch empire for 40 years, is among many analysts who see little logic in the recent developments. “As a business analyst, I don’t see what the purpose was. I don’t see what they’re in such great disagreement about, since they’ve all contributed hugely to the value created since the nadir of the company only 13 years ago.”

Enders said: “You wouldn’t even be able to put a valuation on those companies [the UK newspapers] because of the rules in place on foreign ownership.” While the radio assets are admired, the company moved its upstart news channel TalkTV because of losses.

“[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.”

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.”