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“It’s been a mess for years,” said Alice Enders, director of research at Enders Analysis, a media and entertainment consultancy, noting that for all the problems, the Telegraph remains a profitable business. “But without an owner, the management cannot implement a strategy. For the staff, whose salaries and promotions are frozen, it’s an ongoing challenge.”

“The only reason he is the preferred bidder is because he offered so much more money than anyone else,” said Enders, noting that the reserve price was £500 million.

Enders Analysis analyst François Godard told Reuters that bumpy trading in Canal+ was expected until the company's narrative was fully grasped by investors.

"It (Canal+) is both incumbent and digital, profitable but not the way streamers are profitable, it is growing but not next year, it is expanding in Africa, which investors don't really understand," he said.

In a research note last week, Enders Analysis said that Britain was relatively well served by existing mobile networks, while the large number of national boundaries in Europe means that stopping satellite signals at the border is a regulatory nightmare.

For these reasons, Hamish Low, of Enders, says he does not expect a full satellite-to-device service to be available in the UK until 2026 at the earliest. And even assuming those kinks are worked out, it may not be the easy win that mobile networks are hoping for.

However, Low says that companies such as Starlink or Apple, through its Globalstar investment, could use the business to chip away at the incumbent mobile businesses. Apple has spent years developing custom modem chips for its phones – currently one of the few parts of the supply chain it does not control – which would boost reception from satellites.

ITV launched its streaming service, ITVX, in late 2022. It accounts for about 14 per cent of viewing, according to analysts at Enders. However, in its last set of annual accounts, ITV said that the decline of traditional broadcast viewing was only just being offset by the rise in digital for the majority of the year.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority approved Vodafone’s merger with Three UK without imposing the feared “structural” remedies — aka major asset sales. That’s good news for Vodafone itself. It expects to cut £700mn between costs and investments, which will allow the combined group’s return on capital to rise from the ashes to something approaching its cost, thinks Karen Egan at Enders Analysis. 

Claire Enders, media analyst at Enders Analysis, said there have been repeated attempts to buy James’ stake in the trust over the past six years, but no deal had ever been acceptable to both sides. But Rupert is “not a man who gives up”, she added.

Enders expected Elisabeth would lead efforts to reach a détente between the two sides: “She is believed to have taken the lead in previous disputes and crises requiring conciliation efforts between her father and his children.”

As Jamie MacEwan, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis pointed out, at a critical mass, this could foster a news network on Bluesky that becomes self-sustaining over time.

“Overall, traffic is going to be more about news personalities than [just] news publishers,” MacEwan continued. “The ability to have healthy two-way dialogue with public figures is something Twitter used to promote before losing its way, so the more controlled environment of Bluesky is a real selling point. Journalists are a big part of that, especially those connected into breaking events. You might get an outlet with a lot of followers, but just as many if not more will be following their star journalists and columnists.”