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The sector — which boomed in the post-pandemic years when dozens of companies were set up to challenge the traditional operators — has struggled due to the large costs of laying fibre optic lines, in addition to higher interest rates. Enders Analysis estimates the sector has more than £8bn of net debt. 

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, said although broadband challengers had “scaled back on their expansion plans, their operating losses remain firmly negative and interest costs are ramping up”. She added: “Their funding needs expanded by almost £3bn during 2024 on a revenue base of less than £500mn.”

According to research firm Enders Analysis, the Prosieben takeover is turning MFE into Europe’s biggest free-to-air broadcasting operator, with revenues of €6.8 billion ($7.92 billion). As well as its German business, ProSiebenSat.1 also operates in Austria and Switzerland, while MFE runs TV operations in Italy and Spain.

Karen Egan, at Enders Analysis, says: “The additional network choice is not worthwhile from a policy perspective in my view and it also makes it considerably more likely that that alt-net will never make any money.”

“When the private sector has been funding a sector, but starts to retreat as the economics are not stacking up as originally hoped, it doesn’t seem like good use of taxpayer’s money to prop it up,” says Egan.

“We are supposedly a free market economy, after all – and if the markets are telling you that there isn’t space for three separate fibre networks in an area then it’s probably quite right about that.”

François Godard, a senior media analyst for Enders, a media research and analysis company, told The Athletic in February that the $90million figure was “so low, it can only go up really substantially.” Godard even predicted it could double.

Soon after the protracted takeover process ended, Enders Analysis’ François Godard issued a note that said MFE “finds itself in a stronger position to talk to streamers about content deals in the follow-up of this summer’s announcements. In sum, the merger… is a welcome jolt to the European television industry.”

Looking further into the future, Godard’s colleague, Tom Harrington, says: “The real power lies with who controls how people watch, pay and interact with content.” Here, we’re talking about a bunch of unknowns: What role AI search and Google might play, the possibility of ‘super aggregator’ apps, and newer technologies that we can’t yet even envisage. This is where we’re headed, many believe.

The new measures could also include forcing Google to ask for permission to use publishers’ content in its AI Overviews “without affecting if and how they appear in Google Search,” which may positively impact UK publishers. Major UK publishers’ visibility in search results dropped by up to 80 percent compared to 2019 correlating to the rise in frequency of the AI results, according to a report from Enders Analysis.

Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly rejected Paramount Skydance's initial offer, deeming it too low, according to sources familiar with the matter, cited by Bloomberg. Paramount, owned by David Ellison, the son of Oracle's co-founder, reportedly offered $20 per share. Rejecting an initial offer is relatively standard in a takeover bid, "but it means things are moving forward," says François Godard, an analyst at Enders.

It's impossible to assess the influence of its additional programs, but for Pierre Maes, a sports rights consultant and author of the book "The Ruin of French Football," "it's hard to imagine that they could convince people to subscribe." "We have the impression that Nicolas de Tavernost is sticking to familiar paths, free TV," says François Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis.