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Analyst at Enders Analysis Tom Harrington warned that such a move could undermine the “purity” of big streamers, and told City A.M. that the major selling point of no adverts and low prices are “now being eroded before our eyes
UK altnet full fibre rollouts are accelerating, with an aggregate build pace close to that of Openreach, but customer acquisition is not growing at the same pace, and overbuild in the most attractive areas is becoming a significant issue.
Altnet business models remain challenging and are getting worse as Openreach builds out, and (although there are some notable exceptions) most will need to rapidly achieve scale and turn around their performance to survive.
Consolidation is very likely, along with business failures, and while some market share loss for Openreach looks likely as serious scale players emerge, the downside is limited, and even more so for retail ISPs.
Francois said “If approved, this decision will potentially reset the European television market in a way liberalisation and commercial television reshaped the market in the 1980s. It is absolutely crucial.”
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