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Enders Analysis provides a subscription research service covering the media, entertainment, mobile and fixed telecommunications industries in Europe, with a special focus on new technologies and media.

Our research is independent and evidence-based, covering all sides of the market: consumers, leading companies, industry trends, forecasts and public policy & regulation. A complete list of our research can be found here.

 

Rigorous Fearless Independent

The move comes as altnets, whose networks now cover about 40 per cent of the country according to consultancy Enders, have stepped up their hunt for financing and deals. 

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders, estimated that Connexin’s shareholder, asset manager Patrizia, would take a 1.5 per cent stake in CityFibre as part of the agreement. Patrizia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Most regulations within the TAR26 condoc were continuations of the previous pro-investment regulations, albeit with little progress made on copper withdrawal, no extra help for the struggling altnets and a number of unexpected twists at the margin. 

Within the detail, the most significant hit is the return of cost-based price controls to some leased line charges, and across all of the proposed changes, Openreach has on balance fared worse than retail ISPs, albeit at a scale that is manageable within the BT Group.

Ofcom showed no inclination to offer any extra help to the struggling altnet industry, regarding its inefficiencies as being its own (and its investors’) problem, with consolidation the only sensible path forward for most.

Enders Analysis published a report on the state of UK podcasting this week, which estimated the UK podcast ad market is worth about £70m. “We are not yet at a point where the size of the market in the UK is proportionate to the size of the market in the US,” Pastor said. “Their population may be five times ours. The size of their advertising budgets are many more than five times greater. We’re still playing catch-up.”

Enders said: “The industry remains small overall, with podcasts treated as a slice of advertisers’ audio budgets, currently limiting growth and resulting in overall revenue representing a tiny part of the audio advertising pie, at around £70m compared to the £738m spent on radio last year.” However, Enders added: “An industry move into video – on both YouTube and Spotify – offers substantial reach and monetisation opportunities.”

François Godard at Enders Analysis said the tournament had proved a “hard sell” to both traditional broadcasters and streamers, and that the DAZN deal was the “best Fifa could get” after pressure from participating clubs to lock something in. “The Club World Cup has a grand name, but it looks more like a promotional event,” said Godard.

 

The Berlusconi family-backed MediaForEurope’s (MFE) public offer may not be taken up by many ProSiebenSat.1 (P7) shareholders, but will allow it to raise its stake to above 30%.

Without a core shareholder, ProSieben has flipped-flopped through unsuccessful strategies to meet the digital transition challenge.

MFE believes that European commercial television must build cross-border scale to compete with global streamers.

France is thus taking inspiration from other European countries such as the United Kingdom, which already allows instant blocking, which has earned it recognition as an example in the fight against piracy. But its reputation isn't just based on the legal measures it has adopted, points out François Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis. "Broadcaster Sky and the Premier League are investing a lot of money in the fight against piracy, which makes all the difference."

AI agents capable of complex, self-directed tasks are becoming a reality, with capabilities set to improve dramatically through this year, and diffuse widely.

Consumer agent uptake will be hard to time, but fast when it occurs. Enterprise adoption will happen slower but with greater inevitability, as agents offer strong productivity gains across many business functions.

TMT firms should be able to capitalise on much of these potential cost savings, but are exposed to a number of specific risks around agents acting as new digital middlemen, disintermediating traditional web ecosystems within advertising and ecommerce.

Globally, subscriber growth remains the driver of topline streaming improvements—86% of Netflix’s 2024 global revenue growth came from subscriber additions, with 85% for WBD and 54% for Disney

However, in mature markets growth is underpinned by ARPU. Subs growth is becoming volatile with more customers churning in and out of services around key releases

Relevantly, the race to scale up SVOD ad-tiers will continue to have an ARPU-dilutive effect: CPMs are lower than expected and the growing price divide between premium and ad tiers will persuade more existing users to spin down 

Podcast reach and share continue to grow, albeit slowly, aided by need-state differentiation and increasingly online, on-demand media habits.

The ad market remains small with the long tail of podcasts difficult to monetise, but an industry move into video—on both YouTube and Spotify—offers substantial reach and monetisation opportunities.

Publishers and broadcasters see podcasts as an essential brand extension enabling greater reach, whilst successful podcast networks have tapped into more relaxed, commercial formats.