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The new financing is “far from a ringing endorsement of the sector,” telecommunications analysts James Barford and Karen Egan from Enders Analysis wrote in a note. “This capital raise will not be the first of many across the alt-net sector in our view, as CityFibre’s business model is unique, and now partially dependent on the struggles of others to encourage consolidation.”

"The financing is certainly counter-trend to the current desert of funds available to altnets, and will not change this paradigm in our view given CityFibre's unique wholesale business model, which is now dependent on others struggling to raise funds to enable its consolidation ambitions," said James Barford, an analyst with Enders Analysis, in a LinkedIn post. "With cash and a solid business model, we expect CityFibre to make rapid progress with consolidation, but it is all far from over, with years of deals to come, and there will still be opportunities for others to play their part."

“The hope is that agents are able to bring some real utility to users – to actually do things for them rather than just outputting polished text and sounding impressive,” said Niamh Burns, senior media analyst at Enders Analysis.

But Open AI has acknowledged that allowing an AI agent even limited reign over computer systems meant that “with this model there are more risks than with previous models”.

Burns, an independent analyst, said: “It’s easy to say the system will require your approval before making a purchase, but what goes into the process of that system finding the products? Would there be commercial deals where brands pay to be featured by assistants, or cases where they might feature their own products more than competitors?

“These AI companies are under growing pressure to monetise their products, so some version of ads or sponsored placement feels inevitable.”

Funding is always welcome but doesn’t last long as they burn through cash. CityFibre’s raising brings total investment in altnets to around £20bn since 2020, yet last year the sector was still in the red to the tune of more than £1bn, calculates Enders Analysis.

Spending continues even after the infrastructure is in place: customers have to be lured in and then connected. Enders Analysis reckons that altnets need an ebitda margin of 35 per cent or more in order to be cash flow positive, after taking account of outlays that don’t appear on the income statement, such as some customer acquisition costs.

“These figures sound like a very rough estimate of reach, the number of people who watched at least a game for a couple of minutes,” says Francois Godard, senior media analyst at the London-based Enders Analysis.

“But the billion width of (Infantino’s) estimate makes it difficult to take seriously. Anyway, the commercial value of the Club World Cup resides in the professionally and independently measured viewership in the richest markets, starting with the U.S., where advertising airtime is sold at the highest global prices.

“Everybody is equal, but to advertisers, one average U.S. viewer is worth a multiple of an average Latin American viewer.”

“The early indications are relatively positive,” says Godard. “We’re looking at good ratings of Club World Cup games on broadcasters like Mediaset in Spain and Italy and Sat.1 in Germany.

“Owning the browser itself is one way of securing the place of your search product, and all the benefits that go with that (including to your ads business),” said Niamh Burns, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis. “And the data advantages are huge when you have that kind of access to a user’s journey.”

Regarding the potential of such deals mushrooming across Europe, Francois Godard at Enders Analysis predicts that more will follow, especially in Germany where Prime Video already launched linear channels from broadcasters ARD and ZDF several years ago. Godard says Max will likely be the next streamer to form a deal with a local TV group.

As for the U.S., there’s even less chances of pacts between TV groups and streamers, says Godard, because there are “fundamental differences” between those two markerts. “European free-to-air channels are genuinely free and possess substantial audience power, unlike their American counterparts which are typically part of a paid cable package,” says Godard.