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Publishers’ visibility on Google search results has fallen since 2019, but this trend has accelerated sharply since April, according to a recent report by Enders Analysis. And since March, publishers’ search keywords have become over three times more likely to trigger an AI Overview. For now, the impact on publishers’ businesses is minimal, according to the analysis. Publishers’ discoverability and top-of-the-funnel brand awareness are most at risk.

Others think there is less to the spat than meets the eye. 

“People are treating this as a vendetta,” says Claire Enders, a media analyst and longtime Murdoch-watcher. In reality, she believes, it is a screw-up.  She suspects that Mr Trump’s demand that the story be dropped, apparently delivered to Mr Murdoch at a football match, may not have been heard or understood by the 94-year-old. What’s more, she adds, Mr Murdoch is keen to avoid any suggestion that he has editorial control over his companies, amid a libel complaint against Fox News by Smartmatic, a provider of voting systems. “He doesn’t want to be seen to have the power to cut a story—and it is scrupulously denied him, to avoid trouble with Smartmatic,” says Ms Enders.

Enders Analysis’ senior research analyst, Jamie MacEwan echoed this. 

“The solution for advertisers who look at the reporting and really want to cut out an underperforming channel is to run separate campaigns targeting only the desired channels,” he explained. “But that is a lot of extra work and undoes the cross-channel and automation benefits of Performance Max if an advertiser has been getting globally good results from it.” 

“I always felt like it was a good idea,” says Enders Analysis Head of Television Tom Harrington. “You want to diversify at your peak rather than later on. I can see why Netflix would want them for the kind of  audience they can bring, and I can see why [The Sidemen] would want to be on Netflix.”

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.