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François Godard, Media and Telecoms Analyst at Enders Analysis, provided a stark warning about the deal, which has been confirmed in the past few minutes and will see Netflix purchasing the Hollywood studio behind the likes of Succession and the Harry Potter films for a total enterprise value of $82.7B.

“My first reaction is, watch out, Netflix,” he said. “The merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery destroyed value, and the risk is that this new deal will also produce a result smaller than the addition of the parts. HBO, the most brilliant TV creative house survived Zaslav, but will it die under Netflix?”

“HBO Max, due to launch next quarter in the UK, Germany and Italy, would already be scheduled to close,” said Godard, who also pointed to other WBD assets that would face uncertain futures.

Launching a standalone gaming app shows a sharpening of focus for the company’s gaming strategy, allowing Netflix to more easily track metrics like player engagement and relative popularity of various gaming IPs, “with substantially less risk related to the primary video application,” according to Gareth Sutcliffe, the head analyst covering the games industry for the market research service Enders Analysis. 

“There is clearly still a long road to travel before we see a full integrated single button Netflix app, not least as the vast majority of Netflix subscribers have yet to even enter the discovery phase on gaming, but a dedicated single gaming app would seem the obvious next step,” he said.

Claire Holubowskyj, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis, identifies an arms race between agencies and tech platforms that the former are struggling to win. “Ad agencies have more and more in-house tech divisions, which they bought in over the last six years, but they’re just not as advantaged by it as the big platforms, because they don’t also own the supply and the data,” she says. But she acknowledges that creative skills remain something agencies do better, as clients are uncomfortable with the lack of transparency in how generative AI creates adverts.

She notes that strong brand-building campaigns are showing benefits over pure performance campaigns even in the platform’s own data. Laurence Green, director of advertising effectiveness at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, says only 3% of sales-activation advertising makes a long-term sales contribution while 95% of brand-building advertising also drives short-term sales.

François Godard, at Enders Analysis, describes Paramount’s entry into the market as a “side effect of the AI bubble”, reflecting how Ellison has cashed in on the recent boom in technology investment.

“It is not sustainable for fans and it is not sustainable for the industry because you leak fans to piracy,” says Godard.

“In a world of fragmented experiences and high diversity of cultural offerings, I think the uncertainty and collective experience of live sports is unique, and I am not ready to discount it,” says Godard.

“The only rival to the World Cup is the Olympics,” Francois Godard, a media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis, tells The Athletic.

“The global rights are not held by one single broadcaster, so it really depends on how the nation it is being broadcast in performs in the tournament,” adds Godard. “Broadcasters buy the rights to show they are the No 1 broadcaster in their country.

“There is an institutional prestige to broadcasting the World Cup and it is an opportunity to make casual TV viewers aware of the other content you have. However, you will still get significant audiences, even if your team is not in the semi-final or final.”

Commenting on the Budget’s revisions to the UK’s GDP growth, which signal a better short term than expected but "more difficult next few years", Claire Holubowskyj, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis, said that books have been "bucking the low-growth trend with hugely resilient demand that is likely to continue". She added: "Retail sales in books, newspapers and periodicals have increased consistently over the last quarter, with a 15.5% rise in October far outstripping 3.2% growth in overall retail.

"Consumers will be boosted by inflation projections being lower than was expected pre-Budget and lower electricity prices, but there is an element of the frog in the pan as cost pressures are still higher than they were in the previous March forecasts.

Instead, Amazon Prime retained its first-pick packages in the UK, Germany and Italy – via separate auctions – and Canal+ and Movistar got all the matches in France and Spain respectively. “The global deal is the dog that didn’t bark,” François Godard, a senior media analyst for Enders Analysis, says. “The big tech firms clearly weren’t that interested. Sport is not going global.”

Godard says it points to other rights holders continuing with a market-by-market sales approach. Recent trends are mixed, with Fifa selling global rights to Dazn for the Club World Cup this year but Apple TV and Major League Soccer agreeing this month to terminate their 10-year global deal three years early.

"Pressures from big platforms, AI, Publicis’s winning streak and the Omnicom-IPG mega-merger are sucking the tide out on agency group operations that are seen as subscale or unable to keep pace."

"This is where Dentsu comes in: the rationale for maintaining its international operations as-is looks difficult today. Revenues are declining, Europe has tiny operating margins compared to Japan and Asia-Pacific is negative. Tight control from Japan appears to have hampered the international subsidiaries’ potential. So you have a situation where the scale and momentum is not there for Dentsu to effectively compete with Publicis, Omnicom or WPP on a global level and its international operations seem to be a drag on an otherwise leading position in Japan."