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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.
Sky in 2023: Aggregation response to retrenching customers
9 February 2023Sky is coping reasonably well with the shock of retrenching consumer spending, with revenues almost flat in Q4 2022.
However, profits are under pressure, as the increases in Sky’s costs cannot be fully passed on to customers, and the product mix is rebalanced towards telecoms and variable costs.
Management continues to leverage Sky’s brand strength and its critical mass of consumers to enter new markets, this time with home insurance.
BT: Consumer slows, but Openreach concerns recede
8 February 2023BT’s revenue and EBITDA growth fell in the December quarter, with consumer broadband in particular suffering from weakening volumes and ARPU, as last year’s price rise benefit wanes and broader macro pressures hit.
Openreach, however, had an improved quarter, with the broadband market returning to growth, full fibre build and take-up progressing at or ahead of expectations, and the altnet threat fairly subdued.
Inflationary price rises in April will give a temporary fillip, and likely help drive a decent 2023/24 for Group financials, but it will take much longer for full fibre benefits to really be felt.
Big tech’s worst quarter: Short-term pain spurs cost-cutting
8 February 2023A combination of factors drove the worst quarter ever for big tech growth, though the secular shift online of the economy and society will continue.
Advertising demand is down, reflected in lower prices. Ads did better the closer they are to transactions, with variability by category.
Efficiencies and AI are the investor-soothing buzzwords going into 2023.
Jamie MacEwan was quoted in Adweek on "The Guardian US Nets 40% Gain in Advertising Revenues"
7 February 2023“The Guardian has a central mission to deliver quality journalism free of charge to a broad audience,” said Jamie MacEwan, a senior research analyst at the media research firm Enders Analysis. “It is one of the few publishers to offer such large reach in a premium context.”
Vodafone: Changing tack, if not direction
6 February 2023Pressure to deliver guidance is suppressing commercial activity which in turn is making guidance more challenging to reach. Although the dividend is well covered for now, the deteriorating cashflow outlook is unhelpful.
The change in strategy to give autonomy to country markets and to be more customer-centric has its merits but is not consistent with many Group initiatives and will take a long time to bear fruit.
Vodafone reiterated its intention to merge with H3G in the UK. Recent setbacks to approval prospects may not be as detrimental as they appear, and there is much to be gained with the potential to increase cashflow four-fold.
Tom Harrington was quoted in The Guardian on "Gender inequality and outdated voting metrics: are the Brit awards still hitting the wrong notes?"
6 February 2023The latest Ofcom figures show that broadcast viewing by 16- to 24-year-olds has dropped by two-thirds in the past 10 years. Additionally, the Brits’ viewing figures for all ages halved in the past decade, showing a bigger decline than the Baftas, and one worse than the overall all-ages viewing decline, said TV analyst Tom Harrington, of Enders Analysis. The BPI stressed the Brits’ engagement with young fans across social media and YouTube, citing 44m views across performances and highlights from the 2022 show on its official YouTube channel, in addition to viewing figures that gave ITVX its best single day of 2022 until Love Island started in June.
Tom Harrington was quoted in the Financial Times on "Sally Wainwright, ‘Happy Valley’ creator takes centre stage"
6 February 2023Happy Valley has the alchemy of critical and popular success. Now appointment TV, it won two Baftas for best drama and proved a ratings hit for the BBC (episode one of season three scored 11.3mn viewers). Tom Harrington, head of television at Enders Analysis says, “you could probably count on one hand the number of shows that have grown their viewing since 2014 like Happy Valley has. Since it first appeared on BBC1, overall TV viewing has dropped 30 per cent.”
But such granular local detail is counter to the general direction of television, says Harrington, which “due to funding and distribution models is increasingly being pitched to a worldwide audience”. This blandness to satisfy foreign markets irks Wainwright; she insists that a “strong sense of place” contributes to the success of shows, “whether it’s the desert in Breaking Bad or the snowy bleakness of Fargo”.
Francois Godard was quoted in Bloomberg on "Billionaire Drahi Faces an Unfamiliar Test of Empire Building"
6 February 2023“He has been experiencing decreasing interest rates for 15 years,” Francois Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis Ltd, said of Drahi. “He is one of the most in debt, in terms of Ebitda ratios. It’s complex. We’ll see if he was swimming naked.”