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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

Disney gets the final piece of Hulu

15 May 2019

Disney announced that it would acquire Comcast’s 33% share of Hulu in a put/call agreement that can be enacted by either party from January 2024, while taking full operational control of the vehicle immediately.

Under the agreement Disney will pay Comcast a minimum of $9 billion for its current stake, provided Comcast fulfils agreed capital calls, which going forward would be just over $500 million/year.

Disney secured the continued licensing of NBCUniversal content for Hulu, contributing about 30% of Hulu’s library, but Comcast can loosen obligations to Hulu for the launch of its own SVOD service in 2020.

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Financial Times

15 May 2019

Karen Egan was quoted in the Financial Times on Vodafone faces growth test after cut to dividend. She said "The company has been cutting costs, looking to form network-sharing deals and investing for 5G. But it is still underperforming. The dividend cut is a casualty of that underperformance rather than a solution for it."

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The Times

10 May 2019

Claire Enders was quoted in The Times on BBC may strip free licences from millions in means test. She said  “It is bound to outrage millions of people that they will be paying for their licence fee. There will be 3.5 million extraordinarily angry people.”

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Facebook doubles down on advertising

8 May 2019

After the most challenging period in its history since 2012, Facebook has been able to stabilise its fundamental metrics and announce a major product overhaul

Despite talk of a business model pivot, Facebook’s focus remains on advertising, whose growth will remain concentrated in developed markets

News publishers wishing to stay relevant on the upgraded product set need to target exclusive layers of social interaction, with groups particularly important

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Financial Times

8 May 2019

Francois Godard was quoted in the Financial Times on France’s Iliad to raise €2bn by selling mobile towers to Cellnex. He said “Selling towers to Cellnex makes sense, the French group was taking advantage of the fact that financial markets are ready to give a higher value to towers when they are set aside in a separate corporate shell than when they are buried in an operator’s balance sheet. But it does not change the Iliad business model.”

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Sky Q1 2019 results: weak ARPU hits bottom line

8 May 2019

Sky made a surprisingly weak start to 2019, with revenue growth decelerating to 1.9% (the first time below 4% since the European businesses merged in 2015), due to weaker ARPU trends.

However, Sky expects improvement to follow, blaming one-off factors in the quarter. The ARPU weakness drove EBITDA down 11.3%, but this should bounce back across the rest of 2019 as football rights costs turn from a drag to a positive.

Comcast highlighted collaborations with Sky across tech, advertising, content distribution and even news, stating it is on track to achieve the anticipated $500 million in annual synergies over the next couple of years.

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The Times

7 May 2019

Tom Harrington was quoted in the Times on Dame Carolyn, are you sure we will be amused by your TV streaming service? He said  “They are wishfully thinking that BritBox’s subscribers will be in the millions, but look at something like the streaming service Disney Life; that has only 100,000 subscribers. Then there is Now TV, which has fewer than 2m, and that has been around for seven years and has some of the best content in the world.”

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Financial Times

2 May 2019

Douglas McCabe was quoted in the Financial Times on Guardian owner hits profit benchmark after decades of losses. He said “The leadership team has done very well to bring this phase over the line, but the next phase, covering both the sustainability of the business and a core audience retention, will be more complex and challenging.”

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Online media monetisation: When free costs too much

1 May 2019

The commercial challenges for media online are well-documented: online advertising pays for utilities such as search and social networking many times over, but not for media beyond user-generated content and low-investment journalism.

There are also costs from a user perspective: wasted time, harmful content created to attract views, and the collection, sale, use and frequent leakage to criminals of personal data.

Different sectors have found varying success with alternatives: games, video and music are attracting user payments, driving the paid online economy up 15.5% to £8.2 billion in 2018.

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