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Douglas McCabe was quoted in the FT on the sale of Johnston Press. Analysts said strategic buyers would include Reach, formerly known as Trinity Mirror, and Newsquest, which both have large local newspaper portfolios. But the debt may scare off potential bidders. Douglas said “The question is, can they sell the whole portfolio or is there an inevitability about it being broken up?”
Drawn by its rapid growth and enviably youthful audience profile, incumbent broadcasters are paying increased attention to esports and its followers
Viewership of esports on UK broadcasters’ linear channels is low, with consumption on their online platforms likely the same. The market’s fragmented nature and global audience, along with the dominance of Twitch—and to a lesser extent YouTube—makes this unlikely to change
Broadcasters’ low-cost approach has primarily benefited competition organisers and games publishers. For broadcasters to create real revenues, massive upfront investment would be needed, with the risk of failure high
European mobile service revenue growth was sharply lower this quarter dropping to -0.7% after two years in positive territory, owing to weakness in the southern(ish) European markets of France, Italy and Spain
Iliad has strong momentum in Italy and we expect ARPU dilution to worsen into Q3, with the subscriber loss impact also growing. Any loss of traction for Iliad is likely to drive another round of price cuts
We expect continued north/south divergence in Q3 with the anniversary of the European roaming cuts boosting the UK and Germany in particular whilst the outlook for Southern European operators remains challenging
With a carefully priced, strong line-up of iPhones, Apple will consolidate its main revenue line and core user base in the near term
The latter feeds into a services business showing impressive growth, but which is also marked by missed opportunities and mounting negative consequences on the rest of the online ecosystem
For media businesses, Apple’s impact is larger than ever, inevitably leading to new kinds of friction around commercial terms, App store policies and browser features
Comcast’s £30.6 billion acquisition of Sky brings to an end the long-running ownership battle since Disney agreed to tender Fox’s 39% stake to Comcast, also ending the Murdoch Family Trust’s interest in Sky.
Comcast’s US domestic cable and global NBCU media businesses complement Sky’s European operation. Sky’s telecoms business is likely to expand, while the TV side should benefit from NBCU’s global distribution might, with greater revenues generated by its original content.
Fox’s long-running battle with UK regulators over the public interest dimensions of the proposed Sky acquisition has also ended. Plurality of media is preserved by Comcast’s undertakings to support Sky News for 10 years
James Barford was paraphrased in The Financial Times in an article on Comcast’s plans for Sky’s broadband business. James argued they may “look to boost Sky’s telecoms arm by investing in business telecoms, given it has a strong presence in the US, or by buying spectrum to boost its mobile arm. However, he said it was also possible that it could look to acquire companies such as TalkTalk, which has 4.2m broadband customers, or smaller competitors.”
At DMEXCO, the top online advertising conference in continental Europe, a call for responsibility took centre stage rhetorically, but was hardly reflected on the conference floor
In contrast, concrete, on-the market applications of AI in advertising were no longer a rarity, with businesses from ad tech to consultancies demonstrating case studies in campaign management, consumer segmentation and personalisation
The industry is betting that the ePrivacy Regulation will be canned as policymakers fear Chinese and American dominance in AI, but the Chinese giants still had a confused marketing pitch at DMEXCO
Alice Enders appeared on BBC Radio 4 to discuss the upcoming Sky auction
James Barford appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live to discuss roaming after Brexit. He concluded that customers of larger operators travelling to big European countries are unlikely to be affected. There may be issues with smaller European countries if operators there play hardball and offer high wholesale rates to UK operators. In 2017 most of the UK operators made a big deal out of the introduction of free roaming, so customers might feel let down if this is reversed without good reason and the operators will not want to irritate them in this way.