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From next year the BBC will merge its two 24-hour TV news channels into one global service. Analysts at Enders Analysis have warned that the BBC risked falling behind rivals such as Sky and GB News as a result, while the merger could lead to gaps in its coverage of national news stories.
Service revenue growth was up just 0.1ppts to 2.0% this quarter, as price rises in the UK and the peak of the roaming boost offset weakness elsewhere.
Price increases to combat inflationary cost pressures are gathering momentum—a potential revenue cushion as roaming tailwinds diminish and challenging economic conditions weigh.
Vodafone is battling strategic issues in most of its main markets—significant change in strategy will be required from the new leadership.
Until now, ITV has been “reticent” to premier shows online because “they make so much more money on terrestrial” TV, said Tom Harrington, head of television at Enders Analysis. But the company’s hand has been forced because “linear viewing is dropping so quickly."
For François Godard, senior analyst at Enders Analysis, the reason for this discrepancy is to be found in the platform's ambition to compete with players like Netflix. "Salto, it was a mistake from the start. Its shareholders are free channels for which the challenge is not to replicate Netflix. How to finance original content with a million subscribers and at very low subscription prices? down ?" Salto is losing money, generating around 50 to 60 million euros in revenue and 180 million in gross losses for its shareholders, according to Les Echos. "The only ones to do this in Europe are Canal+ and Sky. These players have a much greater economy of scale, offering sport and the services of other platforms as aggregators," he continues.
Sports orgs are looking for ways to engage their total, global fanbase, leading them to explore virtual interactive sports experiences.
Sport is well-placed to overcome many of the obstacles in the way of the metaverse. In particular, many of the asset development and experience design issues are much closer to being solved than in other verticals.
There are different routes to a true sports metaverse, with the most promising being expanding existing sports simulation games. Crypto, NFTs, and social gaming platforms are largely distractions.
TV expert at research hub Enders Analysis Tom Harrington underplayed this hype around the digital launch.
“ITV is just accepting that it needs to get into the future,” he told City A.M., explaining ITV’s reluctance to evolve in recent years, especially compared to Channel 4 and the BBC.
Mobile service revenue growth rose to +6%—its highest level in over a decade as price increases fed through and roaming picked up.
However, there were early signs of a worsening economic environment: handset revenues and contract volumes were subdued and churn popped up for most operators.
Growth may soften from here as the roaming boost subsides and economic conditions worsen, but price rises of up to 15% in the spring could provide more resilience if fully implemented.
Other observers worry about the potential impact of increased streaming viewership on ITV’s traditional core networks business. ”We are confident that (ITVX) will be a step change for ITV’s online engagement, however, we believe that ITV may be understating its potential cannibalization of linear,” Enders Analysis analysts Tom Harrington and Gill Hind argued in a Nov. 9 report.
“It has been refreshing to see ITV publicly talking down its current streaming service, the Hub, picking at the failings — its clunkiness, dated feel and lack of content — that have been obvious to consumers for years,” the Enders Analysis duo wrote. “That nothing was done about it sooner was clearly due to mitigation of linear cannibalization and the relative difficulty of monetizing online audiences. If ever there was a sign of a tipping point in the decline of linear, it is this: the least tech-minded broadcaster pushing hard into streaming.”
