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Substack offers software to help people set up free or paid-for newsletters and promises the people creating them that they can write what they want and that they own their own mailing list and can take it with them if they leave.

Substack, they argue, is tearing apart that coalition of workers by ripping out the stars. But Douglas McCabe, media analyst at Enders Analysis, isn’t quite so sure.



“The internet just creates this endless cycle of aggregation, disaggregation, aggregation and disaggregation and that is an internet story, full stop,” he says. Substack “will end up aggregating particular kinds of content and trying to sell a single price point to access these 20 writers who talk about the environment or talk about the future of technology, or whatever it is they talk about”.

Gill Hind, analyst at Enders Analysis, said she did not expect the move to cannibalise the network’s advertising revenues, adding that the cost of production will be “minimal”. “It’s a good way forward, [Bauer] will get to know more about their consumers and get data back from that as well,” she said.  

Every limit to Apple’s ability to exert control over its own platform is a challenge to its strategy to derive long-term growth from services instead of devices, said Joseph Evans, head of tech at Enders Analysis.



“It’s striking that aside from games and maybe dating apps, there are very few new business models that have really thrived and become extremely profitable through in-app payments,” he said. “The kind of ‘transaction tax’ is probably part of why we haven’t seen as much business model innovation in that area.”

Claire Enders, the eponymous boss of the analytics firm, points out, for all of the talk of disruption from other broadcasters, streaming platforms and breakaway competitions, football leagues in England, France, Germany and Spain are all using the same providers as they were in 1992. Some fraught relationships are more stable than they look.

James said a potential sale of BT Sport was likely part of Jansen's strategy to 'focus on BT's main business – broadband.'

He added: 'BT is first and foremost a telecoms company.'

James calculated that BT has lost up to £2bn on its foray into sport broadcasting, with annual losses in the region of £400m in the early days.