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Douglas warned “If your entire business is sports journalism, this is a challenging period.”
He added The Athletic is not alone. Every media outlet was going to have to “think very creatively” about its sports coverage.
Tom said “The problem with streaming services is that audiences expect every TV show ever made to be available right now, but subscriptions are underpriced. Netflix gets around that by borrowing and Amazon uses it as a loss leader for e-commerce. Disney used to make a lot of money selling shows to other broadcasters, but its businesses with the largest profit margins now are amusement parks, cruises and merchandise. They want to reach massive scale, because if kids watch Frozen 2, they’ll want to go to Disney World and spend hundreds of pounds a day going on the ride or buying the outfits.”
Although increases are moderate so far, it is inevitable that overall video viewing will rise given a reduction in competition for people’s time. So far, unsurprisingly, TV news consumption has ballooned while unmatched viewing—a proxy for SVOD usage—has increased.
However, disruption to production of TV content and cancellation of live events will leave holes to fill in the schedule.
Flexibility is built into some types of programming, however nothing can replace live sport, while disruption in the production of scripted programming—especially high-volume soaps—will have knock-on effects that continue for years.
Douglas said “When a lockdown phase is initiated it is unlikely to make much sense for free print media to continue. Any business that is designed for commuters, or at the very least relies on people moving around, will find it very difficult to continue as normal."
Amazon aired its first set of Premier League matches in December, with proxy figures supporting reports that it attracted up to 2 million concurrent viewers
Amazon Prime penetration soared in Q4, backing up Amazon’s claims that record numbers of new members signed up on the first two days of its football coverage—an encouraging sign at the time of year when ecommerce spend peaks
As long as Amazon remains principally an online retailer, bidding for premium packages of Premier League rights cannot be justified. In fact, it could retrench from Premier League football altogether after wringing out the value over three seasons
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Dixons Carphone (DC) has announced the closure of all of its standalone Carphone Warehouse stores, distributing solely through its Currys PC World stores and online going forward.
Several industry trends have led to these difficulties and DC is pivoting its strategy to better position itself for the new reality.
This move is likely to be a positive one for the mobile operators, especially H3G.
H2 revenue growth across Studios, advertising and online, saw ITV come in ahead of guidance in 2019, with external revenues up 3% YoY. Advertising revenue was down 1.5% for the year after being down 5% at H1.
Viewing share of a shrinking pie remained flat, holding onto 2018's share—the highest since 2005. Information on the progress of BritBox was predictably scant while the addressable ad platform, Planet V, is taking shape.
Looking forward, Covid-19 will likely affect all sectors including television—the breadth and severity is, of course, unpredictable with some initial reticence being shown through ad spend by travel brands.
DCMS has launched a new consultation on whether to decriminalise TV licence fee evasion—revisiting a question to which an independent, Government-commissioned review delivered a definitive, thorough "no" verdict in 2015.
The Perry Review concluded there was "no compelling basis for change" because decriminalisation would be inefficient, impair BBC income by leading to higher evasion and collection costs, and probably have a more damaging impact on low-income households.
Support for decriminalisation seems less the result of a serious concern for low-income households than a desire to reduce BBC funding or move to a subscription-funded BBC. Other policies would better redistribute the burden of BBC funding while keeping it a truly public broadcaster.