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For Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, these recent announcements were different to those in previous years.

She said: “The primary reasons for this round of cuts by Big Tech are strategic rather than cost-cutting. Google, for example, is reorienting its operations towards AI tools for advertisers and that requires a specific set of skills in its operations.

“And [it is] reducing or indeed eliminating non-strategic operations, such as resources occupied by the Voice Assistant or AR, which were all the rage a while ago. Amazon also cut its Voice Assistant investment, for example.”

However, Enders stressed it was not “the same driver” for job cuts in the case of every company.

More problematic was how few strings were attached to how the Premiership clubs spent their windfall. This directly influenced CVC’s subsequent moves into La Liga and Ligue 1 in Spain and France, according to Francois Godard, a media analyst at Enders Media.

“The mistake they made was not to control their spending,” Godard said. “They invested in these leagues but they did not have any commitments in contract terms on what the clubs could do with the liquidity. As a result, the clubs spend a lot on players as opposed to investing in their stadium, branding, infrastructure, digital services. As a result, the football clubs in France and Spain are committed to spending around 70 per cent of their liquidity on infrastructure.”

“She’s closer to the creative process than the really big TV producers like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, which may be a product of the fact that she appears in most of the shows she produces,” says Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis.

“Her output deal with NBCU means she is more than an actor/writer who moves from project to project. She is linked to Lorne Michaels, but she’s far beyond other ex-SNL stars that leave, have a Lorne-produced film and then go back to a career of a jobbing comedic actor. Indeed, she tipped as his successor which would make her one of the most powerful women in comedy.”

Claire Enders, who runs media analyst Enders Analysis, argues Channel 4’s move had likely been a “long time in the works,” harking back to the network’s pre-pandemic nations and regions push, before it was almost sold.

She says the plan shows that “‘levelling up’ and going digital are still the priority for Channel 4.”

“The media industry these days requires lower overheads,” she adds. “Channel 4 should be commended for trying to get close to a sustainable size.”

“Compared to social media or a TV channel the harms of allowing extremist content are lower for Substack, because people don’t find newsletters on Substack,” says Joe Teasdale at Enders Analysis. “It basically just provides publishing, communication and payments services.”

Abi Watson, a senior research analyst at media consultancy Enders Analysis, said it appeared that all of the company’s earnings were being passed to shareholders. “The question is whether this is coming at the expense of investment in the business,” she said.

“This is undoubtedly a good deal for Canal as the price of Viaplay has fallen in recent months. The two groups know each other well since Viaplay sells sports rights in Poland to Canal. And in the territories from which Viaplay exits, we could imagine mergers of customer bases between the two,” underlines François Godard, analyst at Enders Analysis.

“He wanted to internationalize too quickly,” analyzes François Godard. Before the summer, he plunged into the stock market after reviewing his prospects and changing bosses. It then announced that it was parting ways with a quarter of its workforce and exiting several international markets. In 2023, the stock lost 97% of its value, after having already fallen significantly in 2022.