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"When Rupert Murdoch stormed the UK press, he wanted to modernise the media industry," says Francois
"He wanted to break the trade unions because those trade unions were the roadblock on the road to modernisation of the UK press.
"I don't know what Bollore's vision is: what is the plan and where are we going? If Zemmour was elected as president of the republic then he could thank Bollore for it. Zemmour is a very good entertainer and Bollore had the intelligence to give him airtime.
"But the weight of CNews in French politics is nothing like the weight of the Sun in British politics at the time of Tony Blair.
"The intelligence of Murdoch was that he aligned with Blair and it gave him leverage. The problem with CNews is that it gives Bollore leverage within the right, but outside of the right - and by that I mean the government and the left - he loses leverage, because he is stuck to the right wing."
On the Ofcom report, Thomas said “It is important to note that Ofcom found in its research that audiences tended to base their perceptions of the BBC’s impartiality on what they think about the BBC more generally. The issue of impartiality will continue to be an ongoing challenge for the BBC but it is taking steps to tackle this through its recently published Action Plan, which incorporated elements of the Dyson and Serota reviews into editorial standards and culture. Ofcom is well aware of these measures and repeatedly referred to them in today’s report.”
The UK’s Q3 GDP growth paints a picture of stolid recovery, leaving GDP still 2.1% below the pre-pandemic peak in early 2020. We expect Q4 will be much stronger, mainly due to booming retail—very beneficial to advertising growth—and returning the economy to peak GDP early in 2022
We predict record highs for retail sales in Q4 with volumes surging on the back of base effects in the previous year, seasonal highs, and ongoing work-from-home (WFH) practices, compounded by a 6-8% YoY increase in retail prices, which could yield up to 14-16% sales value growth
Aside from fizzing retail, the economy enters 2022 facing headwinds from bubbling CPI inflation as energy prices surge on global markets, higher prices for food and other essentials, and Brexit-induced shortages of labour and goods that are hard to alleviate in this island’s economy
Ofcom has approved the relaunch of BBC Three as a linear channel in February, and mandated that it will appear within the first 24 slots of electronic programme guides. The 2016 cost-cutting move online saw a loss of about 75% of viewing of BBC Three content
The linear relaunch has the potential to actually lower viewing of the channel's biggest shows. Transmission on BBC One and Two is the overriding driver of reach and discovery of all BBC Three's recent long-form shows, bar perhaps Normal People and RuPaul's Drag Race UK; the new channel will have lower prominence
Giving the channel a home of its own allows it to make the content it really needs to. Currently commissioning has the twin purpose of finding approval with the young whilst also holding up a proportion of the BBC One schedule. These are contradictory intentions
Google has lost its appeal of the European Commission’s antitrust ruling of 2017 that it had abused its position in general search to favour Google Shopping, its Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) channel for merchants, in relation to price comparison aggregators.
Since the case was lodged in 2010, price comparison has receded as the key to consumers’ online purchases, also motivated by influencers, reviews, and browsing. Merchants use YouTube and Instagram to build brands, Facebook to launch products, and Google Shopping as the key alternative to Amazon for direct response.
The EU’s antitrust regime has once more solved yesterday’s problem, but this will shift for Big Tech to an ex-ante regime when the landmark Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act come on-stream.
Tom said “They’re earning quite serious money from Instagram from this deal,” he said. While these payouts would be small compared to Channel 4’s main revenue streams of digital video subscription and advertising revenue, the partnership can pay dividends when it comes to driving brand recognition. It works as a marketing exercise for Channel 4 as more young people see them and they go on the streaming service."
Vodafone’s leverage issue continues to drive its strategy and operational focus, as evidenced in its H1 results with solid EBITDA but lacklustre revenues.
Its leverage crisis is severely exacerbated by the prospect of a fibre build in Germany as well as a sizeable headwind to its cable business momentum there. Further sell-downs at Vantage will help and we view the prospects of consolidation as slightly improved, with Spain the most promising option.
Growth in the UK appears to be on hold and the outlook is mixed with VMO2’s notice for early termination for its MVNO, ongoing B2B weakness expected but significant inflation-linked price rises on the cards.
Francois said "My worry is that at some point demand collapses. The risk of a sudden dramatic drop is huge if you weaken the main product (the national leagues)"
He added "If you change to this new model with a World Cup every two year and games have to be moved from the weekend to midweek and you have a shorter overall season and some players might not be available at some point, you weaken your core product."
Julian said “Even the online streamers have experimented with weekly releases. Netflix has done it before. There is experimentation across the board and there’s not one single right way to do this. Both models will hold value over time.”
