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Tom said that allowing BBC to sell advertising was unlikely because of the competitive damage it would do to other public service broadcasters. “Carrying advertising is surely a no-go — the BBC is too big a part of the market. It would be absolutely terrible for ITV and Channel 4."

Tom said Britons watched on average 8.1 minutes of the channel a day in 2021, compared with 7.9 minutes in 2018. “That might not sound like a massive shift, but the whole industry has dropped about 10 per cent."

He added “Sacrificing younger viewers for older viewers is one of the major reasons for Channel 5’s success — they’re avoiding a demographic that is rapidly lowering its engagement with TV. The question is how sustainable is that? Paramount will be thinking, ‘Maybe by then, everyone will have Paramount Plus and we’ll transfer from the linear [non-streaming] world.’

“With Channel 5, they’re living in the now and squeezing out as much value as they can, while their rivals are transitioning their viewer online at a faster pace.”

Tom said that Fast channels amounted to a “pretty sound strategy for content companies to grab some incremental revenue”, without enduring the fees attached to traditional broadcasting. Though they remained “tiny” in terms of viewing and engagement, they were “certainly a buzzy area of the market."

James said "Some of them may start to run out of money. They will all have a certain amount of debt funding, and there will be covenants on that debt, which will be the trigger point."

"There is also an issue with consolidation. We are talking about companies that have got significantly less than 300,000 homes passed - some of them less than 50,000. Is it worth doing an acquisition for a company that is just a few weeks build time [for bigger players]? Some of them are just too small to be worth the bother."

James said there may be an element of signalling from the Government that further moves from Altice will be examined very carefully. "This move makes clear if it wasn't beforehand that a full takeover - or full control - would be very difficult."

"It is hard to think of a company the laws surrounding takeovers are more directed to than BT. The company does things it cannot talk about for the Government. It's hugely important for the resilience of telecoms networks. Not only is it the biggest, but it does a lot of the underlying systems and connections. And it also offers security services through Global. It probably registers in three different ways for the Government."

"The timing looks linked to Altice’s takeover restrictions lapsing in June, and this may be more a warning about further control being acquired than an objection to the 18 per cent stake per se,” said James.



“BT is highly sensitive in national security terms — it does work for a government that it is not allowed to talk about, as well as being crucial for network resilience. I would not expect the government to allow a full takeover or control to pass to a foreign investor.”

Karen Egan explains the timing of this probe..."That was December, and we're now almost in June, so it's no surprise we're seeing this now,". She said that the government was attempting to "get ahead of the situation" and send a message to Mr Drahi "not to assume" that a bid would be allowed.

"The new bill is designed to protect assets exactly like BT," she said. "The government is quite sensitive over this, primarily on security grounds. It's very unlikely that they'd be happy with Mr Drahi taking over BT."