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Julian Aquilina was quoted in the FT on the appointment of David Pemsel as new CEO at the Premier League. Julian said “[The Premier League] is hoping that he will come up with a new model and address the decline in broadcast advertising revenue"
Media coverage of women’s sport escalated this summer thanks to the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which ignited national interest. The Lionesses attracted an exceptional peak TV audience of 11.8 million for England’s semi-final match against the USA
Still, coverage of women's sport remains minimal outside of major events: only 4% of printed sports articles reference female athletes. Quality press are leading the way—the launch of Telegraph Women’s Sport being the prime example—but the popular press are yet to follow
Freely-accessible coverage will generate greater interest and audiences for women’s sport, but continuous investment from all media will be needed to fulfil its potential
Broadcaster video on demand (BVOD) advertising is in demand with an £89m rise in 2018 spend to £391m, and is predicted to double within the next six years
The rise of on-demand viewing has created a scaled advertising proposition with a strong 16-34 profile – a relief for both broadcasters and advertisers, given the long-term decline in linear TV impacts for younger audiences
Big challenges remain: linear TV ad loads look excessive in on-demand, BVOD CPTs can be off-puttingly high, and measurement is still unresolved. BVOD is a welcome bright spot which faces online video competition head-on, but it won’t be able to turn broadcasters’ fortunes around alone
Douglas McCabe was quoted in the Financial Times on Premier League picks Guardian’s David Pemsel as new chief. Douglas credited Mr Pemsel with leading the Guardian’s move to charge its readers, something that its journalists had been heavily against. “He said it is not enough to say that we are writing great journalism, we need to run a business and break even or better — and that is more or less what he achieved."
The UK TV advertising market, in decline since mid-2016, could benefit from a liberalisation of advertising minutage if Ofcom reviews COSTA and decides to make changes
Broadcasters could gain from the flexibility to devote up to 20% of peaktime minutes to advertising under the EU’s revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD)
Ofcom could also level the playing field between PSB and non-PSB channels, although more minutes of advertising on TV is unlikely to inverse the medium’s decline
Douglas McCabe was quoted in The Times on Why glossy magazines need to turn over a new leaf. Douglas said “Circulations have fallen away quite dramatically, and yet the vast majority of magazines have stayed in print. Publishers have been able to take out substantial costs and maintain a profitable business. Those magazines won’t survive in the long-term. The survivors will be the ones where their publisher has bravely stuck to their guns and invested in journalism despite the heavy downturn in circulation and advertising. Readers recognise when a magazine has been invested in.”
Market revenue growth bounced back to all of 1% in Q2 after near zero in the previous quarter, with broadband volumes at a near standstill
Operators appear resigned to this however, with new customer pricing appearing to recover, and wholesale price cuts not to be repeated
On the downside, further regulatory and commercial pressure on existing customer pricing is likely, and pricing détentes are often short lived
Joseph Evans was quoted in the FT on Google's move to adjust its search algorithms to promote news articles it considers “significant original reporting”, its latest move to support journalism following years of criticism of its role in the industry’s decline. Joseph Evans said: “Search is the engine of Google’s revenue, which means the team behind it has a lot of power and can stop internal attempts to fiddle with the algorithms.”
“This move is to address the longstanding complaint that instant online publishing removes the incentive for publishers to invest in original reporting as everyone can have the story straight away,” he said, adding that Google was trying to address concerns about the economics of online news.
“Of course, Google deciding who should get rewarded for what kind of reporting is going to be controversial, so it will have to proceed in careful dialogue with news providers,” Mr Evans added
Apple’s iPhone launch event was relatively light on iPhone, which shared the stage with games, TV, Watch, iPad and retail announcements
This reflects Apple’s developing priorities: as iPhone sales soften, it needs to find new ways to extract value from the wealthy user base it has spent a decade nurturing
Apple has embraced this new strategy, offering a range of cheaper points of entry into its ecosystem, making the lost profits back on accessories or content subscriptions