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The Premier League’s handling of its latest domestic rights sale has been declared a success by Francois Godard, a senior media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis.

“I think it’s a good deal because prices for rights are flat across Europe, or declining,” Godard told PA.

“The important thing is to maintain the gap between the money they earn and the money earned by the closest (rival) continentally, Spain’s LaLiga.”

Godard felt the structure of the deal – spread over four years instead of the traditional three years and with two fewer packages on offer – suited the largest incumbent rights holders Sky Sports, which he feels has a symbiotic relationship with the league.

“Sky need the Premier League. It’s their best and most valuable content,” Godard added.

Now, though, the situation looks set to worsen. If the Government were to opt for only a 6.7pc increase in the licence fee next year – reflecting the inflation rate in September – the BBC’s annual shortfall would balloon to around £516m, according to Enders Analysis.

Alice Enders at Enders Analysis says the BBC is likely to swing the axe on big-budget productions, rather than tinkering around with smaller cutbacks.

“The problem is the minute you cut the content you cut the audience,” says Enders. “It’s very difficult to recover from that as a public service broadcaster.”

Francois Godard, of Enders Analysis, told The Times: “This is in line with expectation — it’s good for Sky, they have more games and don’t pay much more.

“The important thing is the Premier League keeps the gap between the money they get and the other European leagues. Prices are flat everywhere in all countries and there was no real competition.”

“This is good for Sky, said Francois Godard from Enders Analysis. “They get more matches, more coverage — but also it’s quite honorable for the Premier League.”

James Barford, an analyst at Enders Analysis, says alt-nets are under “a lot of pressure”, adding that consolidation is “widely expected”.

Barford adds: “Getting to full coverage is something that is already requiring government intervention and it’s not quite clear if we’ll get there by 2030 or shortly thereafter.”

“The broadband market is not growing as fast as you would expect it to, as fast as it has in the past, and the cost-of-living crisis probably has something to do with that,” says Barford.

“The telecoms sector is not expanding. Iliad's growth comes at the expense of SFR,” explains François Godard, telecoms analyst. Internationally, the results are not much better: turnover fell by 0.6% in the third quarter of 2023.