Francois said “The Mediapro story tells us that leagues . . . have been greedy, and far too short term."

Francois said “We have reached the peak of sports rights." 

He added “All the leagues have been greedy. But the French league has been a bit more greedy, and a lot less lucky.”

Douglas said "Yes, as far as it goes. The US election was a close race with a record turnout, revealing a deeply divided country, and social media and search likely had a relatively limited impact on the outcome. The biggest positive for US media will be a president who respects them and takes difficult questions from all sides. But this will not stop media digging in and accentuating social and political divides. Nor will it incentivise media to investigate and analyse (not explain away) different perspectives."

Jamie said streaming services, which had accounted for less than 10% of sales in Japan until a few years ago, grew to 15% last year and will likely exceed 20% this year. “The crossover point where total digital revenues eclipse physical production is now just a matter of time."

He added “Domestic labels are likely to make more of their catalogues available to stream closer to physical release, which will accelerate the digital transition in the coming years."

“This will prevent the emergence of an Apple-Spotify duopoly as seen elsewhere."

Alice said “I have no doubt that subscriptions will continue to grow. There are more quality news providers seeking online reader payments now than in previous years, and incumbents are able to convert more readers to subscribers as they build knowledge and expertise.”

Julian said “Typically when rights are sold to pay-TV broadcasters, they bring in a lot more money because those broadcasters are in a better position to monetise those rights through expensive subscriptions to millions of customers. However, Amazon has grown so quickly over the past year, and ­particularly during the pandemic, and has acquired other sports rights including 20 Premier League matches, that it is going to be really interesting to see whether they have had another success with [the Autumn Nations Cup] that subscribers stick with them.”

He added “We have seen properties move behind a paywall and then audiences go through the floor. There is an element of protecting the interest of the competition, and you can lose that when you do not reach millions of people.”

Joseph said the video games industry is one of the few sectors that is doing well globally during the pandemic, "That is directly linked to people being locked down and having to social distance."

He added "You can visit people in the game, and it's become a way to socialise."

Alice said “It’s a thousand per cent a male, pale stale world. I’ve been a token woman all my life – I have a PhD in economics – but this is very extreme.”

Jamie says Quibi’s deeper issue was that the market Katzenberg and Whitman had imagined was simply not there. “There were still those in-between moments that they spoke about, the more existential problem is that there’s still no proof of demand for premium short video. A lot of media habits have changed in recent years, but viewers still love long-form narrative.”

He added that Quibi failed to embrace many of the things that make mobile apps successful, such as sharing screenshots of shows or linking to episodes, were also bad signs. But most importantly, the show had no breakout hits, leading perception of the start-up to focus on its odd format and lack of support for televisions.