Douglas said “One of the effects of the pandemic is that it’s accelerated structural change that’s been going on for some time. The transition from physical retail to online retail, the transition of offline media to online media... all of those structural changes were rapidly accelerated. In actual fact, about five years of change – from the perspective of business planning – was probably in effect executed overnight due to the pandemic."

He added “I think that had an upside effect. I think it gave some people confidence in the fundamentals of media businesses in a way that they were still worried about them at the end of 2019 and early 2020. Which is to say that the transition was expected to take a long time, and it was to be very expensive."

Tom said “If you’re a new service and you’re not spending as much on content as Netflix, you can’t feasibly argue to the consumer that you’re offering something better. You certainly can’t offer more, so you have to undercut them.” He added: “It’s an artificial price environment that can’t last for ever — and not everyone will win.”

Tom said “content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm” and the leaking of Chappelle’s deal – $24 million for one stand-up special. “Netflix is no longer a disruptor – they’re an established multinational,” he argues. “They may have scaled up everything but they’re still reacting like a start-up sending round memos not realising they’ll be leaked. Warner and Disney wouldn’t send that kind of memo and five years ago this sort of content wouldn’t have been as big a deal.”

Part of the staff fury is down to the way Netflix runs a more open, start-up style internal culture that it describes as “radical transparency.” It is acceptable practice to be brutally honest when offering feedback to co-workers as long as “you only say things about fellow employees that you say to their face.”

Gill said "Advanced booking deadlines may seem anachronistic given the flexibility when planning and booking digital campaigns. But the comparison is unfair: digital players offer fixed audiences with no set time or day requirements, nor for specific programmes, nor quality metrics, such as position-in-break. As TV deals are struck against so many parameters, sales houses need sufficient time to schedule and traffic all campaigns to best optimise the airtime for everyone."

She added "Reducing the deadline to four weeks last year was welcomed, and shouldn’t be reversed, but shortening it further will require significant tech investment and may be problematic."

Tom said “An actor is intellectual property. When you sign up Adam Sandler for multiple films, you know what you are buying. When that property comes in, viewers know what they are going to get. But if you can only make films for Netflix, creatively it can be quite restrictive."

He added “There may be only one person there who decides what you are making. Previously, you would find that Netflix might not want to take a film, but you could sell it to Amazon or the BBC instead.”

Gill said there is "a huge generational divide" in linear TV watching habits. She said: "The younger generation will watch less than one hour a day with some not watching at all this week."

She added "Online video is going to be half of Gen Z’s consumption this year and is only going to go up."

Francois said "So far I am on the wait and see side," he says. "I have not been impressed by Business Insider. I don’t understand where they want to take them - populist or investigative? Can they do better at international expansion than following the failed model of Huffington Post? Certainly Politico will give them insights on what they could do with Insider, if the brand has not been too much  already."

Claire said “Privatisation gives C4 access to an altogether different kind of future – one of much greater ambition,” she said. “It is an opportunity for C4 to become a completely different kind of business - to greatly reduce its dependency on advertising, to be able to develop much more significant partnerships in the world, to have access to globally-relevant technology and partnerships…and secure access to global capital markets.”

She added “There is an opportunity for C4 to pass from the relatively troublesome stewardship of the government into a situation where it’s going to be able to regain its full editorial independence, which has greatly diminished."

Francois said “It sounds healthy to me because if you award the contract competitively you have a better chance of getting value for money. I think the prospects are very bullish. It’s the best football competition in the world. The European public doesn’t seem about to change its faith. So if I were a private investor I would think it’s a very good asset.”

He added “Is it going to double in value in the next 10 years? No. Because this competition is very dependent on the competitiveness of broadcasting markets,” Godard added. 

“In the past 10 years it went up but one specific thing stimulated the market, the entrance of BT. And that had an impact on the rest of the continent. We have no sign that this is about to be repeated.”