Tom called the proposal to privatise Channel 4 “potentially spiteful”, a move that ignored the role the broadcaster played in British public service broadcasting of nurturing new talent. “It is akin to altering an organ, with very little understanding what effect it will have on the rest of the body.”

Francois said “Every time Amazon increases its presence in a related field, it sends back the image of a machine that needs to be stopped, but it’s more of a political issue than a competition one."

He added “It is difficult to say that the development of Amazon Prime Video with sports and TV shows is anti-competitive in itself."

James said Vodafone was “taking quite a conservative approach” by choosing Samsung and NEC, “who are significant players globally but have struggled in Europe, as opposed to newer specialists such as Airspan."

Drahi’s intervention illustrates the issues at BT. The company was traditionally what James Barford, telecoms expert at the media analyst Enders, described as a “steady-as-you-go yield stock."

James said “With the pension fund, the legal documents, the contracts and due diligence you are talking a long period of time.”

James said “It's possible they looked at the UK and at other altnet investments, and came to the conclusion that BT was the one that was going to win.”

Tom said “Opening back up won’t affect the big streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Disney Plus anywhere near as much as smaller services that command lower engagement levels."

“Churn for Netflix will likely be returning to pre-Covid levels but it will still be lower than everyone else, except Amazon, which of course is pretty insulated from any of this due to free shipping. It will be somewhat harder for the likes of Starzplay, Britbox, Discovery+ and HayU to get new subscribers, but they are all still benefiting now from subscribers that wouldn’t have come on board in 2020 but for Covid."