Jamie said “Is there a gap in the market? Yes, a small one. No one has played with impartiality guidelines in TV news before. But in pure commercial terms it’s very tricky. If it hits its very ambitious targets, it will only just make a profit.”
Francois said “Football television rights depend directly on competition from broadcasters. However, we are far from the effervescence of a few years ago when there were new players, such as the arrival of beIN, competition from SFR or more recently Mediapro in France. Certainly, some have high hopes for platforms like Amazon or DAZN. But for now, Amazon has had a cautious strategy with no crazy spending and DAZN, while being aggressive in Italy, has remained on reasonable prices."
He added "However, they cannot necessarily pay more, at least in the short term, given the fact that the market is relatively mature and that they are subject to competition from SVoD. Football can be happy if prices stagnate!"
Francois said "Amazon had never acquired such large batches in other European countries."
James said “An independently-owned Openreach is very focused on its own financials… It might slow things down.BT as a whole, has a massive interest in UK plc. It has a massive interest in the UK doing well. It sees full-fibre as part of that."
He added, “An Openreach owned by non-UK investors - that only has an interest in itself.”
Francois said as streaming services proliferate, "Content is king, but the interface is queen."
Francois said As part of their deal, HBO and Sky also co-produce shows together like “Chernobyl” and “Catherine the Great.” Even after the current agreement expires, they may want to continue that partnership.
Joseph said “Facebook Marketplace and Dating are not huge commercial products, they aren't strategically central to Facebook, and they operate in competitive markets.However, there's a sense at competition authorities that they dropped the ball on things like Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, because they underestimated how complex and fast changing online markets are. Even if these investigations don't come to anything, they reflect a new determination not to let any potential abuse go unexamined.”
There is doubtless an element of wishful thinking in some business plans, and a round of consolidation to come. James Barford at Enders Analysis argues that often they are based on the assumption that BT’s Openreach will not roll out in the same areas.
Jamie said “Conceptually they’re quite different – one is rolling news coverage across the day, the other opinion-led discussion with more emphasis on prime time – so the two aren’t in direct competition. But they do sit very close to one another in the EPG, within the same genre, and will compete for a declining quantity of overall broadcast viewing.”
Claire said “This is absolutely the right time to be considering a sale. A deal fever has descended on the media sector and barely a day goes by without a mega merger.”
She added “It’s hard to imagine Channel 4 ever being as remotely as valuable [as] the benefits it provides. It churns out millionaires and production companies that go on to work for Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime."