Tom said “The biggest problem Disney has is also its biggest advantage — everyone knows its name and probably has a warm, fuzzy childhood feeling about it. But what are they going to do with American Horror Story? Is Twisty the Clown going to sully your memories of going to Disney World and meeting Mickey Mouse?”

He added “While streaming services like Spotify destroyed the album, streaming services like Netflix just reinforce the idea that what a TV show is, how long it is and the rhythm of it, have been optimised over 60 years. A few years ago Netflix was talking about using data to make TV shows. Now that’s completely turned around. They’ve hired people who know how to make television — the distribution method changed, but the people making it are the same people who always have.”

Alice said “[£10m] looks like a very small amount compared to where JPI came from — unfortunately that’s the value it came to in the end."

She added “All big regional players took a look at the portfolio and decided not to buy it."

Francois points out that the audience of 18 to 49-year-olds for sports channel ESPN fell 35 per cent over the past decade, while per-subscriber fees increased 130 per cent.

Tom said “To become profitable, Netflix has to put up prices and spend less on content — and it can’t really spend less on content, at least at the moment."

He added “There were two things stopping Netflix from being basically unstoppable. One was the debt situation — and that’s gone now. The other was that Netflix does not, and probably is never going to, make truly local content.It makes an increasing amount of stuff in Britain with UK producers, but with an international audience in mind.”

Claire described Ms Strong as “the shape of the future” for Sky, and said she had honed a methodical approach over the past three years running Comcast’s residential cable business, which has 33m users.

Francois said “The Olympics may be an opportunity to raise the profile of [Discovery Plus]. But they will need distribution deals with major pay-TV operators and telcos for sustained subscriber growth.”