Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis said: “EU regulators should also be looking with envy to the quality of networks and investment levels in more concentrated markets elsewhere.”
"The share price reflects a hope that Europe is going to deliver more support to Eutelsat, none of the fundamental economics that had led its share price to become so depressed have dissipated," said Hamish Low at Enders Analysis.
It could take years before Eutelsat can provide the Ukrainian military and civilians with connections that are on par with what’s currently available from Starlink, Enders Analysis’ researcher Hamish Low said.
“Starlink is just this insane moving target,” he said. “No matter how hard Eutelsat tries, they’re still going to be blown away over the next couple of years.”
These companies need new funding after burning through their cash piles. Collectively, UK altnets have lost £1 billion in 2023, according to data compiled by technology, media and telecoms insight provider Enders Analysis. The losses have been driven by weaker-than-expected penetration and by higher-than-forecast capex.
Enders’ senior analyst Francois Godard said the Canal+’s full-year result confirm that it’s a “value stock,” but that “it’s not a company that will see tremendous growth.”
“When you see tech companies who are posting 20% growth every year, that’s not what Canal+ is doing and that’s never been what they promised. Their reputation is built on the fact that they’re a solid company, which is built on a viable, cost-effective economic model that brings a slow but steady growth.”
Godard suggested that Canal+ may take longer than expected to find its footing at the London stock exchange because “it’s unlike any other listed media group.” “There are no comparisons and it’s difficult to explain the potential of their strategy because a lot of people are concerned about cord-cutting and don’t necessarily understand the value in aggregation,” says Godard. Ultimately, it requires some thoughts and long-term forecasting that investors don’t always seek,” he continued.
“Eutelsat absolutely cannot step in if Starlink were to leave Ukraine in the near future,” Enders analyst Hamish Low said by email. “Eutelsat might be able to provide some immediate help for the most critical communications, but can’t substitute for the whole range of ways that Starlink connectivity is being used.”
“Netflix has very little original home and garden programming and very little successful programming that it classifies as relaxing,” said Tom Harrington, the head of television at the research firm Enders Analysis. “But there’s a lot of ‘feelgood’ programming, mostly romantic, coming-of-age, Hallmark-esque movies, and it makes sense for Netflix to try to extend that mood into other genres.”
Enders Analysis CEO Douglas McCabe said it best: “...journalism provides material brand leverage, not its opposite. The whole system should be turned on its head, and quantify the benefits of context for pricing power and consumer propensity.”
France’s Ligue 1 launched a D2C platform in the UK last year after failing to sell the rights – “a sign of weakness”, according to media commentator Claire Enders of Enders Analysis.
“Fairy godmothers don’t always show up. The tech companies have not shown up and it’s for a very good reason. The models are very difficult and painful and it takes years to build them up,” said Enders.
Claire Enders, the co-founder of Enders Analysis, a leading British research firm, was even more apocalyptic in her assessment of the piracy epidemic.
“We’ve had covid and a cost of living crisis in almost every market and that has led to incredible spikes in piracy,” she said. “It’s the number one problem in sport. It’s worth about 50 per cent of most markets and in India it’s more like 90 per cent.”
Enders believes that one of the reasons the Premier League’s media rights continue to grow in value is that the league, in partnership with its broadcast partners, police and Britain’s leading internet service providers, has been much tougher on piracy than its counterparts elsewhere.
She was particularly scathing about French football’s decision to ditch its long-term broadcast partner Canal+ in 2020 and described Italy’s efforts to fight piracy as “slack”.