The deal, nevertheless, is “a good one for everybody involved”, Francois Godard, senior media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis.

Godard says that despite the plateau – or real terms drop – within the context of broadcast deals across Europe “it keeps the gap between them and the other European leagues.”

“The importance is maintaining the gap and Premier League clubs are the richest,” Godard tells.

“They have more resources to pay for players and nobody can outbid them. It could mean less money for players, but the players can't play elsewhere. They can play in Saudi Arabia in United States, but it's quite marginal. Few players have a good offer to go to these places.”

Godard says that the EPL maintaining that competitive gap with the other big five leagues feeds a “virtuous circle” in which the EPL continues to showcase the best players and which boost the next round of international rights sales.

The Premier League’s handling of its latest domestic rights sale has been declared a success by Francois Godard, a senior media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis.

“I think it’s a good deal because prices for rights are flat across Europe, or declining,” Godard told PA.

“The important thing is to maintain the gap between the money they earn and the money earned by the closest (rival) continentally, Spain’s LaLiga.”

Godard felt the structure of the deal – spread over four years instead of the traditional three years and with two fewer packages on offer – suited the largest incumbent rights holders Sky Sports, which he feels has a symbiotic relationship with the league.

“Sky need the Premier League. It’s their best and most valuable content,” Godard added.

Now, though, the situation looks set to worsen. If the Government were to opt for only a 6.7pc increase in the licence fee next year – reflecting the inflation rate in September – the BBC’s annual shortfall would balloon to around £516m, according to Enders Analysis.

Alice Enders at Enders Analysis says the BBC is likely to swing the axe on big-budget productions, rather than tinkering around with smaller cutbacks.

“The problem is the minute you cut the content you cut the audience,” says Enders. “It’s very difficult to recover from that as a public service broadcaster.”

Francois Godard, of Enders Analysis, told The Times: “This is in line with expectation — it’s good for Sky, they have more games and don’t pay much more.

“The important thing is the Premier League keeps the gap between the money they get and the other European leagues. Prices are flat everywhere in all countries and there was no real competition.”

“This is good for Sky, said Francois Godard from Enders Analysis. “They get more matches, more coverage — but also it’s quite honorable for the Premier League.”

James Barford, an analyst at Enders Analysis, says alt-nets are under “a lot of pressure”, adding that consolidation is “widely expected”.

Barford adds: “Getting to full coverage is something that is already requiring government intervention and it’s not quite clear if we’ll get there by 2030 or shortly thereafter.”

“The broadband market is not growing as fast as you would expect it to, as fast as it has in the past, and the cost-of-living crisis probably has something to do with that,” says Barford.

“The telecoms sector is not expanding. Iliad's growth comes at the expense of SFR,” explains François Godard, telecoms analyst. Internationally, the results are not much better: turnover fell by 0.6% in the third quarter of 2023.

Fans aren’t only paying to stream her music, they are also purchasing physical copies of her albums. “Streaming has taken over the purchase of the physical album product, but Taylor Swift is among the artists that still makes money from vinyl and CDs because they’ve become collector's items for her fans,” said Alice Enders, a music industry analyst at Enders Analysis.

“It looks like the incentives [between website owners and search engines] are not aligned” explains Joseph Teasdale of Enders Analysis. Chatbots will deliver answers immediately, with no need to click through links. This is making firms like Google squirm. “Ultimately the economic model has to evolve,” Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight said. What this changes to is anyone’s guess.

The National “is distributed in the Middle East and it is reflective of the dominant culture and narratives in its audience — as is the case of UK titles as well”, said Alice Enders, a UK media analyst. 

“The core principle of Middle East investors in media and other assets in the UK is to recycle the gusher of petrodollars to safe haven countries,” Enders said.