But Prosieben CEO Bert Habets has talked down the possibilities of a merger, stating that the company needs to be “in control of our own destiny.” And according to François Godard, Senior Media and Telecoms Analyst at Enders Analysis: “The pieces of the puzzle are not together to launch a takeover.” This could spell bad news for Prosieben shareholders, “who would love to see an auction for their stock,” especially with the aforementioned cut to their annual dividend.

There are several reasons why a takeover is off the table. Aside from the regulatory intervention that has prevented European mergers over the past year, MFE has neither the resources nor unified management to pursue the acquisition, though further collaboration with ProSieben is a more likely outcome. “MFE always said that they wanted to create some sort of cooperation with the Germans without necessarily buying them,” says Godard.

Gareth Sutcliffe, senior games analyst at Enders Analysis, told IGN any divestiture “is likely to be face-saving as opposed to impactful”, adding: "Long-term access contracts are a better solution and have been accepted elsewhere.

"The question is really how would a divestiture benefit the UK market or consumer, especially if it’s related to cloud gaming? The CMA should pivot towards a long-term commitment from Activision and Microsoft to stay and invest more systemically in the UK games industry. No other regulator has requested or achieved that."

Gareth Sutcliffe, head of games industry at Enders Analysis, said the British regulator had been backed into a corner. “The CMA had no choice but to blink and negotiate,” he said. “Their decision is an outlier, putting the UK games industry at risk and having a chilling effect on UK plc.”

“Meta’s failure to launch Threads in the EU is more to do with making a point about European regulation than the business case for launching,” says Niamh Burns of Enders Analysis, a media research group based in London. Burns notes the setup of the new app, which involves bundling Instagram and Threads to create a “captive audience” (users set up Threads using their existing Instagram accounts, and you can’t delete your Threads account without deleting Instagram) “is the kind of thing European regulators hate.”

“This week’s ruling strengthens regulators’ hands when it comes to Meta’s core business,” says Burns. “It is significant in terms of enforcement powers, even if it is not yet clear how it will be interpreted to impact Meta’s wider data practices. Meta’s business model could be under threat here.”

At the heart of the new crisis is an advertising slowdown that is battering the commercial TV sector. Enders Analysis expects the ad market to fall by 10pc in the first half of the year.

Tom Harrington, of Enders Analysis, says: “Given its structure and role, Channel 4 is going to find itself in difficult spots, but there are times when it could probably have been a bit more street smart.”

“Channel 4 has had fewer new shows break through in recent years than its direct competitor,” says Harrington. “Essentially they rely, to a greater extent, on older content.”

“One the one hand, who would want that job? There are just so many people to keep happy and none of them ever are,” says Karen Egan at Enders Analysis.



“But on the other hand it could be really quite a good time to take over. The whole BT story has so far been one of huge expense and not a lot of upside, but give it three to five years and it could look really different.”

Karen says the new chief executive must also place more focus on selling the story of full-fibre broadband to investors, who see it as a costly exercise generating little return.

According to Karen Egan, senior telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis: “The future for BT is all about the switch to full fibre. This is the painful part, where they are spending lots of money and haven’t got much in the way of upside, but that can change quite markedly when they get over the hump of the spend and the narrative could be very different. BT could do a better job of telling the story, but there is a good story there to tell.”

Smart speakers were "selling like hot cakes" a few years ago, but now sales have come back down, according to Joseph Teasdale, head of tech at Enders Analysis.

He said people do not tend to replace them once they have one, and "maybe you buy a second device for the kitchen, but not much more than that".

But more importantly, "smart speakers just aren't that smart", Mr Teasdale added.

"They're great if you want to set a timer, find out the weather forecast, or listen to the radio. But they're a long way from an all-purpose artificial intelligence assistant," he said.

"If you don't word your request just right, they don't understand you, and half the time they can't do what you want them to anyway."

Channel 4’s issues, according to Tom Harrington of Enders Analysis, are “one part market forces, one part existing commissioning changing and one part the fact that Channel 4 is always under greater scrutiny by producers, the media and government. If ITV cancels stuff or — as it is at the moment — delays broadcasting shows they already have stockpiled because they pay for the shows when they go out, no one kicks up a fuss. The truth is, the entire British TV industry is facing a very tough year.”

Douglas McCabe, an analyst at Enders, said that City AM was likely to fetch a “very small” price because it was almost certainly a loss-making business, but that this would depend on what value a buyer would put on the brand and its readership. He said:

“If a buyer was going to put in money it’s because they believe they can do something with it as a digital brand. Free print media is tough. The pandemic has removed commuting in scale across the City across the five days but Brexit has also affected the paper’s corporate advertising.”