Analysts say BuzzFeed got the market economics for news wrong. Joseph Teasdale, head of technology at Enders Analysis, said BuzzFeed bet that free journalism distributed by large tech platforms with their wider audiences would bring in profits, but instead, the advertising money stayed with their bigger rivals.

“We are at the end of the tide turning for these groups. They were valued incorrectly as tech groups — making news content is expensive,” he said.

Analysts say the future of profitable news is likely to be behind a paywall. “Can you support a digital newsroom just through digital advertising? The evidence suggests not,” said Teasdale.

The gaming industry is sometimes touted as an example of how micropayments can work. Gaming and news, however, do not have much in common, says Joseph Teasdale of media analysts Enders.

While the economics of gaming is supported by a small fraction of heavy users that will spend hundreds of dollars per month on in-game currency, “you’re not going to find someone who’s spending $1,000 a month on news articles,” he says.

While companies like Axate and other micropayments platforms are solving some of the technological hurdles, a widespread solution is still elusive.

“It will probably take quite a large shift to to make the micropayments model viable for more media. You want a standard payments protocol that enables very small payments that everyone was using all the time and for it to be low friction, highly familiar and for it to be a kind of approved model,” says Teasdale.

“Any settlement will be very generous but the [Murdoch] empire can take and absorb such a shock; it has paid out more than $1bn over the last decade relating to phone hacking,” says Claire Enders, a co-founder of Enders Analysis and a longtime Murdoch watcher.

“Murdoch is someone who settles, quickly, efficiently and is extremely pragmatic in his settlements. Shareholders would find it a relief [but] it also spares a desire to put Mr Murdoch and others on the stand, de-risking any potential embarrassment from a public grilling.”

Alice said “What applies to Fox applies to other media organisations. The pre-trial determination has been seismic. The judge has been clear already saying that Fox knowingly broadcast falsehoods. What we have seen serves as a real warning to other outlets looking to pursue a hard line. It sets a new bar for talk TV in the US in terms of what can or can’t be said by presenters.”

“So far, nothing has really gone Rupert’s way,” says Alice Enders at Enders Analysis. “All this is embarrassing. It’s all bad for Rupert’s legacy.”

She added that Fox’s huge profits mean it can absorb the financial blow. But she adds: “I think the fact that litigation is going to go on and on makes it very difficult to value Fox because it’s got these potential liabilities.”

“It is riveting that Fox lawyers have failed to stop the trial,” says Enders. “I would have thought that someone should have told Rupert many months ago to settle this, even though it may appear to be some form of admission.”

“TikTok led the global short video field over the last few years — 2023 is the first time that run may be challenged,” said Jamie MacEwan, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis. “TikTok’s user base crossed a billion while ad revenue reached around $9 billion in 2022, up tenfold on 2020. We expect its ad growth to slow a bit to around 40% this year.”

“ByteDance has an advantage here with its pre-existing creator relationships through TikTok,” said Jamie MacEwan, senior research analyst at Enders Analysis. “They may be hoping that using creators will make Lemon8 less reliant on marketing spend for user growth, though TikTok’s years of hefty marketing outlays suggests there’s no way round spending billions to achieve massive global scale.”

"At a certain point decision-makers at these companies forgot that the harvest period of trend-busting growth and cheap money wouldn't last forever," Jamie MacEwan, senior media analyst at Enders Analysis, told Insider.