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.

“The socially native strategy poses a definite commercial challenge, though engaging with platforms as your primary distribution channel is really interesting from an editorial perspective,” said Niamh Burns, a research analyst at Enders Analysis. “It takes seriously the challenges of present-day digital trends, including the shift to short-form video that is occurring across platforms, and the difficulties of reaching and engaging younger audiences.”

“The News Movement has built up a decent audience on TikTok from scratch and is producing really good content that fits that format better than lots of established publishers,” said Burns. “The question is: can this be more than an interesting editorial experiment?”

Analysts agree that this is a good opportunity for the UK broadcaster. “The future of the BBC at this point as an international player may be to strike deals with [streaming companies],” says Francois Godard, senior media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis, the media research firm. Platforms are, he continues, looking for “outside content, third party content, because they are cutting costs.”

Godard also noted the advantages for companies that have produced popular shows to partner with streaming media companies: “Disney has a capacity to leverage, to monetize brands that the BBC doesn't have.” But he added a caveat: “The only worry for me about the BBC is that they find themselves dependent on Disney. Dependent on Disney for the budget of new episodes … and the international brand of Doctor Who.”

This fringe group of “extremely wealthy financiers… in favour of unconstrained profit-seeking”, as tech analyst Joseph Teasdale put it, do however have significant influence. Not least because amongst their count include Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, and Andreessen, who is the co-founder of a $35bn venture capital firm az16

James Barford, head of telecoms research at Enders Analysis, said any acquisition would be “very small” from BT’s perspective but that the FTSE 100 company was “likely interested in bulking up its presence in the refurbished/recycled smartphone market, an area that all of the operators have taken more interest in recently”.

Rupert’s standing-down manoeuvre looks like a strategic ploy to improve optics on Wall Street ahead of a $2.7bn Smartmatic defamation suit against Fox News, says Claire Enders, a media analyst. “I don’t think anything has changed about Mr Murdoch’s life. This was a market, stock-driven event.”

The deep-pocketed Marshall, a chief investor in GB News and founder of the opinion-based website UnHerd, is on a mission to influence British political debate. “Sir Paul Marshall will bid with his whole heart for the Telegraph,” says Enders. “He is really deeply interested in having an impact on conservatism.”