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.”

Douglas McCabe, CEO and director of publishing and tech at Enders Analysis, said the economics for City A.M. as a free print publication were “challenging” so a buyer would need a plan to elevate its online offering.

He said: “Commuters — particularly commuters into the City — have remained stubbornly low post-pandemic, and the impressive corporate advertising that City A.M. carved out for itself in the late 2000s and early 2010s has also declined.

“Any buyer would need a belief and vision for the brand as an online use-case.”

As a result, consumer spend on print magazines has plummeted from £1.4bn in 2010 to less than £500m in 2021, according to Enders Analysis.

“Given the scale of decline in their consumer demand, physical magazines are today a considerably oversupplied category,” said Abi Watson, an analyst at Enders. “Closures will inevitably accelerate in the coming years.”

“[Podcasting] was meant to be like Netflix Originals,” said Alice Enders, head of research at the firm. “It was supposed to drive notoriety and traction.” But the big names either did not produce the volumes of shows anticipated — as in the case of Harry and Meghan — or, like the Obamas, they used the platforms to amplify other voices, not their own.

Even when the podcasts did produce a newsworthy note, it would get picked up and plastered all over other media within minutes. Enders said: “You didn’t even have to listen to it on Spotify; you already knew what was going on. It was very hard for them to keep the exclusivity to the platform itself.”

Enders concluded: “I really don’t think the shareholders are so pleased by this.”

Karen said "I see a place for both of the main brands – Vodafone and Three. All mobile operators need a variety of brands to address the full range of customer types. They are likely to use Vodafone as a more high-end one and Three as the value proposition, in keeping with their history.

I could even see a role for both brands in the B2B market where Three is having quite a bit of success with its simple and cost-effective business propositions, while Vodafone has a long-established reputation, particularly with corporate customers.

 

What may need to be rationalised is their sub-brands, which target the lower end and pre-paid markets – Voxi (Vodafone) and Smarty (Three). Although both have been doing really quite well of late (particularly thanks to bargain-hunting consumers), they certainly won't both survive the merger."