Karen said “Getting approval from the CMA will not be easy. There are concerns about investment levels falling and prices going up if there is a merger. But we haven’t seen any evidence that supports concerns – taking out the duplication costs of a fourth operator actually lowers the cost-base of the industry and ultimately that helps to keep prices low."

She added that while the Vodafone-Three deal would create a “more credible” competitor for EE and O2, “the problem is that everybody knows that so the bigger players won’t cede it."

Francois said “Bundesliga is an inward-looking league. They have not been looking for international opportunities in the way the Premier League and La Liga have done. Their clubs have been less active at building a global fan base than Manchester United or Real Madrid.” 

"Rabe is much exposed, he must come up with something,” said François Godard, at Enders Analysis, who was sympathetic to the rationale for the deals. “This was his play — nobody else’s. This is a failure and you can’t describe it otherwise. You must come up with a plan B.”

Francois said “Netflix has fallen back to earth after a period of euphoria. For them, it is very destabilizing. After enjoying an out-of-the-ordinary rating on Wall Street, it has become a normal business again. In terms of content, their big problem is that their catalog remains much weaker than those of Warner and Disney. They don't have superheroes."

Julian said “This sets Sky on the path of progressively transitioning its subscribers from satellite to [internet] delivery, eventually retiring satellite and saving the associated fixed costs." He suggested this could reduce Sky’s costs by £100m a year and make it easier to appeal to younger customers.

Douglas said “The Mail is unique: it has the most successful print newspaper, and a hugely successful online service, yet the two circles in the venn diagram are surprisingly apart. Pushing them together is a huge organisational and cultural challenge, but necessary from an economic perspective alone. If the Mail has the biggest challenge of all the publishers, it also has one of the media industry’s biggest opportunities.”

Joseph said “For more sophisticated games, we know brands are keen to experiment, as in-game is a chance to get in front of hard-to-reach audiences in an immersive context."

He added “[Y]ou either have custom branded integrations that involve huge investment and a high creative bar for one-off experiences, or you’re sticking virtual posters on in-game ad environments. That looks tacky and there’s none of the attribution you would get with web banners. The data brands get out of gaming platforms is pretty basic: number of visitors to the experience, and from which regions. If you build a custom app then you can measure in-game activity and get the usual analytics, but then you don’t have the built-in audience, and it’s an even bigger development challenge.”

Joseph said “Meta wanted to invest in the metaverse while the core business was still churning out cash, but pressure from its competitors and the subsequent revenue decline means it is now under pressure to clamp down on these rather over-the-top experiments to develop a virtual world that no one wants to spend time in.”

Enders Analysis’ Karen Egan told City A.M. that Niel’s swoop for Vodafone was undoubtedly driven by his firm’s failed bid to buy Vodafone’s Italian unit for more than €11bn (£9.6bn) in February. 

She said this, combined with shareholder frustration, was a key driver for the businessman, who also has an expansive portfolio across Europe and Africa.