“These linear networks are still profitable and still throw off more cash than streaming, mainly because they now spend almost nothing on programming,” says Tom Harrington, analyst at Enders Analysis.

“But they’re declining and public companies are about improving your metrics, not whether those metrics are fundamentally good in the first place. It's never about actual profitability or actual revenue. It's the increase of revenues that public companies prefer and we're at the tail end of the transition from linear to digital.”

“Movies are always a risk, but HBO has been profitable, very profitable, for a very long time,” says Harrington. “Streaming is the new cable in America. There will be consolidation there – people don’t need five or six subscriptions – but the value in how video is monetised is moving from one place to another, and so there has to be this restructuring.”

The UK has hundreds of altnets that are building out smaller networks to challenge the dominance of BT’s Openreach and Virgin Media O2. Altnets — which collectively serve 16.4mn homes according to the Independent Networks Cooperative Association — have received more than £17.4bn of investment since 2020. 

But they have since been squeezed by a rise in interest rates and a dramatic increase in costs. Altnets collectively lost more than £1.3bn in 2023, according to Enders Analysis.

[WPP’s next chief executive needs] a global vision of the advertising industry and its drivers and challenges. [They need] deep experience of managing and serving unique multinational clients of global stature, credibility with the City and the global advertising community. Financial integrity and experience are a must – it’s a management task number one. 

[They have] to come from a large (50,000 employees plus) organisation that is similarly driven by talent, and must be able to navigate technology and create imaginative partnerships with technology companies.

A single-minded focus on enhancing the company’s undoubted strengths and motivating the talent running the major divisions is essential.

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, warned that while growth in broadband is possible for VodafoneThree, intense competition means it is “not an attractive market”.

He is “a very decent man” in the words of Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis.

Enders says: “It is an extraordinarily demanding job – physically, with huge amounts of travel. It’s a real global job. And it’s a sensitive and difficult job at this time, because of the number of clients with tariff issues, and trade will be a difficult issue throughout the Trump years.”

Research by the company Enders Analysis said Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have been guilty of “ambivalence and inertia” over the problem.

“At the beginning of 2024, DAZN was talking about reaching break-even,” says Francois Godard, senior media analyst of Enders Analysis. “That was the message. And then, this winter, it changed. They kept the message that they are doing better, but the main message was expansion. It shifted from a focus on break-even to a message of expansion.

“There was the deal in Australia and then the deal with the Saudis. That is probably allowing them to do the deal for the Club World Cup, which will allow them to gain prominence in many other markets where they had a lower profile, like the U.S. That was a big change in emphasis.”

So, how significant do the Club World Cup’s global rights become to a project of this scale?

“A subscription funding model would be antithetical to the BBC’s public service mission, necessarily ending universality of access and undermining its breadth of content,” said analysts at Enders Analysis.

Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, told Campaign: “I have followed Mark Read for over 25 years as a senior leader at WPP, first behind the scene as the steady pair of hands holding the ship together through hundreds of acquisitions and integrations and for seven years as the CEO of a complete simplification to clear business units, ably led by imaginative new management.

“WPP has struggled against stronger headwinds than its peers, largely due to its UK history and listing. Mark Read has never lost his cool head in 26 years of unbelievable turbulence [since Enders first met him]. I am certain his vast experience will be recognised at the global corporate level and many new challenges await his successor.”

François Godard, an analyst at media consultancy Enders Analysis, described Bertelsmann, which retains its global headquarters in Gütersloh, a town of just 100,000 people, as a “certain type of German company — provincial but global.”