European Online Advertising

2025 was a somewhat stable year for Channel 4, with revenue generally flat (–1%, to £1,027 million), bolstered by a better advertising performance (–2%, to £922 million) than ITV, after three straight years of the reverse.

There was growth in non-advertising revenue, although it still remains a small contributor—10% of the total— but Channel 4’s production efforts are gradually taking shape while its IP acquisition strategy is moving faster. Remit delivery continued to outperform.

With new leadership in place, the future remains tricky: a volatile ad market must be navigated with the lowest cash reserves in over twenty years.

The share price reaction to Vodafone’s FY26 results appears to be centred around the outlook for European EBITDAaL in FY27, with consensus hitherto optimistically expecting a very marked turnaround in underlying performance.

Similarly, there should not have been an expectation of further buybacks, with prospective leverage towards the top of target range given recent deals.

Vodafone’s value over volume strategy cost it dearly in subscriber numbers in Q4 – a dangerous strategy in a scale industry. Less demanding guidance would give it more commercial flexibility

Altnet ARPUs are much lower than those of BT and VMO2, the premium-brand incumbents, but not so much lower than TalkTalk, and they are not rising appreciably over time.

Altnet ARPU is generally much lower than premium-brand incumbents both because their prices are lower, and because of the type of customers that low prices attract. Maturity will not solve these issues.

With incumbent and altnet pricing remaining low, there appears to be little potential for the altnets to meaningfully improve ARPUs, leaving their economics fatally stretched.