The Gross Margin from Retailing Premium Pay-TV Channels

Q1 saw Netflix continue to display revenue growth, up 16% YoY (to $12.3 billion), with UCAN (+14%), EMEA (+17%), LATAM (+19%) and APAC (+20%) all contributing strongly.

Netflix has thrived in a decade where TV content has been increasingly siloed. With TV appearing to be moving towards more liquid viewing environments, increased direct competition will disadvantage primary TV destinations.

HBO Max’s launch has so far proceeded as expected, although its decision to not commission locally raised eyebrows: this is in contrast to Netflix, whose UK originals continue to garner the most viewing globally.

UK mobile coverage/quality significantly lags that of its European peers; this really matters, for both consumers and the wider economy, and for both existing services and a range of potential new ones.

Improving coverage will likely require a variety of techniques, from antennas in space to antennas inside shopping centres, and fully utilising the entire range of available spectrum, from sub-1GHz to mmWave.

Network quality competition sparked by the VodafoneThree merger and network rebuild could drive improvements from all three operators, but significant government help is required to ensure this.

Referral collapse and AI summarisation have made it harder for content investment to capture commercial value. Original reporting remains the authority anchor of the bundle, but the economics of serving habitual news users have become structurally harder.

High engagement does not automatically translate into loyalty. Sustainable growth depends on three engines: engagement (depth and distinctive voice), habit (repeatable utility driving daily return) and community (shared identity binding users to brand).

Distinctive voice and personality are the moat in an AI-mediated environment. Publishers building branded formats, creator programmes and deliberate pathways from platform presence back into owned products are constructing defensible, post-platform economics.