Many telcos are surprisingly advanced in exploring GenAI opportunities, mainly in gleaning cost efficiencies in managing their complex systems, but it may also provide a revenue boost.

European telco CEOs made a heartfelt—if not entirely convincing—plea for regulatory/policy help via a ‘new deal’ to help support future investment, highlighting a genuine lack of price/investment balance in European telecoms.

The most convincing specific regulatory/policy solution is in-market consolidation, with other steps either less effective, or unlikely to happen, but a general shift in regulatory attitude could prove helpful in many small ways.

As viewing moves online, broadcasters’ on-demand players make up a growing proportion of viewing, becoming central to their future strategies.

However, even though SVOD viewing might have begun to plateau, BVOD growth cannot yet balance the decline of linear broadcast.

Of this shrinking pie, 2023 saw most of the major broadcast players increase their viewing shares.

While altnets continued their strong expansion in 2023, a slowdown in 2024 is looking very likely, with financing drying up due to tougher financial conditions and disappointing operating performances from some.

Consolidation is the obvious answer, and the altnets could consolidate into a pure wholesaler (via CityFibre), a retail/wholesale player, or could be absorbed into VMO2/nexfibre.

Which of these routes is taken, and how quickly, will have a profound impact on the structure of the industry, and all players should be careful what they wish for, with long-term outcomes hard to reliably predict in such a complex marketplace.

According to press reports, VMO2 is in early stage discussions over buying TalkTalk’s consumer retail broadband business, but not its wholesale business, which may leave the latter in limbo.

There is strong industrial logic to the deal, with a sub-brand useful, and significant synergies from moving the TalkTalk base to VMO2’s network, with the latter gain at Openreach’s expense.

There would be major regulatory hurdles for the deal, with concerns on both a retail and wholesale level, and particularly the future of the altnets, with any deal likely having to protect this.

BT’s Q3 was robust in financial terms, delivering revenue growth of 3% and EBITDA growth of 1%, both in-line/ahead of analyst expectations.

Strong broadband ARPU and accelerating FTTP performance at Openreach were the highlights, a weakening BT Business and continued Openreach broadband losses were the main concerns.

This year’s guidance should be easily met, next year’s will be trickier given lower price rises due in April, but the long-term plan of a massive cashflow turnaround when the FTTP build ends is still well on-track.

Public service broadcasters are in a position to plan for the long term with commercial licences renewed for ten years, an updated prominence regime via the Media Bill and a government broadly supportive of the BBC.

With the Premier League and EFL rights secure to the end of the decade, Sky can plan for the future from a position of strength.

Relationships between Sky and the PSBs have improved markedly recently, and as all can now plan for the long-term, this should provide further opportunities to cement relationships for the benefit of the broadcasting ecosystem and viewers.

Dramas from the public service broadcasters based on books consistently bring in bigger audiences than those that are not, a trend driven by certain genres, especially detective mysteries and thrillers.

A greater volume of newer book IP is being developed into programming, but this preference is not necessarily reflected in audience figures.                                 

Younger demographics are less enamoured with dramas based on books than older viewers. There are however notable exceptions, while attracting younger audiences may have more to do with the age, genre, and fame of the IP.

The quest for sustainability in the UK national news industry is gaining ground, thanks to digital growth offsetting relentless print decline. The challenge of the print-to-digital transition has not faded, however, amidst the oncoming cliff-edge for print.

Nationals choosing the path of the walled garden on digital have out-performed those in pursuit of the ad-supported mass-market audience, whose ad yield per user is being compressed by more efficient scale platforms and the end of tracking technology.

Despite the challenges facing the news industry, the beacon of light shone by professional journalism has never been more important to humanity, to combat disinformation and misinformation on the internet, which Gen AI tools will only exacerbate.

2013 has seen yet another year of strong growth in consumer adoption of mobile devices and screens adding to the challenges facing traditional media. Press and radio have long been affected, but television is now starting to feel the heat

BT and Sky’s contest for premium pay-TV sports rights has intensified. August saw the launch of BT Sport, while BT’s acquisition of the European football rights in November was a clear statement of intent, spending half of Channel 4’s total programming budget on approx. 200 hours of content

The UK has seen buoyant advertising growth of around 4% in 2013, with similar growth expected in 2014, in the context of the strongest economic recovery in Europe

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request