Free-to-air broadcasters, pay-TV operators and OTT services all have a role to play in serving sports audiences.

DTC services will enable sports organisations to engage with and learn about fans.

The industry needs to continue adapting to younger generations’ viewing preferences, particularly if it is to have a chance of combatting piracy.

2020 promises a year of transition for the games industry: eSports and games broadcasting are competing with traditional programming; game streaming services are becoming meaningful platform competition; and new consoles are on the way.

While most in the studio and TV industries continue to struggle with the games market—neither understanding (or seeing) a strategic fit, nor showing a willingness to invest—expect explosive growth to power the industry for the next decade and transform all entertainment services, not just games.

The ‘free-to-play’ games sector requires oversight and regulation to protect children and the vulnerable; expect regulatory turbulence in the UK, Europe and China.

Despite operating in a challenging market, Sky has continued to increase revenues, with the resilient performance of its direct-to-consumer and content businesses offsetting the disappointing drop in advertising income.

Across FY 2019, EBITDA was up 12.2%; profit growth driven by a significant reduction in “other” costs as large one-off effects disappear and cost-cutting continues.

Extended distribution deals with Netflix and WarnerMedia will protect Sky’s content proposition for the coming future, as would the mooted integration of Disney+.

Comcast’s new, on-demand service, launching in April, is an attempt to break NBCU’s unsustainable dependence on sales to Netflix and other SVODs. Peacock provides a path of digital transition for advertising-funded TV with a revamped low-load, high cost-per-thousand model.

Reach will be built with a free online tier and distribution to Comcast subscribers. Peacock seeks carriage from other pay-TV operators, with which reciprocal deals would make sense (i.e. HBO Max on Comcast alongside Peacock on AT&T’s platforms).

In Europe, where Comcast has no existing major free-TV offering to transition, launching Peacock will be challenging but could present Sky with ideas to counterweigh Netflix on its own service.

Subscription game services will finally allow platform owners and developers to deliver truly accessible gaming experiences for all, across devices, at a lower entry price point, and curated to ensure consumer safety—both in terms of cost transparency and content types.

Consumer comfort with subscriptions should be embraced by the games industry and has already started in mobile. Apple’s Arcade subscription is the test case, providing focused all you can eat games that minimise exposure to violent gameplay, and the ‘free to play’ wild west.

Core gamers remain the most vital and profitable games customer segment, but they have been overserved and are an obstacle to broadening the reach of games. Now is the time to move beyond this group, to restructure, expand, and normalise the games market in the next decade.

Ofcom’s decision not to investigate Project Canvas under the Competition Act removes one more regulatory obstacle to the launch of the broadband connected TV service with the brand name YouView

It looks increasingly as if the YouView launch will experience further delay, with autumn 2011 looking steadily more likely as disputes continue over the satisfactoriness of the technical specifications released by YouView for meeting manufacturer needs

Although backed by powerful broadcast and ISP interests, YouView faces stiff challenges to achieving widespread adoption among ‘Freeverse’ homes, with much depending on YouView’s ability both to deliver consistent product quality and to get its message across

The bounce back in H1 2010 advertising revenues (18% up over H1 2009), combined with extra cost savings, turned last year’s £72 million loss into this year’s £71 million profit; but could not disguise the need for transformation of a business overly dependent on an advertising model in long-term structural decline

The management’s five year goal of reducing the advertising revenue share (now 74%) to 50% echoes previous targets and the ability of the new team to deliver the goal will depend first and foremost on a revitalised ITV content production business

The agreement with Sky to launch HD versions of ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 to Sky+ HD subscribers marks ITV’s first return to pay-TV since the collapse of the ITV Digital venture in 2002. This should not be seen as an about turn in ITV’s commitment to free-to-air broadcasting, but rather as a one off win-win opportunity for ITV and Sky

Subject to BBC Trust approval, Canvas looks almost certain to launch in spring 2011 after the OFT decided that it did not have the jurisdiction to review Canvas under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002. The OFT decision does not rule out complaints on other grounds, but the chances of persuading the regulators look very small

The launch of Canvas promises to strengthen significantly the free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, otherwise very limited compared with satellite and cable platforms in terms of bandwidth, but mass adoption poses numerous challenges and it is open to question whether Canvas will ever extend to more than half the DTT base

In the long term, it is hard not to see Canvas as an interim step in the growing convergence between the TV screen and the internet, raising the question of how successfully its PSB TV-centric approach can adapt to the coming challenges of the full blown digital age

A hung Parliament now appears the most likely outcome of the UK general election on 6 May, giving the Liberal Democrats influence, in terms of votes and seats, over the next government

Because the Lib Dems are ideologically closer to Labour than to the Conservatives, we anticipate their influence will favour the policy and regulatory status quo in media and telecommunications in relation to the proposals made by the Conservatives

This influence would be strongest in a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but also would persist in a Conservative minority government, reducing the likelihood of a new legislative framework for media as proposed by the Conservatives

The outlook for ad-supported UK media businesses is brighter in the short term than in the medium term, irrespective of who wins the election, since fiscal tightening is inevitable early in the next parliamentWe expect the Conservatives, should they win, to favour commercial media (Sky, ITV) over the BBC in general and in particular in the upcoming negotiations on the licence fee settlement post 2013Super-fast broadband networks enjoy cross-party support, but Labour’s 50 pence landline tax was blocked by the Conservatives, who prefer to use a small portion of the BBC licence fee