2016 was another good year for UKTV, with appreciable growth in revenue and linear viewing share; a trajectory the product of a sensitive pay/free balance of its channels, investment in productive EPG slots and development of its original programming suite.

Recent deals with both Sky and Channel 4 will go some way to providing financial stability, allowing UKTV to invest with more certainty in new content and encouraging further development of its online proposition.

UKTV Play has underperformed, chiefly due to a lack of content. But with plans to significantly ramp up both its offering and marketing spend, it may well unlock further audiences; specifically targeting elusive 16-34 year-olds.

Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media & Telecoms 2017 & Beyond conference in conjunction with Deloitte, Moelis & Company, Linklaters and LionTree, in London on 2 March 2017.

The day saw over 450 senior attendees come together to listen to 30 leaders and senior executives of some of the most creative and innovative businesses in the media and telecoms sector, and was chaired by David Abraham.

This report provides edited transcripts of the presentations and panels, and you will find accompanying slides for some of the presentations here.

Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

The temporary cool-off in hype around VR following a very buzzy 2016 is not reducing the flow of investment and talent into the industry, notably in video production utilising 360Video technology; setting the stage for the development of a truly new entertainment medium

Fully immersive interactive worlds will continue to be the mainstay of the video games industry, while video entertainment will exist in a multi-track environment, with some genres (news, documentaries , natural history) making 360Video mainstream well before long-form narrative-driven entertainment

2017 will still be a challenging year for consumer device VR roll-out and mass market adoption; Oculus, Google, and Sony continue to seed the market, providing large scale funding and equipment directly to developers and content producers

Despite a slowing of circulation decline in 2016, UK national newspaper brands continue to face profound structural challenges, with print advertising spend expected to be down at least -15% for the year

In digital advertising, tech and distribution platforms continue to dominate growth with newspaper publishers and other content producers competing for an increasingly small slice of the revenue pie

In this context, many publishers are turning to paid membership and content subscription models to generate online revenues; success here will require a radical shift in thinking to a retailer mindset that delivers high quality reader experiences through integrated execution of tech, data, marketing and design

Enterprise cloud computing democratises access to IT capacity ranging from specialised software to platforms to infrastructure, transforming cost structures in sectors like media and retail

Cloud enables unprecedented scalability of bandwidth for digital media services like Pokémon Go and Netflix, while also hosting the back-end for advertisers and retailers 

As the industry consolidates quickly, intense competition among Amazon, Microsoft and Google is delivering value to customers and boosting adoption

One year on from the launch of the latest generation of gaming consoles Microsoft and Sony remain locked in a high stakes struggle for dominance of the gaming industry, and longer term viability of the console category.

Sony’s PS4, which we estimate outsold Microsoft’s Xbox One 3:1 in Q3, looks certain to win this round in a return to form for Sony following the relative disappointment of the PS3. Microsoft, struggling from missteps early in the Xbox One cycle, may have left it too late to catch up.

The wider games market continues to shift to mobile and online gaming, as developers seek to exploit the vast installed base of connected devices. New console gaming experiences from Steam and Amazon may be the primary growth driver for controller-based gameplay.

In 2014 Canal+’s core premium French pay-TV business has continued to lose subscribers and swallowed a VAT increase. But this was offset by growth in FTA ad sales, in ARPU, in overseas subscriptions and by acquisitions. EBITDA has continued the decline which commenced in 2013

Eleven years ago Canal+ in France and Sky in Britain had the same household penetration, but since then a gap has opened up and now Canal+ lags behind at 21% compared to Sky’s 34%. The French platform suffers from its regulated focus on films and its neglect of hardware

A deep revision of Canal+’s model is needed, through building a library of scripted series and a revamp of the consumer proposition to differentiate on quality and user experience. Building on recent initiatives, mediocre IPTV services should be bypassed by OTT bundles on fibre, and the satellite offering upgraded

2014 has been a good year for total advertising, which we forecast to grow by 5.5% across the year; display advertising spend is also forecast to grow by over 6% year-on-year. This is largely thanks to a positive economic backdrop, where we have seen a significant rise in consumer expenditure over the last two years

Online advertising spend has been the biggest recipient of growing ad spend, with 20+% growth last year, this year and next. This has mostly been to the detriment of print revenues, where online classified search solutions, amongst other factors like declining circulation, have disrupted print marketplaces

Video has been the largest growth area in internet advertising as online video consumption increases. Up to now online spend has largely been accretive to TV budgets but we are starting to see some advertisers switch to online video spend. However we do not expect TV to suffer in the same way as press

Recently we attended the inaugural IABUK Digital Upfronts, in which 11 digital media companies pitched their wares to advertising agencies and advertisers.

UK growth in internet advertising is now powered by mobile, social and video, and these three areas were the focus of the Upfronts.

The Upfronts are symbolic of the rising importance of digital media in the UK and worldwide; while broadcast television remains the king of brand advertising, marketing and advertising are becoming less TV-centric.

ITV and Channel 4 have asked the regulatory authorities to review the case for legislation that would for the first time allow the commercial PSBs to charge carriage fees for their main free-to-air channels on the pay-TV platforms

To this end, ITV has presented a detailed analysis showing the great contribution to the US creative economy due to the introduction of Retransmission Consent Compensation for free-to-air broadcasters in the US, but without setting this against the very different market structure in the UK, where the commercial PSBs enjoy significant privileges

Any change to UK rules will require primary legislation and is not expected until after the May 2015 General Election. Should action be taken, the choice appears to lie between regulation (adding “must carry” rules) and deregulation of commercial PSB privileges, where the end result might not be what the PSBs wished