On 12 May 2022, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2022 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Barclays, Financial Times, Meta, and Deloitte Legal

With up to 500 attendees and over 40 speakers from the TMT sector, including leading executives, policy leaders, and industry experts, the conference focused on regulation, infrastructure, and how new technologies will impact the future of the industry

These are edited transcripts of Sessions 1-3 covering: regulation and legislation, PSB renewal, and clarity in the age of non-linear transmission. Videos of the presentations are also available on the conference website

Broadcast TV viewing resumed its downwards trajectory in 2021, following a pandemic-inflated boost in 2020. The effect has been compounded by streaming services retaining much of their lockdown gains, consolidating their place at the heart of people's viewing habits

Within the shrinking pie of broadcast TV viewing—still c.70% of total TV set use—the PSBs have held relatively steady, whilst Channel 5 has increased both its share and absolute volume of viewing

However, further decline seems inevitable, with the largest components of the programming landscape, namely longstanding formats and the soaps suffering badly since the beginning of the pandemic. We await the effect of various new scheduling strategies

The Times and the Sunday Times have posted a record operating profit of £44.7 million, the highest (in nominal terms) since 1990, doubling a strong 2020

All the Times’ online metrics are going in the right direction, partly reflecting a favourable news agenda, but also a renewed energy, imagination and working rhythm galvanised by a new team and structure                                            

Reader economies are gathering momentum, at least among the quality press, and there are also hopeful signals among local and magazine media. Signs of reader subscription fatigue are supply-side rather than demand-driven—publishers should double down on their mission and purpose

National newspaper advertising revenues should be up 6-8% year-on-year in 2010, with ‘popular’ titles in particular attracting display ads from national retailer brands

Local and regional press advertising revenues will fall by about 6% year-on-year, mainly on the continued decline of recruitment classifieds

Publishers are exploring more efficient printing, new digital models, and staking a claim on e-commerce

This report on Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, News Corporation’s Continental Europe pay-TV assets, complements our coverage of BSkyB in the UK. We look at the market environment, including regulation and competition. The report also provides subscriber, revenue and earnings forecasts and SWOT analysis.

Strong FY 2010 adjusted revenue growth of 11% was powered by a 15% rise in subscription revenues, reflecting a mixture of solid subscriber growth in spite of the recession and burgeoning multi-product sales, with HD subscriptions registering a net increase of 1.63 million to end the year at 2.94 million and the telecoms sector breaking into operating profit in Q4

Firm cost control and streamlining of manufacturing and subscriber management expenses now make Sky’s 25% TV operating margin target look very achievable, but also leave it room to increase spend on programming substantially within the guidance limits of pegging increases to the rate of revenue growth

Overshadowing the results is News Corp’s proposal to purchase the 60.9% of BSkyB shares that it does not already own, subject to regulatory review. Assuming it goes ahead, News Corp will have a larger market share in the UK across media (TV, newspapers and books) than any other company in a major market

The transaction size means that the OFT was obliged to examine BSkyB’s purchase of the VMtv channels. The transaction will probably be approved because of the small impact on Sky’s share of NAR (Net Advertising Revenue), which will rise from around 14% to 16%

The more pressing competition concern, which has attracted little attention, is Sky’s growing market power in the determination of carriage fee payments. Nevertheless the lack of companies actively prepared to complain to the OFT probably means that the transaction will go through without a murmur

Separately, the likely purchase of Five by Richard Desmond raises regulatory issues to do with the possible reduction of media ‘plurality’. The Sky/VMtv transaction and Channel 4’s taking over UKTV advertising sales also places Five Sales in a significantly weaker position, but any attempts to join with one of the big three sales groups (ITV, Channel 4 or Sky) may well be rejected by the competition regulators

FT has put majority stakes in Orange Sport and Orange Cinéma Séries on the block, and claims to have held discussions with News Corp. We think it unlikely that an investor would be interested in entering the French pay-TV market, dominated by Vivendi’s Canal+

We believe FT could find a buyer for Orange Sport in Disney’s ESPN, which could prove viable if a cross-retailing deal is reached with Canal+. A Eurosport merger is another option. Orange Cinéma Séries could be viable under a new owner, if it widens it distribution to other platforms

Now officially on the way out of the pay-TV production business, a welcome decision in our view, Orange can focus on improving the consumer value of the basic TV offering on the triple play marketplace

On 2 July News International switched Times online from a free to a subscription service, probably losing at least 90% of its traffic and shifting its strategy from reach and scale to a more traditional targeted brand and loyalty model

The challenges are substantial: while the Times is competitively advantaged with a strong roster of star writers and columnists, NI knows news itself is more commoditised than other content types, and most newspaper and broadcaster sites have been giving away news for a decade

News Corp may well realise the most benefits from the Times subscription service in a larger convergence play, aggregating audiences across group services such as Sky pay-TV and broadband, Sky News and the Wall Street Journal

News Corp’s bid for the shares it does not own in BSkyB is unlikely to generate much concern at the OFT because newspapers and TV will be seen as being in separate markets

But, separately, the Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, is entitled to make a ‘public interest’ intervention that requires the plurality issue to be assessed alongside the competition investigation over the next few weeks

We think that there is a strong case that the transaction does raise substantial issues of ‘plurality’ as defined in the Court of Appeal judgment on the purchase of ITV shares by BSkyB in 2006.1 Whether the new Secretary of State has the stomach for a fight with the company must be open to substantial doubt