In the UK, carriage on Sky Q will give the new service the opportunity to prove its worth to viewers. Without integration with the UK's biggest pay-TV platform, growing scale is difficult for nascent DTC services.

Elsewhere in Europe, Discovery seeks to bundle too. Unlike the US, where the company has a single model—basic cable—in Europe it operates both free-to-air and pay channels, and it also owns Eurosport.

Ultimate success will come down to whether Discovery's "real life content" is essential and defensible. Generally there is little evidence of people taking services that are not broad, while the barriers to entry for competitors wishing to commission "real life content" are lower than other genres.

The US Department of Justice antitrust case against Google alleges an illegal monopoly in search and search advertising in their home and largest market.

The lawsuit targets Google's control of the Android mobile operating system and exclusive revenue share agreement with Apple, which the EU prohibited in 2018, a decision that Google has appealed.

Alongside antitrust enforcement, legislative initiatives in the EU and UK will create an ex ante antitrust framework for relations between “gatekeeper” platforms and their users and customers, which the US Congress has yet to emulate.

Advertising demand has risen, with total ad revenue down just 7% in Q3, and Q4 expected to be slightly up—this means ITV will be down just over 10% across 2020.

COVID-19 has accelerated viewing shifts, along with corporate restructuring across the entire sector to try and keep up. ITV is no exception, although the creation of its new Media and Entertainment Division may be less revolutionary than it could appear.

Studios revenue was down 19% for nine months to September but 85% of paused productions are now completed or underway, with nothing major still stalled. However, the added costs of COVID-19 protocols are material and will linger.

On 1 October, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced $1 billion for worldwide news publisher partnerships for a novel News Showcase product, helping them to distribute their content to a new audience.

It is an important milestone: for the first time Google will pay publishers to curate content in the Google News app (initially), and to provide unpaywalled access to articles on publishers’ websites that users can click through to.

In so doing, Google is defusing the simmering conflict with publishers in major markets, and showing policy-makers its willingness to collaborate with a news industry facing existential threats.

 

Channel 4’s 2019 results were solid but unsurprisingly, greater interest is in how the broadcaster has fared in 2020, and what this might mean for its future.

Despite very grim early forecasts, Channel 4 has seen advertisers rush back, with ad revenue likely to only be down 8-10% YoY. Compared to the estimates of −25% to −40% at the height of the pandemic, this is almost cause for elation.

2021 will arrive with a tough comparator in Q1, however COVID-19 has materially accelerated Channel 4’s transition to digital through shifts in viewing behaviour, an existential project that the broadcaster hopes will be supported by changes to its commitments as a result of the upcoming PSB review.

In this report, we examine the completion rates of every scripted series since 2018 across all the major UK broadcast channels.

Comparing scripted programmes across different channels by overall viewing is difficult as these numbers are affected by promotion, prominence, competition, the quality of online player UIs and availability.

The rate that series are completed—viewing of the final episode as a proportion of the first episode—eliminates these and allows comparison.

ByteDance is rushing to sell a 20% stake in TikTok Global to Oracle and Walmart at an enterprise value of $60 billion. TikTok otherwise faces a ban in the US on 12 November, subject to legal challenges.

The sale hinges on ByteDance obtaining approval from China to export TikTok’s core technologies. China updated its export control rules to include algorithms (and AI), entrenching a tech cold war with the West.

TikTok has confounded regulatory woes in India and the US, and renewed competition from US tech, to post dizzying user growth in every major internet region where it is available, casting off its image as a niche youth product and entering the mainstream.

Fortnite has been kicked from mobile app stores over the ‘App Store tax’, the 30% cut that Google and Apple charge for in-app purchases.

Apple needs Fortnite to keep the iPhone attractive, but it also needs its revenue cut, as services have become a key part of its growth story to investors.

Apple can no longer set its ecosystem rules without regard for partners, as apps like Fortnite, Amazon and WeChat are so central to the utility of a smartphone.

In March 2019, the UK government consulted on a wider TV advertising ban until 9pm for food and drink high in fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS), to combat childhood obesity. The government may shortly publish the results more than one year later.

TV and TV advertising are not the cause of children being overweight or obese (O+O). Policy change in this area should inform and educate parents and young children, as they have in Leeds and Amsterdam.

With 64% of the UK population being O+O, obesity is a complex societal issue requiring a multifaceted approach. The evidence from existing rules, and plummeting TV viewing amongst children, says that further restrictions on TV advertising will be ineffective in curbing the rise of obesity in the UK.

Over the past few months we have outlined the evolving challenges that the pandemic has presented broadcasters—from plummeting ad revenues and production stoppages, to increasing SVOD viewing share

Now, however, is the time to shift thinking towards what can be taken forward from this time. There are strategies that were launched through necessity that will provide continued value beyond this period

The opportunity to reduce cost bases, leverage the greater reach of online services, forge better relationships with advertisers and better understand operational needs and limits presents the potential for more nimble, streetwise businesses