The UK lockdown since mid March has boosted TV time to levels not seen since 2014, with broadcast TV and online video each growing by nearly 40

minutes/person/day

While trends vary significantly by demographic, news consumption has been a common catalyst for linear TV’s growth, benefitting the BBC above all. Although Sky News has also flourished, Sky’s portfolio has been seriously impacted by the lack of live sport

2019 extended many of the long running trends of the last decade, but, notably, online video’s growth rate appeared to slow among youngsters, in contrast to older demographics. 35-54 year olds watching more VOD will have significant implications for linear broadcasters down the line

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented decline in advertiser demand for TV, and while the steepest drop has occurred, broadcasters will feel the impact over a long period of time.

Programming costs are being cut or deferred, but it is not possible—or even sensible—to reduce total programming budgets significantly in the mid-term due to existing contractual commitments.

Increased government support in the form of advertising spend, a loosening of Channel 4's programming obligations—the lifeblood of the independent production sector—and revisions to existing measures (to capture a greater proportion of freelancers) will be required to ensure a flourishing, vibrant sector for the future.

Although increases are moderate so far, it is inevitable that overall video viewing will rise given a reduction in competition for people’s time. So far, unsurprisingly, TV news consumption has ballooned while unmatched viewing—a proxy for SVOD usage—has increased.

However, disruption to production of TV content and cancellation of live events will leave holes to fill in the schedule.

Flexibility is built into some types of programming, however nothing can replace live sport, while disruption in the production of scripted programming—especially high-volume soaps—will have knock-on effects that continue for years.

Market revenue growth dipped to below zero in Q4 2019, as pricing pressures bite and smaller players gather share.

2020 is off to a challenging start, with new customer pricing dipping down again, and existing customer pricing under regulatory assault.

With expensive full fibre networks being built, persuading consumers to pay more for the higher speeds they enable will be key.

Recruiting 29 million subscribers in twelve weeks, Disney+ has stormed the US market. Furthermore, the two million gain achieved after the holidays and the completion of The Mandalorian, relatively high ARPU, and rising Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions bode well.

Conversely, booming (but expected) losses of direct-to-consumer platforms—due to increase as Disney+ launches in Europe in March—are undermining group profitability.

But, with a total of 64 million direct subscribers Disney can now claim a size and momentum that puts it in the league of the pure digital platforms—crucially backing its stock market narrative.

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.

The amount and distribution by time of day of TV viewing, as well as the PSB group viewing shares have remained notably stable over the last ten years in which the major shift from analogue to digital transmissions has occurred and timeshift/catch-up viewing has become commonplace.

The topline trends nevertheless mask significant age-related under-currents of change, which have seen a large loss of younger audiences and sharply ageing profiles for BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.

Whilst the more youth-oriented Channel 4 has avoided the ageing profile effect, it faces its own challenge of averting audience decline, as it finds itself at the sharp end of change among younger adults and faces declining support among older viewers.

Channel 4 enjoyed a bumper year in 2012 with regard to delivering its public service remit, epitomised by the London Paralympics

Public service successes notwithstanding, the continuing decline in main Channel 4 audience share post digital switchover is not being fully compensated commercially by large gains across the rest of the Channel 4 portfolio

Overall, we expect group revenues to remain quite stable in 2013 and 2014, but current record levels of investment in programme content origination have yet to bear fruit in terms of strong returning series

The development of the Digital Britain infrastructure, introduction of tablets, increasing connectivity of TV sets and launch of on demand OTT services over the internet have greatly intensified interest in connected viewing and its impact on the traditional broadcast model No single source of audience measurement for viewing of long- and short- form video content across all screens yet exists, though current market data suggest that connected viewing occupies a c. 8.5% share of total viewing across all screens By 2020, we project the connected viewing share of total viewing across all screens will reach 20%, with tablets being the primary drivers of growth, in part incremental and in part substitutional to viewing to the TV set, where we expect the connected viewing share to remain under 5%