Advertising is in a structural shift due to AI and the video boom. AI tools are growing the reach and capabilities of smaller advertisers, fuelling robust demand. 

WPP must challenge Publicis’s dominance in 2026 and show it is positioned to benefit from AI even as Omnicom and IPG combine to create a new global behemoth.

Amazon is taking the fight to adtech by strengthening its connected TV and retail media positions. Adtech is building partnerships and becoming more end-to-end in response.

At the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) 2025, vendors and broadcasters showcased plenty of incremental improvements to production using AI—but the show also previewed significant future disruption to traditional production methods.

Distribution is a focus for innovation: Formula 1 demonstrates a compelling personalised product and delivery that takes superfans beyond what can be offered in a single broadcast.

Broadcasters are adapting to a rapidly changing technical landscape at a time of increased pressure on audience trust and the geopolitical climate.

The PSBs’ ability to fulfil their public service objectives is becoming compromised by declining TV audiences, mainly due to the rise of online platforms and the decline in funding levels.

Part of the solution lies in collaboration between the PSBs themselves, potentially through shared tech stacks across players.

Collaboration with third-party online platforms is also required. The Media Act is introducing prominence requirements for connected TVs, but extending this regulatory regime to video-sharing and AI platforms needs much more developed thought to clearly articulate its aims and begin to iron out its practical challenges.

Publishers are becoming less visible. Since 2019, publisher visibility on Google’s search results has diminished markedly—the Mail is less than half as visible in Google’s search results as it was five years ago.

Since March, publishers' keywords have become over three times more likely to trigger an AI Overview, now affecting around one-third of the Sun and Mirror’s keywords. These summaries mostly appear for entertainment and informational queries, which typically have high search volumes but lower click-through rates

The commercial impact is minimal—we estimate low-single digits—for now. The main threat is to discoverability, and the shrinkage of the top of the funnel

On 3 June 2025, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Adobe, Barclays, Salesforce, Financial Times and SAS.

With over 700 attendees and more than 50 speakers from the TMT sector, including leading executives and industry experts, the conference focused on how new technologies, regulation, and infrastructure will impact the future of the industry.

This is the edited transcript of Session Two, covering: The Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP; Meta’s AI strategy; Channel 4 on Gen Z and trust; news and media in the AI age; and diversity in the age of economic challenge. Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

2024 was a stabilising year after a troubling 2023— Channel 4's revenue was up 1% and it ended the year with a much smaller deficit, although aided by a drop in both overall and original content spend.

Facing slightly uncertain conditions, the broadcaster continues to be over-exposed to the advertising market —91% of revenues—meaning its thoughtful move into production and acquisition is necessary and should be supported.

Channel 4’s presence in streaming continues to grow but struggles to mask the continued drop of 16-34 viewing share. Online success owed much to the increasing influence of foreign library content—this commanded increased spend in 2024.

In the year following its IPO, Reddit has defied our expectations, reporting five straight quarters of positive adjusted operating income and strong growth.

Profitability stems from disciplined cost management alongside exceptional user growth, with a focus on advertising performance and limited distractions.

The platform's human-generated conversations are proving valuable in the AI era, but AI strength could become a vulnerability if synthetic content overwhelms authentic discussion.

Broadcaster reach and viewing fell in 2024, but the decline slowed as BVOD growth increasingly makes up for linear decline and the BBC’s viewing grew year-on-year. 

SVOD penetration and engagement returned to (slight) growth in 2024 and video-sharing platforms are increasing their share of TV set viewing.

Broadcasters still offer a wider array of programming than SVODs, but they are expanding their offering, as is YouTube.

YouTube is now the UK's fifth most-used venue for finding news, and a key focus for UK broadcasters and publishers. They made up a quarter of UK trending news videos in 2023, competing with native YouTubers and US broadcasters

We find that YouTube’s algorithms tend to funnel users from news content towards non-news within a few videos. The reverse trend, of non-news to news content, is almost non-existent

We do not find evidence of widespread brand safety concerns impacting advertising on news videos, though publishers still note YouTube is better for exposure and consumption than it is for generating revenue. The ad load is largely in line with other genres

Use of publisher content to train AI models is hotly contested. Unacknowledged scraping, licensing deals, and lawsuits all characterise the publisher-AI company relationship.

However, model training is not the whole story. More and more products rely on up-to-date access to content, and some are direct competitors to publisher offerings.

Publishers can’t depend on copyright to deliver them the value of their IP. They need to track which products are catching on with users for licensing deals to make sense for them, and to ensure their own products keep up with the competition.