On 4 June 2024, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2024 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Barclays, Salesforce, the Financial Times, and Adobe.

With over 580 attendees and over 40 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 One, covering: the evolution of streaming models, and public service broadcasting in the digital age. Videos of the presentations will be available on the conference website.

The BBC plans to launch four new digital music stations as extensions of Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 3 and enhance 5 Sports Extra, all subject to regulatory approval.

Commercial radio is flourishing due to continuous innovation, while in stark contrast the BBC has experienced large audience losses, especially among the young.

The BBC should be able to launch new services— subject to competition assessments—while Ofcom should consider the impact of the total station regardless of whether delivery is broadcast or online.

Reddit, a unique and valuable online space, has reported its first quarterly results as a public company, following a very successful IPO.

In the longer term, Reddit is doomed to scratch out an unprofitable existence as a wannabe scale ad platform, echoing peers in the public markets.

Advertising is probably the least-bad business strategy, as user payments, ecommerce and licensing revenues are even less proven. Dialling back growth ambitions to improve the bottom line is the most sustainable path.

TikTok has been dealt a devastating blow as a US bill has been signed into law forcing owner ByteDance to sell within a year or face its removal from app stores. 

The stakes are higher than in 2020—China's opposition to a divestment will make an optimal sale harder to conclude, so all sides must be prepared for a ban.   

The TikTok bill introduces extraordinary new powers in the context of the US and China's broad systemic rivalry, though online consumer benefits will be limited.  

As we noted previously—despite the explosion in volume and access to content—long-form viewing is narrowing around fewer programmes

At the same time, younger viewers are watching a greater proportion of video alone, resulting in a growing schism between what is watched by young and older viewers

The upshot is a two-pronged escalation of pressure on content providers—trying to create a hit when long-form viewing is both declining and concentrating, while, by age at least, adult audience demand becomes increasingly binary

As viewing moves online, broadcasters’ on-demand players make up a growing proportion of viewing, becoming central to their future strategies.

However, even though SVOD viewing might have begun to plateau, BVOD growth cannot yet balance the decline of linear broadcast.

Of this shrinking pie, 2023 saw most of the major broadcast players increase their viewing shares.

Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.

New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.

YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.

ITV experienced a slightly-less-than-expected 5% drop in advertising revenue which was alleviated by lower H1 content scheduling costs, reflecting the timing of major sporting events

Love Island continues to be a ray of light, increasing its viewership and guiding the ITV Family audience share to an eleven-year high, while ITV Studios revenues were down but reportedly still on track for its 2019 targets

More information was provided on the Q4 rollout of streaming service BritBox and the addressable advertising platform for ITV Hub. ITV must be active in these areas but late entry presents problems and questions  

In the BBC’s 2015 funding settlement commencing 2017, the Government assumed the BBC would fully fund the subsidy for over-75s to the tune of £750 million from 2020/21

Although the BBC’s settlement contained measures of “mitigation” worth c.£290 million, the BBC would still have faced a gap of c.£460 million to be funded by programme cuts and efficiencies (the BBC has pledged £250 million)

Including c.£300 million from the annual adjustment of the licence fee for inflation from 2017 would help. However, this was always required to offset normal salary and cost increases to prevent a real decline in the BBC’s resources