This report is free to access.

Climate change is again a core theme of this year’s Media and Telecoms 2023 & Beyond Conference, as it has been since 2021 when the UK hosted COP26.

Published in March 2023, the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report points to alarming warming trends due to rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Echoing the messaging of COP26 and COP27, the IPCC implores signatories: “Emissions should be decreasing by now and will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C.” With many governments stymied by short-term political exigencies, it is businesses and people that must harbour the ambition for net zero that our planet requires. 

This year’s report highlights the climate change initiatives of TMT companies to decarbonise operations, and their society-leading role towards the environment. Media businesses are mobilising their touchpoints with their audiences—from news, to magazines, to audio-visual productions such as films, TV programmes, games and advertising—to inform and win over hearts and minds in favour of climate action. Case studies of the Guardian, WPP, Ad Net Zero, Bertelsmann, Vivendi, Sky, BT Group, and Virgin Media O2 provide best practice learnings.

UK news publishers have rushed to distribute content on TikTok. They are drawn by its enormous young audience, but poor monetisation and data sharing, a lack of referrals to their own sites, and data security concerns are frustrating a full embrace of the platform.

TikTok is increasingly identified as a ‘news source’ by young people: a risk to publishers distributing content on the platform is that their brands may get lost in user feeds.

Publishers should view activity on TikTok as a strategic cost instead of a revenue source: an investment in brand awareness, and development in content and delivery formats that are becoming more widespread across platforms. Brand visibility is key to success here.

Broadcaster decline accelerated in 2022, with record drops in reach and time spent. This was primarily driven by the lightest and youngest viewers leaving broadcast television while over-65s also reduced their viewing for the first time.

Loss of lighter viewers threatens the future viewing base of broadcasters and relevance to a new generation. Further, broadcaster status as the home of mass audiences becomes compromised.

However, retention of lighter viewers is not yet a lost cause. They are amongst the heaviest Netflix viewers, and the very lightest are spending more time in front of the TV set than previously—suggesting enduring appetite for TV-like content.

Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard is in trouble. US, UK, and European regulators may make the deal impossible for Microsoft—and a disaster for Activision and the wider industry. 

Sony’s late improvement in PlayStation 5 sales is only just enough to reach its target numbers for the year. It needs a more dynamic approach to a rapidly changing industry, and a less dogmatic message to consumers and regulators. 

Netflix Games is more than a trial—it’s on track to become a major games platform. 

Structural shifts in the delivery of video are causing long-form viewing to coalesce around fewer programmes—this comes despite an explosion in the volume, spend and perceptual accessibility of content

For the time being this theoretically favours the largest of shows, along with the declining number of content providers that are able to create and distribute them at scale, forming critical masses of interest

Incoming technologies leveraging AI and virtual production will have the ability to drastically lower production costs. But until that happens the spend on most programming will become increasingly less efficient

The BBC Trust has given its provisional approval to the BBC Executive’s proposals for Project Canvas, the JV between the BBC and five partners that aims to enable DTT homes with broadband connections to access IPTV content on their TV sets

Canvas promises to enrich greatly the DTT platform; however, it is likely to encounter fierce opposition during the coming consultation from equipment manufacturers and the pay-TV platform operators, Sky and Virgin Media, especially in relation to its attempts to prescribe the user experience (UX)

We think that the BBC Trust will give its final approval, subject to the conditions specified in its provisional statement, but further delays seem likely and we do not expect Canvas devices to appear in the shops before 2011

The BBC Executive has fleshed out many details of Project Canvas in response to questions raised by the BBC Trust: Canvas being the proposed joint venture between the BBC, BT, ITV and Five that aims to solve the challenge of realising the seamless convergence of linear broadcast TV and internet video to the TV screen in the living room

For Project Canvas to succeed, it is likely, in spite of its merits, to have to address competition concerns in the areas of company structure, stifling innovation and editorial controls over who gets to participate

Stifling innovation – whether to do with creative restrictions, marginalisation of competing players or undue prominence given to the traditional public service broadcasting (PSB) model – appears the most problematic issue facing Project Canvas, whose success will depend on its ability to convince the rest of the industry that it is stimulating, not stifling innovation

Project Canvas is the BBC/ITV/BT backed proposal for next generation Freeview and Freesat services that embraces IPTV reception, new EPG, home storage and HDTV applications

Setting up Canvas as a not-for-profit consortium and making it non-exclusive to content providers should avoid the competition issues which killed Kangaroo, but many questions remain and technical and regulatory delays could push back the launch to 2011

We do not expect Canvas to make a major difference to non-linear viewing of audiovisual content – its importance lies much more in future-proofing the ‘Free TV’ viewing experience on the terrestrial and satellite platforms

The essential conclusion of Ofcom’s Second Public Service Broadcasting Review is that the present commercial PSB model is unsustainable in the digital age. The Ofcom solution of fixing on Channel 4 as the “alternative, commercial PSB voice”, while freeing up the Channel 3 and 5 licensees from most of their PSB obligations, still leaves a major funding gap

A particularly attractive solution is some kind of synergy-generating merger/JV/partnership, but difficult to achieve in practice. The attached note examines the main issues that we may expect to arise with the existing proposals

Kangaroo – the proposed BBC Worldwide/ITV/Channel 4 video-on-demand (VOD) service – has been terminated by the Competition Commission (CC) due to fears that it could control the wholesale and retail supply of UK TV VOD

In our view the CC decision is a lucky escape for all three shareholders since it will save them from investing potentially tens of millions in an ill-advised venture which could have become a bottomless money pit when they can least afford it

Near term ITV and Channel 4 will refocus their internet strategies around their own portals and online syndication deals, but these are unlikely to deliver significant revenue; Marquee – the BBC’s proposition to open up iPlayer to other PSB broadcasters – could help, with the advantage of being very low cost