The UK’s choice of policy for rebalancing the relationships between news publishers and tech platforms is on the agenda of the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit for 2025. The UK is expected to steer clear of the pitfalls of Canada’s news bargaining regime, which led Meta to block news, crashing referrals.
In the UK, Google’s relationships with news publishers are much deeper than referrals, including advertising and market-specific voluntary arrangements that support a robust supply of journalism, and dovetail with the industry’s focus on technology (including AI) and distribution.
The rise of generative AI has also ignited the news industry’s focus on monetising the use of its content in LLMs. AI products could threaten the prominence, usage and positive public perceptions of journalism—this might require progress in journalism’s online infrastructure, supported by public policy.
Google has permanently shelved the 2025 deadline for removing all third-party cookies from Chrome, but publishers should prepare for much higher rates of users blocking cookies.
The online economy is still moving towards more privacy and user controls on the major platforms, with Android the next target for the Privacy Sandbox.
Regulators are increasingly setting the terms online, limiting Google's freedom of movement, and with the conflict between competition and user privacy protections defining the next phase of the internet.
On 4 June 2024, Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media and Telecoms 2024 & Beyond Conference with Deloitte, sponsored by Barclays, Salesforce, 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 Two, covering: Sky’s strategy; audience engagement with sport; the role of AI in journalism; and Amazon’s UK business and philanthropy. Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.
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.
This report is free to access
The UK charity sector’s role in sustaining the fabric of communities is increasingly important as poverty spreads during the worst cost-of living crisis since the 1970s, at the same time as donations are weaker and costs are rising.
Media play a crucial role in raising the awareness, engagement and donations to charities by individuals, the bedrock of income. Selected case studies of TV, radio and the press show how charities leverage their unique qualities to engage audiences across the UK.
We highlight Gordon Brown’s landmark anti-poverty community-based Multibank initiative, which gifts essentials to those most in need, and has vital support from Sky, the Financial Times and News UK.
With traffic from Facebook and X to news publishers’ destinations in decline, distribution is shifting to other platforms where they have more control, such as feeds served on WhatsApp and newsletters on LinkedIn
There is no one silver bullet platform to replace Facebook, on which certain publishers became overly reliant, or X. News publishers are trying out a myriad of platforms to see which work best for the specific audiences and use-cases they are cultivating
WhatsApp and LinkedIn are still platforms that are mediated for news publishers, so risks remain. These platforms have highly differentiated alignment with the needs of enterprises producing journalism
Big news publishers are pursuing licensing deals with AI companies, chiefly OpenAI. Not all publishers will see a substantial return; while some news may be important for training AI models, not all publisher content will be
Litigation is a threat point when negotiations stall (see the New York Times), but the copyright status of Large Language Models (LLMs) is uncertain. In the UK, there has been no government intervention (on copyright or otherwise) that could facilitate licensing
Publishers’ bargaining position is strongest when it comes to up-to-date material that could be important in powering some AI consumer products. They should seek deals to support their journalism, while bearing in mind the risk that new products may get between them and their readers
Magazines are in the final phase of industrial-scale print volumes, with the era of artisan print magazines already highly visible and blooming, celebrating the reader’s tangible experience of the design and rich content, drawn by the brand’s authority.
Publishers’ online revenue models have diversified by attracting third-party sources—advertisers, campaign partners and affiliates—alongside a relatively tepid commitment to audience-led revenue models, with exceptions.
Publishers seeking a sustainable digital future by circa 2030 will need to focus more on audiences than on advertisers, leveraging core brands across multiple channels to build community, with print playing a narrower, lucrative and much-loved role.
Book pricing has stagnated over the past two decades, leading to severe real-term declines in price per book. Nominal prices are now on the rise, but they are still swamped by inflation, and there is no prospect of them catching up to where they were.
The cost to produce books has been hit by many of the same inflationary conditions affecting companies (and people) across the board, leading to tough conditions at publishers, particularly small ones.
Fortunately, books offer many ways for publishers to price discriminate, charging more to price-insensitive, motivated readers.
The UK’s ‘zombie’ economy—largely flat since March 2022—is due to the cost-of-living crisis weighing on households, with this exacerbated in 2023 by the rising cost of credit. Real private expenditure growth will be weakly positive in 2024 before strengthening in 2025 as headwinds recede
Our 2023 forecast of a nominal rise but real decline in display advertising was realised, with TV’s revenues falling while digital display rose. Advertiser spend online is justified by the channel’s size and growth, worth an estimated £406 billion in 2023
For 2024, much lower inflation and mildly positive real private expenditure growth points to 3-4% display advertising growth, with a stronger recovery anticipated in 2025