Geopolitical clashes between the US and Europe were a barely concealed undercurrent at this year’s MWC, with European tech regulation at odds with US moves, and telcos pitching for regulatory favours on firmer ground than they have had for years.

Perhaps the largest impact is on the satellite industry, with Eutelsat OneWeb having been given a new lease of life as the EU champion versus a now disfavoured SpaceX/Starlink.

AI was of course the talk of the town, but largely in ways that are tangential at best to traditional telcos, with the necessary building blocks for telcos to play a big role (i.e. network APIs) still needing much work.

BT had a solid-but-mixed Q3, with revenue growth slightly weaker than expected, EBITDA growth slightly stronger, and subscriber net adds a touch weak across broadband, mobile and Openreach 

The outlook is buoyed by a likely altnet slowdown at some point in FY26, with this set to help subscriber numbers at Consumer/Openreach and pricing at Consumer

The main cloud is the potential effect of a merged Vodafone-Three challenging BT/EE for best network and boosting MVNOs, a challenge we feel is real but manageable for BT

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.

Service revenue growth dropped further to -1.7% this quarter as pricing remains under pressure and in-contract price increases no longer benefit

Competition is heating up in Germany and France, and Digi is taking an aggressive stance as it enters the Portuguese and Belgian markets

While there is increasing awareness that investment levels in Europe are compromised by the current market structure, support for in-market consolidation remains lukewarm at best at the EU level

Sky UK and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached a deal for the pay-TV platform to carry WBD's Max, non-exclusively, when it launches in early 2026. The ad-supported version will be bundled at no extra charge for Sky and Now subscribers

The non-exclusive nature of the deal appears to have invigorated Sky into a restructuring of its packages, essentially unbundling Sky Atlantic for the first time

The proposal from DCMS to expand the pre-digital “public interest” regime that requires clearance for changes in the equity stakes in print newspapers to online news publishers lacks a firm rationale in 2024.

A plethora of online sources dilute the influence of news brands and their proprietors over British people’s political views, in particular the platforms (X, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook) hosting self-publishing influencers, politicians and political advertising.

The UK's expanded future regime, if enacted, will further chill the appetite of investors for stakes in commercial media, reduce their value and ability to raise capital, and stifle beneficial consolidation.
 

Under financial stress, most streaming platforms are increasingly focusing on third-party distribution. Thanks to bundling, top streamers like Netflix can increase the lifetime value of subscribers, while smaller streamers widen their reach.

Bundles of streamers may have some potential in the US, but in Europe—with Netflix not interested—they do not have the necessary scale.

This trend towards bundling favours incumbent pay-TV aggregators like Sky and Canal+, but in the longer run they face competition from tech video marketplaces.

BT Group was hit by an unexpected slowdown in Global/Portfolio non-UK corporate revenue in Q2, with this impacting quarterly and full year expected revenue by 2ppts.

EBITDA, cashflow and all other operational metrics were steady or improving, with Openreach particularly strong, and without the non-UK impact it would have been a solidly good if unspectacular quarter.

The fibre-driven cashflow turnaround plan is therefore still very much on track, with the expected altnet slowdown/consolidation an added potential bonus, and the Vodafone-H3G merger a manageable challenge.

UK news publishers are experimenting with generative AI to realise newsroom efficiencies. Different businesses see a different balance of risk and reward: some eager locals are already using it for newsgathering and content creation, while quality nationals hold back from reader-facing uses.

Publishers must protect the integrity of their content. Beyond hallucinations, overuse of generative AI carries the longer-term commercial and reputational risk of losing what makes a news product distinctive.

Far less certain is the role of generative AI in delivering the holy grail of higher revenues. New product offerings could be more of an opportunity for businesses that rely on subscribers than those that are ad-supported.

We forecast broadcaster viewing share to drop to 52% in 2030 (from 58% in 2023), with the firming of its on demand viewing unable to balance out the decline of live: this is a slight improvement on our past estimates, with decline slowing.

SVOD viewing will begin to plateau in 2025, as video sharing platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch) take an increasing share of engagement.

On the TV set, YouTube will grow strongly: we predict a 90% increase from 2023 to 2030. This is from a low base with broadcasters retaining 70% of viewing on the main screen in 2030