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 Four, covering: the impact of AI on advertising; the future of advertising; and Ofcom’s approach to regulation.

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 Three, covering: Vodafone’s strategy; BT’s strategy; the future of fibre; and challenges and opportunities for telcos.

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 One, covering: Sky’s strategy; the BBC's strategy; audience behaviour; trends in commissions; and the businesses of Vivendi and the National Lottery. Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.

Disney continued to grow profitability across its three segments, even as streaming subs and revenue remain stagnant. Stoked by Trump-uncertainty, headwinds could have ramifications for leadership succession planning

Challenges to Disney+ engagement may not yet be impacting subscriptions but it will compromise the fame of core IP assets and therefore monetisation opportunities

Green shoots are finally emerging from Disney's games strategy with Disney+ entering Fortnite

Service revenue growth remained firmly negative at -1.0% in spite of inflation of +2.1%, as competition remains intense and pricing power weak.

Operators are guiding to a 2025 EBITDA performance that is broadly in-line with, or weaker than, their 2024 performance, with SFR choosing to abstain from guidance this year.

In-market consolidation cries are getting louder, with France, Italy and Germany the most obvious candidates.

UEFA and Relevent, a newly appointed media rights sales partner, are already surveying the rights market for the next cycle starting in 2027.

With minimal competitive tension in major European markets, incumbent broadcasters are unlikely to increase their bids.

Relevent will, however, try to leverage increased US appetite for soccer to lure a streamer into a global deal.

Most regulations within the TAR26 condoc were continuations of the previous pro-investment regulations, albeit with little progress made on copper withdrawal, no extra help for the struggling altnets and a number of unexpected twists at the margin. 

Within the detail, the most significant hit is the return of cost-based price controls to some leased line charges, and across all of the proposed changes, Openreach has on balance fared worse than retail ISPs, albeit at a scale that is manageable within the BT Group.

Ofcom showed no inclination to offer any extra help to the struggling altnet industry, regarding its inefficiencies as being its own (and its investors’) problem, with consolidation the only sensible path forward for most.

Globally, subscriber growth remains the driver of topline streaming improvements—86% of Netflix’s 2024 global revenue growth came from subscriber additions, with 85% for WBD and 54% for Disney

However, in mature markets growth is underpinned by ARPU. Subs growth is becoming volatile with more customers churning in and out of services around key releases

Relevantly, the race to scale up SVOD ad-tiers will continue to have an ARPU-dilutive effect: CPMs are lower than expected and the growing price divide between premium and ad tiers will persuade more existing users to spin down 

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.

The ‘big 4’ ISPs’ combined revenue remained in decline in Q4 2024 at -0.4%, partly due to a BT accounting quirk but mainly due to altnets gaining share

ARPU growth of 2% is roughly compensating for subscriber declines of 2%, but this ARPU growth is likely to weaken in 2025 as various boosts drop out

A recovery will come as the altnets slow in H2 2025 (if not before) due to their restrained expansion, which cannot come soon enough for the big ISPs