Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media & Telecoms 2017 & Beyond conference in conjunction with Deloitte, Moelis & Company, Linklaters and LionTree, in London on 2 March 2017.
This report contains the slides used by Tom Mockridge, Matthew Kirk, Andrew Griffith, and Geoff Moelis.
Enders Analysis co-hosted the annual Media & Telecoms 2017 & Beyond conference in conjunction with Deloitte, Moelis & Company, Linklaters and LionTree, in London on 2 March 2017.
The day saw over 450 senior attendees come together to listen to 30 leaders and senior executives of some of the most creative and innovative businesses in the media and telecoms sector, and was chaired by David Abraham.
This report provides edited transcripts of the presentations and panels, and you will find accompanying slides for some of the presentations here.
Videos of the presentations are available on the conference website.
European mobile service revenue growth was unchanged in Q4 on the previous quarter at -0.1%, tantalisingly close to growth but just held back by renewed mobile termination rate cuts in Germany
‘More-for-more’ tariff changes are becoming increasingly commonplace, as operators increase data bundle sizes to allow for volume demand growth, but nudge up pricing as partial compensation. This has not yet translated into positive revenue growth across Europe as a whole, but increasingly looks like it will do, with a number of moves made in early 2017
The quarter saw completion of two M&A deals in Spain and Italy with MasMovil completing its acquisition of Yoigo, and H3G Wind completing their joint venture to form Wind Tre. While the former is unlikely to alter the market dynamics much, the latter, resulting in the entry of Iliad in Italy, has the potential to disrupt the pricing dynamic in that market, although ultimately it will be limited by Iliad’s initial MVNO economics and dearth of spectrum
As Spotify wavers around the breakeven point, the deal with UMG is good news for royalty costs and thus for the likely advent of the IPO rumoured for autumn 2017
Royalty costs will reduce if Spotify reaches the subscriber growth targets that have been agreed – these have not been disclosed, so are hard to track
Question marks persist over whether a two-week optional windowing of new releases on the premium tier will significantly drive upgrades from the free tier
Despite a slowing of circulation decline in 2016, UK national newspaper brands continue to face profound structural challenges, with print advertising spend expected to be down at least -15% for the year
In digital advertising, tech and distribution platforms continue to dominate growth with newspaper publishers and other content producers competing for an increasingly small slice of the revenue pie
In this context, many publishers are turning to paid membership and content subscription models to generate online revenues; success here will require a radical shift in thinking to a retailer mindset that delivers high quality reader experiences through integrated execution of tech, data, marketing and design
Streaming is now mainstream and we predict 113% growth in expenditure on subscriptions for 2015-18 in the top four markets (US, UK, Germany and France)
Free vs paid-for streaming is the central question for the music ecosystem: free yields fractions of pennies, making subscription the only credible business model
Market leader Spotify is facing competition from tech giants Amazon, Apple and Google, with deep pockets, for whom content is a pawn in a larger game
2014 has been a good year for total advertising, which we forecast to grow by 5.5% across the year; display advertising spend is also forecast to grow by over 6% year-on-year. This is largely thanks to a positive economic backdrop, where we have seen a significant rise in consumer expenditure over the last two years
Online advertising spend has been the biggest recipient of growing ad spend, with 20+% growth last year, this year and next. This has mostly been to the detriment of print revenues, where online classified search solutions, amongst other factors like declining circulation, have disrupted print marketplaces
Video has been the largest growth area in internet advertising as online video consumption increases. Up to now online spend has largely been accretive to TV budgets but we are starting to see some advertisers switch to online video spend. However we do not expect TV to suffer in the same way as press
UK consumers have embraced data-hungry services like Facebook and Google, but many also have concerns about privacy online; young people have a more positive view of the trade-off and know how to avoid targeted advertising
Businesses that are conscientious about consumers’ data gain their trust, and the gap between trusted brands and the market as a whole may grow substantially in the future
Despite Edward Snowden’s revelations on ‘Big brother snooping’, the UK Government has secured vast access to communications data without serious challenge to date
The French Professional Football League (LFP) is to auction its 2016-20 broadcasting rights next month, one year earlier than expected. The anticipated auction (and short notice) increases pressure on rival LFP broadcasters – a failure to renew their existing rights deals would unsettle their position for over two years
Due to uncertainty over the future ownership of Canal+ and the political background of Al Jazeera’s beIN Sports we believe that both would prefer to maintain the status quo: the top two weekly games on Canal+ and the other eight on beIN Sports
The LFP rights are precisely packaged to prevent this, and to force the two to compete at least for one lot. As the market leader Canal+ has more to lose, while beIN Sports could sustain its current complementary positioning with fewer games