Enders Analysis

Senior Media Analyst Niamh Burns was quoted in The Guardian regarding OpenAI's recently disbanded Instant Checkout and Sora. Read here: https://lnkd.in/ei2kaykA

Enders Analysis was quoted in the Financial Times on OpenAI’s closure of Sora. Read here: https://lnkd.in/enPnaZDb

🪦 The media industry mightn’t mourn video AI Sora now that OpenAI has shut it down, but it feels like it’s back to square one on AI content licensing for video (and a reminder that revenue share will only work when there’s a path to meaningful revenue). Consumer-facing video AI can be a nightmare for a host of reasons relating to expense, safety and quality. 💲🛟🖼️ We’ve written a quick report on this (with Lucas Glanville, Gareth Sutcliffe). An important takeaway is that none of the AI products we are seeing on the market right now are final. Sora’s sudden departure is an especially dramatic example, but the product wrappers on all the big AI models will keep changing, and media cos need to keep up.

I rather suspect that DIGI Romania's foray into UK broadband has been somewhat accidental rather than strategic - perhaps the result of unpaid debts for (modest) network build? The UK's telecoms market has already had all the disruption that it needs, and some. Digi would be much like a second burglar turning up at an already-ransacked home. Kieran Smith

UK MVNOs had their best quarter ever in Q4 of last year, thanks to the fallout from the (unfounded in our view) media furore around the Virgin Media O2 in-contract price rises. It cost VMO2 on the ARPU side too, and although the right-to-leave window has long-closed, it will continue to hit revenue in the coming quarters. Enders Analysis subscribers can read more about who benefited, O2 (Telefónica UK)'s satellite service launch and the industry outlook here: https://lnkd.in/euvSa-KV James Barford Artemis Loynes Henry Millen #telecoms

** CANAL+ Group+ has options for growth ** The 2025 results disclosed last week were in line or better than guidance. Before consolidating MultiChoice (acquired in September), organic revenue growth was positive, EBIT and free cash flow were above targets. Yet the stock market reacted very negatively, with a 33% fall since the results release. The war in the Gulf and the resulting uncertainty added to nervousness stoked by the declines at MultiChoice in subscriber numbers, revenue and profits – even though this was entirely predictable (as I told Les Échos, see link in the comments). I take a much more positive view: ◼️ Canal+ seems to have bought MutiChoice at the right moment when business conditions were at a cyclical trough. Economic prospects for South Africa and Nigeria are improving and the extensive power cuts in the former country have been dramatically reduced; ◼️ In Europe’s mature streaming market, platforms are looking for ways to make their model sustainable, and the aggregation offered by the likes of Canal+ is becoming increasingly attractive; ◼️ In Scandinavia, loss-making Viaplay Group, 29% owned by Canal+, can uncover consolidation opportunities that could make this high revenue region more profitable for them. Enders Analysis subscribers can read our report: https://lnkd.in/gr_BMAda

**Ofcom offering an eye of stable regulation amidst the altnet storms** ➡️ Ofcom’s TAR 2026 statement released this week, regulating copper/fibre networks from 2026 to 2031 (mainly those of BT Group’s Openreach), ended up being much closer to the prior regulation (WFTMR 2021) than last year’s consultation document in our view ➡️ This may disappoint some altnets, which had hoped for particular help across a number of areas, but Ofcom ultimately decided that regulatory consistency is the best way to support sustainable investment, and changed little (a wise move in our view) ➡️ Ofcom clearly expects the altnets to sort out their own financial issues, and is encouraging of consolidation in general as a way to do this. However, not all consolation is equal, with Ofcom expressing concerns (on its investor/analyst call) over the Virgin Media O2/nexfibre-Netomnia deal given the overlap involved We discuss these issues and some of the key regulatory decisions made in our detailed note available to Enders Analysis clients here: https://lnkd.in/ehnis3A7 Karen Egan Artemis Loynes Henry Millen

** TV news reach needs at-scale broadcasters** Television news is part of democracy’s infrastructure. It is the most followed source of information, repeatedly setting the themes and the agenda of rival media. Social media often takes its cues from TV reports. Crucially, our research reveals that the audience of news is proportional to that of entertainment content, providing a strong public interest argument for consolidating European commercial broadcasters with a licence mandate to carry news: ◼️ Over the first half of 2025, less than a million viewers came to Germany's RTL or France’s TF1 to watch only news, whereas the vast majority of the broadcasters’ reach came from viewers watching both news and non-news programming (see chart below). The pattern at ITV is similar ◼️ In a further analysis of ITV and RTL audiences, we found that news and current affairs tend to remain a high proportion of an individual’s total viewing—the heaviest viewers of non-news content watch a high proportion of news, the lightest viewers of entertainment watch less news ◼️ Takeaway: in the upcoming all-streaming television era, news reach will be critically dependent on platform scale and editorial curation Enders subscribers can read our report here: https://lnkd.in/dk3Wzwpa   #FTATV #RTL #ITV #TF1 #MediaforEurope #ProSieben #M6

**UK broadband revenue in persistent decline** ➡️ The combined UK consumer broadband revenues of BT Group, Sky, Virgin Media O2 and TalkTalk declined 1% in Q4, slightly worse than the previous quarter, and ending a tricky year ➡️ This decline is likely to continue into 2026, with reduced pricing still to fully work its way into ARPUs, although the outlook for individual operators (and the wholesalers Openreach and CityFibre) does differ as we discuss in our detailed report ➡️ There have been two altnet merger announcements and two altnet equity write-offs in 2026 so far, but the outlook is as uncertain as ever, and we expect a pause on further developments as the VMO2/nexfibre-Netomnia deal seeks regulatory approval, which might be a lengthy process, with far from guaranteed success Enders Analysis subscribers can read more here: https://lnkd.in/er9YZbqG Karen Egan Artemis Loynes Henry Millen