Enders Analysis senior research analyst Niamh Burns, meanwhile, believes the marketplaces being built by the likes of Microsoft are a genuine business necessity, not just a public relations stunt, because tech companies need legally sound data for their growing number of enterprise clients.

In parallel, the European Commission is investigating Google over its use of publisher content in AI without “appropriate compensation”, while the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is currently consulting on “publisher conduct requirements” to address the structural market harms caused by the search giant.

“It is not one-way traffic with journalists leaving to become creators,” said Laura Darcey, research analyst at Enders Analysis.

 “Journalists that have grown up within legacy media can find new freedoms and monetization opportunities by branching out alone, but we’re not about to see a mass exodus. Journalists will find themselves competing in the broader attention and subscription economy where challenges of subscription fatigue and limited discretionary spending apply.”

“While going it alone creates a direct avenue for reaching a journalist’s most ardent fans, and global distribution platforms create meaningful scale effects, many independent journalists have small audiences, with most Substack newsletters remaining small scale in terms of paid subscriber numbers,” said Enders’ Darcey.

Karen Egan, head of telecoms at Enders Analysis, says Schüler has done “phenomenally well to grow ebitda” as cheaper, customer-focused innovators threaten VMO2’s historic strengths. “Perhaps too well, as there is some sense that there could have been more of an eye to the longer-term financials and brand reputation at times.”

Lenders including the UK’s taxpayer-backed National Wealth Fund, NatWest and Lloyds have taken control of broadband provider Gigaclear after taking a significant haircut on its near-£1bn debt pile.
 

Karen said the restructuring was likely to be one of many in the troubled altnet sector.

“It’s not an easy thing to pull off but is the right move for the company — putting it on a better footing as a going concern and in consolidation negotiations,” she added.
 

"I completely approve of her strategy to encourage a real sense and actions related to the overall well-being of the company."

"There has never been a common culture at WPP – it’s been a holding company structure for so long and created via acquisitions. Rose is attempting to create a team culture of shared achievement, which is bound to be a positive direction."

In early March, OpenAI pulled back from Instant Checkout, a plan in which consumers would shop for goods directly inside ChatGPT. This was after a five-month trial in which the company appears to have found that building a successful commerce platform is harder than it looks. “Like many of OpenAI’s initial launches, it felt more like a public demo of what the tech could do than a very sustained effort to set up a commerce business,” said Niamh Burns, an analyst at Enders.

Then, last week, it ditched Sora, its viedo-generation platform, and with it a $1bn deal in which Disney was going to license OpenAI-generated content to “unlock new possibilities in imaginative storytelling”. This was strategic for OpenAI, because Sora was a money pit. It was awkward for Disney, which reportedly learned that the platform would be axed an hour before the public did.

Matt Brittin has no direct experience in news and television. But he has joined the board of the British daily newspaper "The Guardian." "He created the Google Showcase service, which has provided significant financial support to many media outlets. He understands the importance of media pluralism," says Claire Enders of the Enders research firm. "He is a leader who can contribute a great deal to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) [the association of European public broadcasters, including France Télévisions and Radio France]," she adds.

Enders Analysis, the research firm, described the collapse of the Sora agreement as “a brutal lesson in the perils of licensing in an emerging technology sector with clear ‘deal fever’.”

Given Brittin’s CV, Claire Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis, said it was a coup for the BBC and he would have the respect of government.

“It’s quite extraordinary to have someone of that stature who has no necessity whatsoever for status,” she said. “He’s a very thoughtful and calm person who would never have applied if he hadn’t considered this deeply. I think there is an element of real public-spiritedness.

“It is very brave for someone to step into that kind of 24/7 position.”