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Enders Analysis provides a subscription research service covering the media, entertainment, mobile and fixed telecommunications industries in Europe, with a special focus on new technologies and media.

Our research is independent and evidence-based, covering all sides of the market: consumers, leading companies, industry trends, forecasts and public policy & regulation. A complete list of our research can be found here.

 

Rigorous Fearless Independent

Disney’s decision to license to OpenAI’s Sora is necessary to regain agency in a consumer ecosystem dominated by rampant unlicensed IP usage. The deal reflects an ongoing pattern of opportunistic, equity-driven deals by Disney in high-profile technology categories.

Movie and TV content owners’ ability to replicate similar deals to protect their IP assets is limited by vague engagement pathways and opaque or non-existent revenue sharing models combined with dealmaking constraints at AI operators, some of which are developed in China.

Even within the parameters of a deal, the ongoing risk of a public display of malfunctioning guardrails with licensed IP is real, as it is on non-licensed models. In-house AI expertise and stronger copyright compliance will require additional investment to ensure slippery usage is minimised.
 

VMO2 ended 2025 on a slowing note, with broadband still being hit by altnets and mobile impacted by negative publicity surrounding an October pricing change.

Guidance for 2026 at 3-5% declines for proforma service revenue and EBITDA looks bleak, driven by current momentum and various built-in technical factors, including wholesale payments to nexfibre.

We are not convinced that the agreed nexfibre /Netomnia deal is in any sense a panacea for VMO2’s issues, but there are other green shoots that could help the company back to growth beyond 2026.

“Trump is reshuffling the cards,” said François Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis, adding that “as long as tensions are not resolved, and there is uncertainty, they represent “a risk on investment and on long term decisions made by companies,” including those in the media and entertainment sphere.

“I think countries like Canada and the U.K. should be the most sensitive since there is a lot of production by American studios and for the American market taking place in both countries,” Godard noted.

“Then there are question marks regarding the European policy towards American tech exports [to Europe] and American tech giants, as a form of retaliation,” Godard went on to add. “The matter is certainly not settled.”

Claire Holubowskyj, senior research analyst, Enders analysis, said: “A key value of chatbots is in how their only incentive is to give the best possible answers to queries — introducing advertising, even if not directly integrated into responses, erodes this by casting doubt on whether serving users or monetisation is motivating recommendations.”

Despite concerns and clear issues that need to be addressed, advertising revenue enables access for consumers who cannot afford expensive subscriptions.

Holubowskyj said: “How necessary advertising is will depend on a model’s user base: higher-value enterprise subscriptions are the clearest route to profitability, but are only feasible for a handful of tools.

“Most audiences won’t be upsold to higher paid tiers, so for consumer-oriented model providers, advertising will be the main way to monetise reach.”

Netflix has “a well-oiled machine when it comes to lobbying in Europe,” says François Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis. The company has a longstanding dialogue with Brussels, he notes, having engaged in lots of back and forth over the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS) norm that forces foreign streamers to invest a portion of their revenue into local productions. A norm that, by and large, Netflix abides by.

 

VMO2/nexfibre has agreed to buy Netomnia, in a complex multi-party deal involving additional wholesale deal components between VMO2 and nexfibre which will leave nexfibre wholesaling 8 million premises to VMO2, or c.40% of VMO2’s overall footprint.

The purchasers are hopeful of an easy regulatory clearance, but we fear the process may be more protracted given the high overlap and removal of a major competitor.

The impact on VMO2 and other incumbent players is prima facie positive, given that it takes out a major subscriber gainer, but we fear that it will be structurally unhelpful, with the high price encouraging other altnets to continue to disrupt in the hope of a similar take-out.
 

This could force the channel to raise its prices and make Tavernost's ambitious goal of reaching over two million subscribers very uncertain. "Ligue 1+ doesn't seem to have the potential to generate revenue at the level it was still at in 2023-2024... I don't know of any top-tier leagues that survive on their own channel," explains François Godard, a sports rights analyst at Enders Analysis.