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“It’s completely different to scheduling content on a pretty closed ecosystem,” Tom Harrington, an analyst at Enders Analysis, said. “Casting money onto programming that’s going to be on this enormous platform like YouTube, where someone will probably never see what you’re making for them. It’s a completely different kettle of fish.”
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.
According to François Godard, a media and telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis who covers the development of football media rights agreements and subscription trends across Europe, the gap in broadcasting revenue is likely to persist and may widen further. Broadcasters, he explains, are drawn to competitiveness and a league’s perceived value, creating a structural virtuous cycle over time.
“As the Premier League is becoming more attractive, they get more money. They buy the best players, which then increases the attraction for broadcasters. Furthermore, they buy players from other European countries, which attract their viewers. This again raises the value of the rights,” he says.
Growing BVOD usage in 2025 was unable to offset declining broadcast viewing, whilst YouTube continued its advance on the TV set and SVOD engagement growth was driven by older viewers.
Households are increasingly shifting towards IP-delivered video, whether through IP-only devices, or more likely hybrid UK TV platforms.
Young people’s viewing to SVOD services is less volatile across the year and throughout the day than YouTube and broadcasters—the latter of which is more likely to be shared with other people.
Tom Harrington, head of television at Enders Analysis, said there was "no way that Max could have successfully launched here without a deal with Sky", and that the agreement means HBO Max will be in more than 10 million households from launch.
"All the big continuing shows (House of the Dragon, Last of Us, White Lotus) will continue to be on Sky, so Max would be relying completely on new shows, especially Harry Potter, to grow a business from scratch," he said.
"On the content side, it's worth noting that HBO's hit rate is quite phenomenal - they don't release a lot but always have a few current shows with considerable cultural cut-through."
Service revenue trends and themes were broadly consistent with those of last quarter, with management commentary suggesting German EBITDA decline of 8%+ this year.
Strong growth from VodafoneThree, better underlying trends in Germany, and fortuitous currency moves are all likely to be required to hit analyst estimates for next year, and there are reasons to be optimistic about prospects for at least some of them.
VodafoneThree’s mobile strategy seems to be quite defensive for now, save for a foray into the family market, and its approach to FWA looks likely to be quite cautious too.