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Analyst firm Enders Analysis underlined this at the end of 2025 by calculating that the UK’s largest alternative gigabit broadband networks (i.e. BT / Openreach challengers) collectively suffered losses of £1.5bn in 2024 (up from £1.304bn in 2023 and £755m in 2022) – driven by high interest rates and rising build costs.

“It’s very competitive,” said Claire Enders, a media analyst. “The audience who wants to hear about celebrities can now hear it from them directly. There are a lot of influencers who have taken the market from mainstream media.”

A report by Enders in April said that social media sites like TikTok and WhatsApp had become “primary spaces” for information, commentary and discussion, showing the extent of the new competition. “These environments are engineered for sustained engagement-infinite scroll, algorithmic reinforcement and low friction — in contrast to publisher sites,” it said.

An Enders note said that publishers were building up their columnists and star reporters as “creators in their own right”. It pointed to “publisher-owned personalities and episodic formats” as a means to attract and retain paying audiences.

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.