The French league and DAZN have come to an agreement to end their media rights contract after one season, with the league now having had four main broadcast partners in five years.
DAZN claims the league failed to protect its ‘exclusivity’, resulting in high piracy. Ligue 1 blames poor execution.
Without a main broadcast partner for next season, Ligue 1 is exploring the idea of creating its own direct-to-consumer service.
UEFA and Relevent, a newly appointed media rights sales partner, are already surveying the rights market for the next cycle starting in 2027.
With minimal competitive tension in major European markets, incumbent broadcasters are unlikely to increase their bids.
Relevent will, however, try to leverage increased US appetite for soccer to lure a streamer into a global deal.
Globally, subscriber growth remains the driver of topline streaming improvements—86% of Netflix’s 2024 global revenue growth came from subscriber additions, with 85% for WBD and 54% for Disney
However, in mature markets growth is underpinned by ARPU. Subs growth is becoming volatile with more customers churning in and out of services around key releases
Relevantly, the race to scale up SVOD ad-tiers will continue to have an ARPU-dilutive effect: CPMs are lower than expected and the growing price divide between premium and ad tiers will persuade more existing users to spin down
Recent deals for Ligue 1, the Fifa Club World Cup and Foxtel signal DAZN is focused on global expansion, but this has postponed group breakeven.
Rights have been renewed at lower costs due to tepid competition and wider uncertainty in the broadcasting landscape, which support its improving margins.
Global scale may be a competitive advantage, but DAZN must still prove that global synergies improve local economics and generate a positive margin.
YouTube is now the UK's fifth most-used venue for finding news, and a key focus for UK broadcasters and publishers. They made up a quarter of UK trending news videos in 2023, competing with native YouTubers and US broadcasters
We find that YouTube’s algorithms tend to funnel users from news content towards non-news within a few videos. The reverse trend, of non-news to news content, is almost non-existent
We do not find evidence of widespread brand safety concerns impacting advertising on news videos, though publishers still note YouTube is better for exposure and consumption than it is for generating revenue. The ad load is largely in line with other genres
Poverty has a negative impact on health in many ways —such as through housing, work, food, tobacco use, healthcare and sanitary costs, relationships, and social life—while social inequality has been shown to have its own, independent impact.
One in five people in the UK live in poverty, including nearly one in three children; almost two million households experience destitution. The life expectancy gap at birth between the most and least deprived areas of England is 9.7 years for men and 7.9 for women; the gaps are larger still in Scotland.
Multibank, an anti-poverty, community-based charitable initiative—which gifts otherwise wasted essentials to those most in need—has the invaluable support of retail and media to realise its impact.
The German football league will earn 2% more per season from its broadcasting rights for 2025-29, while European peers have faced declines at recent auctions
Sky and DAZN have maintained their relative value to fans: Sky expanded its coverage by 27 games, but lost the Saturday ‘Live-Konferenz’ feed to DAZN
The league has maintained wide free TV exposure, and leveraged strong fan demand for its second division
The proposal from DCMS to expand the pre-digital “public interest” regime that requires clearance for changes in the equity stakes in print newspapers to online news publishers lacks a firm rationale in 2024.
A plethora of online sources dilute the influence of news brands and their proprietors over British people’s political views, in particular the platforms (X, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook) hosting self-publishing influencers, politicians and political advertising.
The UK's expanded future regime, if enacted, will further chill the appetite of investors for stakes in commercial media, reduce their value and ability to raise capital, and stifle beneficial consolidation.
UK football rights values have pulled further away from European peers in a stagnant market, as telcos have withdrawn and tech companies remain selective bidders.
Sky and Canal+ have tied down key contracts until towards the end of the decade, while DAZN now has domestic rights for four of the top five European football leagues.
Tech players want live sport, but have distinctive demands and without new monetisation models they will not challenge pay-TV incumbents.
UK news publishers are experimenting with generative AI to realise newsroom efficiencies. Different businesses see a different balance of risk and reward: some eager locals are already using it for newsgathering and content creation, while quality nationals hold back from reader-facing uses.
Publishers must protect the integrity of their content. Beyond hallucinations, overuse of generative AI carries the longer-term commercial and reputational risk of losing what makes a news product distinctive.
Far less certain is the role of generative AI in delivering the holy grail of higher revenues. New product offerings could be more of an opportunity for businesses that rely on subscribers than those that are ad-supported.