Time for the UK media industry to crack open the champagne?
From BT announcing it is trying to buy EE, to Channel 5 securing the rights to highlights of the Football League, we can be the sure that the media roller-coaster will run just as fast in 2015, writes Raymond Snoddy.
It may be starting to feel a lot like Christmas, but before the champagne starts to flow there are a few issues to try to get our minds around.
The first and biggest is the decision by BT, an increasingly powerful player in the television market, to try to buy EE, the UK’s largest mobile operator in a deal worth around £12.5 billion.
It is another big play by BT chief executive Gavin Patterson, the Liverpool fan responsible for the telecoms group’s £2 billion bet on television sport.
Ironies abound, of course. BT could already have been the largest player in mobile if it had not decided to demerge O2 in 2001.
It is unclear who precisely was responsible for what has been called one of the biggest misjudgements in British corporate history, but you can be sure that whoever they were they probably got their bonuses.
The record shows that the final demerger plan was put to BT shareholders on 23 October 2001.
Sir Christopher Bland, former chairman of the BBC took over as BT chairman on 1 May 2001 when the plan would have been already well in train. Sir Peter Bonfield, chief executive, announced on 31 October 2001 he was leaving before the end of his contract after five years in charge.
We are where we are and the new deal would have several potentially beneficial effects.
It would repatriate EE and turn a French and German mobile operator into a British player. In an increasingly mobile age, with fixed telephone lines facing slow decline, it would help to future-proof BT.
With more and more media content – and advertising – likely to go to mobile and be available everywhere, the merger – if it goes ahead – will increase BT’s appetite for media content.
It will be an appetite that is likely to spread beyond sport and the initial rational imperative of finding something that would defend the company’s broadband base from new rivals.
A company bringing together the largest fixed line and broadband infrastructure with the largest mobile operations will inevitably attract the attention of the competition authorities.
The industry consensus at the moment seems to be that such a deal will not be blocked, but that a few regulatory hoops will have to be negotiated before the final signatures.
According to The Times at least, BT has also been busy talking to the BBC about sharing the £40 million financial burden of covering Wimbledon. Some of the games that do not make it beyond the red button could go to BT Sport.
It’s another example of the new realities facing the BBC that they were apparently even contemplating such a thing.
Naturally, such a relatively modest manoeuvre has been portrayed as the end of civilisation as we know it. There would, however, be reasonable concerns about the thin edge of the wedge and the remorseless drift from free-to-air to pay television.
Whatever the BBC or BT thinks about Wimbledon, the idea seems to be a non-starter.
The Wimbledon authorities are rather sniffily making it clear that they, not the BBC, decide what happens to their rights and they are wholly committed to free-to-air.
It has been a bad week all round for BBC Sport. There is little doubt that the BBC has lost the rights to highlights of the Football League to Channel 5.
Depending on the production values, this will be a boon for the many supporters of smaller clubs. At the moment they often have to wait until nearly midnight to see their games and Channel 5 is considering a 9pm broadcast.
It is hard to see the BBC retaining Premier League highlights which would mean the mothballing, perhaps forever, of the Match of the Day brand.
ITV will be keen to retain some football after the loss of Champions League football to BT and they can afford to pay.
The only worry is that the last time ITV had the Premiership highlights they made a total pig’s ear of it, and to make matters worse put the programme on so early that a lot of people who actually attend matches were unable get home in time.
It will be a real shame if the BBC’s 50th year of Match of the Day should turn out to be the last.
The tectonic plates of the media are still on the move, if more slowly than a lot of people predicted, according to the latest survey of public service broadcasting by Ofcom, the communications regulator.
Young adults always consumed a bit less television than older cohorts, but 16-24 year olds are starting to spend more time with social media.
As a result they spent 148 minutes a day watching television in 2013, a considerable amount, but down from 169 minutes a day in 2010 compared to an average of 232 minutes for all viewers.
And even more alarming for radio, the same age group now only listen for an average of 15.5 hours a week compared with 21.4 hours a decade ago and 21.5 hours across all ages.
The slightly better news is the extent to which viewing to the main broadcast channels continues to hold up to a remarkable degree – given the ever-rising tide of competition.
A 51.1 per cent share of all TV viewing rises to 58.7 per cent when the time-shifted channels are included – an entirely legitimate piece of arithmetic – compared with a 60.8 per cent share in 2008.
A couple more alarm bells are set off by the report. Channel 4’s weekly reach was down to 48 per cent in 2013 compared with just over 53 per cent in 2010 and its audience is down to 4.9 per cent (5.8 per cent including Channel 4 +1) compared with 6.2 per cent in 2010. The gap is offset by new channels in the C4 group.
The other worry is a fall of 34 per cent in spending on original drama over five years with the biggest fall on ITV.
That’s it. Time for the champagne, in the sure and certain knowledge that the media roller-coaster will run just as fast in 2015.