Blog: Paid Content

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

AI will transform music; the question is how?

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Mark Mulligan

18 Apr 2023

Artifical Intelligence

Every new technology goes through a period of being overhyped before the dust settles, and that technology either fades or builds steadily thereafter. Think 3D printing, VR, NFTs. In my 20+ years as a media and tech analyst, only three technologies have had a level of hype that felt like it was goin...

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Move Over Mickey, The NBA is Set to Become Disney World’s Star Attraction

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Alistair Taylor

27 May 2020

Australian Rules Football

COVID-19 forced sports leagues to think outside the box for restarting live sports. The UFC wanted to rent a private island , the NRL to ferry players to and from games, and the WWE performed to empty arenas .

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Bundesliga Offers Reality Check for What to Expect of Sport Post-COVID-19

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Alistair Taylor

21 May 2020

Football (via the Bundesliga) finally returned to screens last weekend, not only serving starved sports fans with content during lockdown, but more importantly demonstrated what we can expect live football to look like in the coming months.

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‘You’re not singing anymore’ - English Premier League set to lose over $1 billion

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Alistair Taylor

7 May 2020

The English Premier League (EPL) is faced with the very real possibility that it will have to play out the entirety of the 2020/2021 soccer season behind closed doors, starving teams of more than $1 billion in lost matchday revenue.

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The Battle Down Under

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Alistair Taylor

23 Apr 2020

#playerstogether

additive services

With COVID-19 exposing the vulnerability of pureplay sport streaming services , the importance of building out a robust and downturn-proof offering is fundamental to the viability of these currently additive services.

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Play for the World – EA Aims to Fill Void via FIFA Stay and Play Cup

Alistair Taylor

16 Apr 2020

In 2003, FIFA updated its primary logo to include the words ‘For the Game. For the World.’ Fast forward 17 years and governments around the world are instructing their citizens to stay inside. Now it is almost as if Nike consulted FIFA on its latest marketing campaign ‘Play Inside, Play for th...

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Forget Virtual – UFC and NRL going Remote

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Alistair Taylor

10 Apr 2020

Associated Press

With fans currently starved of sports entertainment during lockdown, rights holders are jumping out of the gate to be the first to put on live sports to serve any form of quick fix to see a jump in engagement.

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Self-Isolation: DAZN Concedes to COVID-19

Alistair Taylor

6 Apr 2020

additive services

all-encompassing offering

Sports streaming insurgent DAZN has announced last week it plans to inform rights holders of its intent to defer its payments of rights fees for any content not yet delivered (i.e. postponed / cancelled games) during this pandemic-enforced freeze on live sports.

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The Show Must Go On – NFL Throws Screen Pass at COVID-19 with NFL Draft

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Alistair Taylor

2 Apr 2020

The NFL’s commissioner Roger Goodell announced to all 32 teams in a memo on March 26th that the NFL draft will go ahead as scheduled from the 23 rd to 25 th of April, despite growing pressures resulting from COVID-19 to postpone the event.

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Olympics Postponement: The Sports Media Landscape of COVID-19

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Alistair Taylor

26 Mar 2020

Advertising Revenue

The global COVID-19 pandemic is increasing pressure on the viability of emerging and legacy media business models, and is already having an unprecedented impact on the sports industry. An unprecedented swathe of cancelled sports events has left rights holders unable to monetise their existing broadc...

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Six Nations Behind a Paywall: Can Rugby Afford to Bench Free-To-Air?

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Alistair Taylor

6 Mar 2020

consumption habits

Six Nations organisers are reportedly considering awarding the exclusive distribution rights for its annual competition to pay-TV operator Sky, in an unprecedented £300 ($384) million deal. Organisers have said they ‘would not rule anything out’ as the Rugby Paper reported the championship woul...

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Peacock Goes for Gold

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Alistair Taylor

23 Jan 2020

On the 16 th of January , Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal) unveiled further details of its direct to consumer (D2C) proposition, Peacock. Peacock is set to debut on the 15 th of April exclusively for Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers, before being rolled out nationally across the US on July 1...

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Can BT Lay the Smackdown on Its Rivals?

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Alistair Taylor

3 Jan 2020

addressable audience

This Saturday at 1am GMT BT will debut its live broadcast for WWE Smackdown, having acquired the exclusive rights from long-term UK broadcaster Sky in June 2019 . This signalled the end of Sky’s tenure as the home of WWE content, which first began broadcasting wrestling coverage to fans back in th...

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Amazon One - Family Christmas Nil

Alistair Taylor

18 Dec 2019

addressable audience

AFC Bournemouth

ageing audience

Ever since the English Premier League (EPL) awarded rights to tech major Amazon in June 2018, the excitement for December 2019 and how Amazon’s live stream delivery would pan out has been palpable. The EPL has long prioritised revenue over reach when entertaining rights bids, but this legacy appro...

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BT Sport’s Key Ingredient for Competing in an Increasingly Saturated Landscape

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Alistair Taylor

22 Nov 2019

American football

broadcast audience

The strategic dilemma as to whether rights holders should seek revenue over reach when allocating domestic rights is inevitably impacted by how dependent services are on premium rights for securing subscriber revenue.

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Disney+ Recovers From Initial Blunder to Surpass 10 Million Sign Ups on Debut!

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Alistair Taylor

14 Nov 2019

21st Century Fox

all-encompassing offering

AppleTV+. Market saturation

Disney claims unexpected traffic on its newly-launched service was at fault for the buffering and technical issues of Disney+’s launch Tuesday . The issues highlight just how difficult it is transitioning from a media company to a tech player, with technical glitches an enormous issue for digital-...

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The NFL and Pizza Hut: Future-Proofing with E-Sports

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Alistair Taylor

18 Oct 2019

ad responsiveness

addressable audience

advert experimentation

While sharing pizza has already become synonymous with watching sports, e-sports could be about to leverage that same instilled behaviour. Restaurant chain Pizza Hut made history this July when it became the first brand to secure naming rights for a virtual football stadium in an agreement with Madd...

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Knock On: Rights Holders Cannot Chance Latency?

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Alistair Taylor

26 Sep 2019

broadband providers

The IRB Rugby World Cup (RWC) commenced last Friday with hosts Japan producing a fine victory over second-time qualifiers Russia, 30-10. The first RWC to be held in Asia provides Australasian countries with a much more sociable tournament in terms of kick-off times.

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Could a Recession Change the Tide for Sports Rights Allocation?

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Alistair Taylor

24 Sep 2019

additive services

all-encompassing offering

Revenue remains rights holder’s priority qualifier for allocating rights. However, with an impending recession, we are likely nearing an inflection point whereby rights holders may start to look towards prioritising reach over revenue.

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Not So Galactico; What Went Wrong for La Liga?

Cover image for Not So Galactico; What Went Wrong for La Liga?

Alistair Taylor

7 Aug 2019

addressable audience

broadcast deals

carriage partnerships

Joris Evers, La Liga’s head of communications, confirmed last week that the rights holder has withdrawn its tender for broadcast rights to Spanish soccer’s premier league in the UK and Ireland after failing to receive any acceptable bids, due by the 25 th July .

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