BSkyB has been a major player in the United Kingdom subscription TV market for decades. But BSkyB faces a maturation of its base business, as do all other video entertainment and communications providers in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
“The company made a number of announcements which confirm that, beyond the near term slowdown, structural issues are looming,” Bernstein analyst Claudio Aspesi argues.
“While we believe the pay TV business is inherently more defensive than advertising-funded ones, the depth and length of the downturn in the U.K. economy are still unknown: any significant changes to our forecasts for the UK TV ad market could be large enough to change the outlook for the stock.”
Structural change is another way of saying that saturated markets and greater amounts of competition are eroding the growth potential for virtually all big communications or entertainment businesses.
The Ovum forecast shows the deceleration of revenue, even despite newer products such as mobile broadband.
