Opinion
Who Will Be the Last One Broadcasting?
Navigating the Great Consolidation Market Forces: The Consolidation of The broadcasting and satellite communications Titans industries have just closed out an unusually Two primary forces are acting as the catalysts transformative year. Over the past decade, for this activity, characterized by a shift from a wave of mergers and acquisitions has niche competition to a battle between global fundamentally rewritten the competitive giants. landscape. As we stand at the beginning 1. The“ Platform of Platforms” and of 2026, the industry is no longer merely the Discovery Signal The December 2025“ adapting” to technological disruption; it is Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery( WBD) deal reaching a consolidated endgame. While 2025 marked a high-water mark for the content was defined by“ Big Deals,” 2026 carries the wars. A critical indicator of this shift is the weight of an unknown expectation: whether planned spinoff of WBD’ s linear networks these consolidated giants can move beyond into a separate entity, Discovery Global. By mere scale and actually deliver on the promise separating premium streaming assets from of integrated, AI-driven efficiency in a market legacy channels, the industry is signaling a that is increasingly impatient for growth. new chapter. This suggests that the“ Titans”
From a strategic perspective, these are recalculating their route, focusing on a transactions reveal a clear pattern: the industry digital-first future where deep content libraries is being squeezed by a“ pincer movement.” On are integrated directly into global distribution one side, infrastructure providers are merging platforms. to gain the scale necessary to withstand global 2. Big Tech’ s Sector Expansion: The LEO constellations. On the other, content“ Amazon Leo” Effect In the infrastructure owners are consolidating to create“ platforms space, the rebranding of Project Kuiper to of platforms” capable of dominating the directto-consumer era. entry of“ Big Tech” into the satellite sector.
Amazon Leo in November 2025 illustrates the
By launching its enterprise preview program, The Scale of Industry Transformation Amazon has transitioned from a cloud provider The magnitude of this consolidation wave is to a connectivity player. This supports a best illustrated by the transactions that have broader consolidation of power; as companies defined the market’ s trajectory. Each deal like Amazon and SpaceX build global networks, represents a specific response to the dual traditional operators must achieve significant pressures of of shifting viewership and the rise scale to remain competitive. of low-Earth orbit( LEO) alternatives.
• AT & T & DirecTV( 2015, $ 67 billion): Strategic Case Study: The New SES A vertical integration play that set the early The completion of the SES-Intelsat merger stage for pairing telecom reach with satellite in July 2025 provides a roadmap for distribution. infrastructure resilience. By integrating
• Disney & 21st Century Fox( 2019, Intelsat’ s assets, the combined entity operates $ 71 billion): A move to consolidate a formidable fleet of about 120 satellites, premium IP, which directly enabled the combining GEO and MEO capabilities. global scaling of Disney +.
This scale is designed for financial resilience.
• Viasat & Inmarsat( 2023, $ 7.3 In its November 2025, financial report, the billion): A transformative deal designed combined entity showed nine-month revenues to dominate the connectivity sector by of € 1,747 million, representing a 19.8 % combining Viasat’ s high-speed broadband increase on a pro-forma basis. This financial capacity with Inmarsat’ s established, buffer allows the company to invest in nextgeneration software-defined satellites and MEO worldwide mobility infrastructure.
• SES & Intelsat( 2025, $ 3.1 billion): constellations like O3b mPOWER— innovations A transaction that consolidated the“ pipes required to compete with the high capitalexpenditure power of new satellite ventures. in space,” creating a multi-orbit giant to defend against new entrants.
• Netflix & Warner Bros. Discovery Strategic Patterns in the 2025 Endgame( Announced December 2025, $ 82.7 As we analyze these multi-billion dollar moves, billion): The ultimate content blockbuster, three distinct strategic patterns emerge: uniting the world’ s leading streaming I. Multi-Orbit Fleet Strategy Operators service with the HBO and Warner Bros. are moving away from being“ single-orbit” libraries. companies. The recent wave of mergers suggests that the future belongs to those who can switch a customer’ s traffic between orbits based on application needs— GEO for reliable broad-reach broadcast and MEO / LEO for lowlatency interactive data. II. Horizontal Dominance vs. Vertical Integration The industry has learned that owning both the“ pipes” and the“ content” is exceptionally difficult to execute. The 2025 trend favors horizontal dominance. Leading players are looking to dominate their specific layer of the stack— whether that is premium content or global connectivity infrastructure— rather than owning every link in the chain. III. Navigating Constant Regulatory Evolution From a business leadership perspective, the landscape is in a state of constant regulatory evolution. With deals now reaching the $ 80 + billion mark, the role of antitrust authorities like the EC and the DOJ has shifted to become a core strategic factor. For a business leader,“ Deal Certainty” and“ Strategic Agility” are now just as important as the deal’ s price tag.
Navigating the Future: Who Survives? For service providers and industry participants, this environment of“ Mega-Entities” creates both risk and opportunity. To maintain a professional edge, companies should: 1. Embrace Technological Neutrality: Build architectures that can bridge multiple platforms and orbits. 2. Focus on Specialized Value: As giants consolidate, they often lose the ability to provide high-touch service for specific niche markets. 3. Prioritize Execution over Scale: The ultimate success of these mergers will depend on how cleanly these giants can integrate. The“ opportunity gap” exists where giants are too complex to meet immediate, specialized customer needs.
Conclusion The question,“ Who will be the last one broadcasting?” is no longer hypothetical. In 2025, the industry provided its answer: traditional broadcasting is becoming a specialized segment within a much larger, digital-first ecosystem. The future will be shaped by a few global players offering end-to-end solutions. For those navigating this market, the goal is not to resist this consolidation, but to understand its patterns and find the strategic“ sweet spots” where innovation and specialized expertise drive distinctive value.
Views expressed are based on publicly available information and industry analysis. The author is Roei Lavy VP Legal, M & A and Strategic Partnerships within the broadcasting and media services industry.
Opinion
EUROMEDIA 9