Blue Tiger Engage August 2025
BT Engage: August Newsletter
Welcome to Blue Tigers monthly newsletter Engage, bringing you all the latest news, trends and updates from across the media landscape. In this month’s edition we look at the major news stories that captured the headlines during the summer months.
Google Earnings: Alphabet Beats Q2 Revenue Estimates
Google parent Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue and profit that beat analysts’ expectations, driven by rising cloud and search sales, and lifted its outlook for capital spending this year.
The tech titan’s revenue grew 14% year-over-year to $96.43 billion, above the Visible Alpha analyst consensus, from $84.74 billion.
Google Cloud revenue jumped 32% to $13.62 billion, while its Search and Other revenue grew 12% to $54.19 billion. Both landed above Wall Street estimates.
“AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a press release. On the company’s earnings call, he pointed to features like AI Mode, which launched in May and has reached 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India. The company is making “robust” progress” on agentic AI, which is designed to handle complex tasks assigned by users, sometimes with little human interaction required, he said.
YouGov Releases State of UK media Consumption in 2025 Report
In 2025, the British media landscape is more dynamic and fragmented than ever before. With content flowing across countless platforms and formats, understanding which type of media and how much different groups engage with has become essential for anyone seeking to connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
So, it was great to see YouGov recently publish their Media consumption in Britain 2025 report offering a comprehensive look at current media trends in Britain, with a special focus on generational consumption patterns. Through in-depth analysis across three core areas: live and on-demand TV, radio and podcasts, and social media, they uncover the nuanced behaviours shaping how different age groups experience media in 2025.”
One clear finding is that YouTube is winning with Gen Z, with 38% of the generation’s social media users telling us they are using YouTube more now than a year ago. Additionally, 26% of Britons are consuming 5+ hours of media on weekdays.
Lionesses’ Euro triumph draws UK’s biggest TV audience of the year
The Lionesses’ historic victory in the Women’s Euros final on Sunday night pulled in more than 16m viewers, making it the UK’s most watched television moment of 2025.
A peak live audience of 12.2m viewers watched England beat world champions Spain on penalties across BBC One and iPlayer.
Viewership of the final in Basel, Switzerland peaked at 11.6m on BBC One, representing a 59 per cent share of all TV watchers
ITV also broadcast the match live, attracting a peak audience of just over 4m, according to Broadcast Sport.
Both the BBC and ITV coverage peaked at around 7:45pm when England clinched victory.
The total of 16m eclipsed the UK audience for the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, when 14.4m watched Spain beat England 1-0.
The Lionesses’ dramatic triumph saw them become back-to-back European champions and the first senior England team to win a major tournament on foreign soil.
UK Adults Increasingly Look to YouTube for News
UK adults have increasingly used YouTube as a news source over the last two years, according to research from Ofcom, with the Google-owned video service now tied with Instagram as the fifth-most popular platform for news consumption. Meanwhile the proportion of the population who use the BBC’s news services is in decline, but the public service broadcaster (PSB) still reaches two-thirds of UK adults. ITV (including ITVX) is also declining as a news source, but continues to reach more than one-third of the UK population.
AI summaries cause ‘devastating’ drop in audiences, online news media told
Study claims sites previously ranked first can lose 79% of traffic if results appear below Google Overview.
News companies have been warned of a “devastating impact” on online audiences as search results are replaced by AI summaries, after a new study claimed it caused up to 80% fewer click throughs.
The threat posed by Google’s AI Overviews, which summarise a search result with a block of text, has rapidly risen to the top of the concerns among media owners. Some regard it as an existential threat to outlets reliant on search result traffic.
AI summaries can give users all the information they seek without ever clicking through to the original source of the content. Meanwhile, search result links are pushed further down the page, lowering the number of users that find them.
A new analysis by the Authoritas analytics company has found that a site previously ranked first in a search result could lose about 79% of its traffic for that query if results were delivered below an AI overview.
The study also found that links to YouTube – owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet – were more prominent compared with the normal search result system. The research has been submitted as part of a legal complaint to the UK’s competition watchdog about the impact of Google AI Overviews.
While the AI Overviews only make up a slice of Google searches, UK publishers have already said they are feeling the effects. The MailOnline executive Carly Steven said in May the site was experiencing a large drop in clicks from search results featuring an AI summary, with clickthrough rates dropping by 56.1% on the desktop site and 48.2% on mobiles.
Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, accused Google of trying to keep users “within its own walled garden, taking and monetising valuable content – including news – created by the hard work of others”.
‘The situation as it stands is entirely unsustainable and will ultimately result in the death of quality information online,” “The Competition and Markets Authority has the toolkit to tackle these issues. It must do so urgently.”
For further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Blue Tiger Marketing, we’re here to help you navigate the changing landscape effectively, leveraging new opportunities while mitigating potential risks.
Sources:
Forbes, The Guardian, Adexchanger, The Drum, Marketing Week, ITV, CityAM
