Commenting on the ruling of the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington on the adjudication of royalty rates for the music industry (Panel of judges imposes truce between music producers and digital sellers), the FT observed that "the ruling gave none of the parties what they had asked for, but allowed each to claim that it would boost the nascent but growing digital music market".
Enders Analysis provided testimony to the board. Ben Rumley said the outcome was a fair result, but added that Apple's high market share meant it was unlikely to attract many new entrants to the market.
04 Oct 2008
The Daily Telegraph
In an interview with the chief executive of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer (Microsoft's Steve Ballmer sets out internet search ambitions), The Daily Telegraph revealed Microsoft's ambition to become second placed search engine in the £22.5bn global online advertising market despite the failure of its attempt to buy Yahoo. Ballmer said: "The first thing we've got to do is become number two in search, and acquiring Yahoo! is not key to becoming number two in search. Acquiring Yahoo! was really about picking up a base of advertisers that would help us because the advertisers are part of the product in search... and having more advertisers helps you deliver better, more relevant ads."
Asked for his view, Ian Maude said: "Even number two looks like a big ask unless Ballmer can somehow persuade Yahoo! shareholders to sell to Microsoft."
02 Oct 2008
The Financial Times
Following BSkyB's filing to the Competition Commission, which is investigating Project Kangaroo, the online television service planned by ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide (BSkyB concerns over Project Kangaroo), the Financial Times explained the background to Sky's complaint: "Many of the channels on Sky’s subscription TV service draw heavily on archive programming, [therefore] the service might be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition in the nascent video-on-demand sector."
The FT revealed that Sky was claiming that the content provided by its in-house production capabilities "would put Kangaroo’s shareholders high on the list for retailers wanting to acquire VOD content [thus] reducing competition for whole rights... although Kangaroo argues that online it is unlikely to gain a similar market share owing to competition from international technology providers such as Google and Apple".
Chris Goodall was asked for his view. He said: “Kangaroo is bound up with regulation of pay TV in the UK in general. There has to be a question whether the British system is overly protective towards the terrestrial broadcasters.”
