Challenging future for internet TV aggregators
Hulu’s postponed UK launch, and the inability of SeeSaw and MSN to get carriage deals with the BBC and ITV, underscore the difficulty for internet TV aggregators of acquiring mainstream content
In-stream video advertising is nascent – we estimate it was worth just over 1% of UK TV ad spend last year – giving major channel operators/rights holders little incentive to syndicate their programming to online services
The future for ad-funded internet aggregators continues to look highly challenging, aside from YouTube, due to its audience scale and Google’s deep pockets |
Media, TV, Internet |
March 2010 Access this report
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Carphone Warehouse Group interim results to September 2009: forging ahead
Fixed line revenue growth continued to decline excluding the impact of Tiscali UK, but at a manageable rate, and profitability continued to improve strongly. TalkTalk Group is performing well in the run-up to demerger, and management is sounding very confident. But there are some clouds on the horizon, not least the relaunch of Tesco Telecom
Sky+ HD is now manifestly the centre point of a three-pronged operational strategy that focuses on driving customer growth, selling more products into the customer base and seeking efficiencies in fixed costs |
Media |
November 2009 Access this report
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Canvas “drive digital Britain”
The BBC Executive has fleshed out many details of Project Canvas in response to questions raised by the BBC Trust: Canvas being the proposed joint venture between the BBC, BT, ITV and Five that aims to solve the challenge of realising the seamless convergence of linear broadcast TV and internet video to the TV screen in the living room |
Media, TV, Internet |
July 2009 Access this report
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Canvas offers future path for 'Free TV'
Project Canvas is the BBC/ITV/BT backed proposal for next generation Freeview and Freesat services that embraces IPTV reception, new EPG, home storage and HDTV applications
Setting up Canvas as a not-for-profit consortium and making it non-exclusive to content providers should avoid the competition issues which killed Kangaroo, but many questions remain and technical and regulatory delays could push back the launch to 2011 |
Media, TV, Internet |
February 2009 Access this report
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Canvas gets BBC Trust provisional approval
The BBC Trust has given its provisional approval to the BBC Executive’s proposals for Project Canvas, the JV between the BBC and five partners that aims to enable DTT homes with broadband connections to access IPTV content on their TV sets
Canvas promises to enrich greatly the DTT platform; however, it is likely to encounter fierce opposition during the coming consultation from equipment manufacturers and the pay-TV platform operators, Sky and Virgin Media, especially in relation to its attempts to prescribe the user experience (UX) |
Media, TV, Internet |
December 2009 Access this report
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Canal+ vs. TPS
On 23 January, the French Competition Council dealt what is likely to be a deathblow to the ambitions of Canal+ Group to obtain exclusive rights to French Premier League football events. The Competition Council ruled in favour of TPS and ordered the 2002 competition suspended pending delivery of its final ruling. |
Media |
January 2003 Access this report
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Canal+ thinking positive
Vivendi’s pay-TV unit Canal+ posted flat revenues in 2009, as international growth balanced domestic erosion
Driven mainly by growth internationally, we anticipate recovery to annual revenue growth barely above 2% by 2012, with a slightly deteriorating EBITA margin
Canal+ could do better if it invests in the latest generation of set-tops and, possibly, free to air television |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2010 Access this report
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Canal+ The Showdown
Based on the recent announcement by the French Professional Football League, we now expect Canal+ to be awarded the exclusive rights to broadcast Premier League events for the three seasons starting in 2004, for which it offered €480 million. (Rival TPS is challenging the League's approach to the Competition Commission, so the story may yet have an unexpected ending.) These payments will add to an already hefty calendar of payments for Canal+ under the 1999 contract, as a result of which Canal+ is likely to report no or low profits in FY 2002. |
Media |
November 2002 Access this report
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Canal+ subscriptions disappoint
Vivendi’s preliminary results for FY 2007 show weak subscription growth by France’s leading pay-TV operator Canal+ despite the existence of special positive factors. Strengthening free-to-air (FTA) competition on the DTT and DSL platforms appears the main cause |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
February 2008 Access this report
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Canal+ post-merger targets for 2010
Canal+ targeted subscription (as opposed to subscriber) growth of 1.3 million by 2010 has a lot of stretch in view of the intense competition from free-to-air (FTA) services and in particular digital terrestrial TV |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2007 Access this report
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Canal+ outlook for sub growth
Vivendi Q1 2006 quarterly results show solid underlying improvement in earnings, but disappointing subscription figures, which fell by 40,000 in the quarter
We regard meeting even this extended deadline as difficult given their slowing growth, churn problems and the increasing network costs associated with their network outsourcing deals, and furthermore EBITDA is unlikely to improve significantly from 2007 onwards |
Media |
June 2006 Access this report
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Canal+ Group after the merger
Ten years of fierce and implacable rivalry between Canal+ Group and TPS, the two French pay-TV operators, is expected to end in November 2006, when they close their merger deal and Canal+ France emerges. This report examines the strategic rationale for pay-TV consolidation in the French TV market, where digital terrestrial TV has recently launched and where TV-over-DSL is rapidly being deployed, as well as the potential for the currently low pay-TV margins to rise |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
October 2006 Access this report
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Canal+ FY 2008 results
Vivendi’s Canal+ Group overshot its 2008 EBITA target, despite sluggish subscription growth, delivering to shareholders some of the promised post-merger gains from “synergies” with TPS
For 2009, Vivendi has issued cautious revenue and EBITA guidance that, on current trends, will easily be met. However, management has now recognised that initial targets for 2010 will be “hard to reach” – as we have already warned |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2009 Access this report
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Canal+ France prospectus
Canal+ France has issued a prospectus in view of the April flotation of Lagardère’s 20% stake, which could still reach an agreement to sell with majority owner Vivendi
The prospectus provides a unique insight on the performance of Canal+, which has increased ARPU and profitability in the past three years, despite erosion of its subscriber base due to competitive pressures and the recession
Management’s revenue and profit targets for 2013 appear within reach, and we also see potential upsides |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2011 Access this report
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Canal+ bursts into free TV
Advancing its free-to-air TV project, France’s Canal+ is to buy Bolloré TV’s national channels for €465 million to gain (scarce) licences for FTA terrestrial broadcast
Canal+ plans to leverage its library of original programming to attract upscale audiences, neglected by commercial rivals
However, the Vivendi investment case of a 9% return on capital is built on incompatible assumptions about profit margins and market share – to grow the latter in a mature market, a channel needs to sacrifice the former |
Media, TV |
September 2011 Access this report
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Canal+ and Cegetel
The November 12th bids for football rights are a nightmare for Canal+. Its operating margins and cash flow are under pressure, but failure to outbid TPS would mean a probable loss of perhaps 25% of its subscribers. This makes it likely, we think, that TPS will end up buying Canal+ from Vivendi, whoever wins the football rights, at a much lower price than the valuation of €3.5bn suggested recently by Morgan Stanley. Similarly, Vivendi may realise that it will be forced to sell the studio and the record business to Bronfman/Diller for less than current valuations. |
Media |
November 2002 Access this report
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Canal Plus and French Pay-TV
This in-depth report on pay-TV in France charts the course of Canal Plus and its main, but much smaller, competitor, TPS, over the period 2004-06. We anticipate pay-TV penetration will rise from 35% in 2003 to 38.7% by 2006, driven mainly by aggressive competition between TPS and Canal Plus in an improving economic environment. |
Media |
May 2004 Access this report
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Can TF1 meet its 2012 Ebitda target?
To encourage investors, TF1 announced continued diversification of group revenues from reliance on the flagship TF1 channel, and an increase in group Ebitda from 16% in 2007 to 20% in ‘4-5 years’. Accelerating audience share decline at the TF1 channel indicates that new programming is also urgently required to maintain TF1’s ‘premium’ for advertisers |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2008 Access this report
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Can Sky deliver a German pay-TV turnaround?
The News Corp management has given Sky Deutschland a full and costly revamp in 2009, leading to a steep year on year increase in negative EBITDA of around €200 million
Underlying trends of improvement in net subscriber additions, ARPU growth and churn reduction, assisted by its HD offer, suggest that Sky management will get close to, if not actually meet, its 2011 breakeven target
However, there are significant downside risks in the historically tough German pay-TV market, and robust profitable growth beyond 2012 presents a real challenge |
Media, TV, Non-UK Media |
March 2010 Access this report
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Can mobile save print publishers? - Do tablets bring salvation, or 40 years in the wilderness?
Large parts of print media face existential problems from the structural decline of consumption and core advertising businesses, and the growth of an internet model of free content and large-scale disaggregation
Employment trends in US media underline the depth of the decline in sales of print media (no similar data is available for the UK), across newspapers, periodicals and books |
Media, Press, Internet |
February 2010 Access this report
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