Homepage

TalkTalk enjoyed a healthy December quarter, with broadband net adds steady, TV net adds accelerating, churn falling and revenue growth accelerating to 5%

Revenue growth was boosted by a big wholesale contract win and the timing of line rental price increases, but the company did achieve a complex price restructuring with no negative ARPU impact

With churn heading down again, the company appears to have successfully weathered the BT Sport-related storm, leaving it on track to achieve its aims

Operating profits took a dip in H1 2014 as Sky absorbed the £110 million hike in Premier League (PL) football rights, saw marketing spend rise as a result of strong product growth and invested £40 million in its connected TV services

Growth has stayed positive across the range of TV and home communications products, while the new User Interface due to launch in the next few months promises to unlock significant incremental revenues as well as underline the quality of Sky offerings in movies and entertainment

Sky has no time to lose in building on its strengths in content, service quality and customer loyalty as the next PL auction looms towards the end of calendar 2014/first half of 2015, but the strategy appears sound with strong revenue and upside potential

BT grew both its Group level and consumer retail revenue for the first time in years, and while the extent of growth was flattered by one-off factors, growth is still positive on an underlying basis, an impressive achievement indeed for a European fixed incumbent

This is mainly driven by robust pricing, declining line losses, and continuing fibre adoption, with the indirect impact of BT Sport still hard to discern, but the direct impact absorbing all of BT’s hard won cost reduction gains to leave EBITDA flat

The outlook is positive in that BT can achieve its current financial guidance even with the millstone of BT Sport costs, but the uncertain outcome of the next Premier League rights auction casts a shadow on prospects thereafter

Watching traditional linear TV has shown a sharp decline among younger adults over the last two to three years and the question is how far it has to go before bottoming out. This report explores the causes and presents our forecasts up to 2020

We see the main causes of this as the growth of online connectivity associated with the proliferation of screens via smartphones and tablets, the increasing functionality of these other screens, the increasing population of connected TV sets and the growing volume of long and short form content that can be accessed over the internet

Examination of current “connectivity” trends suggests that 2013 will prove the peak year of decline. Thereafter we expect trends to stabilise over the next three or four years without fundamental change to the linear TV landscape