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Heloise Thomson was quoted in an article on the possible acquisition of Mojang, the swedish company behind Minecraft, by Microsoft for more than $2bn. Heloise said that Minecraft's popularity among the youth market could help Microsoft expand its reach. "Minecraft is a great piece of intellectual property to have in their catalogue."
Alice Enders was quoted in an article on the launch of Deezer's elite service (which provides higher sound quality) in partnership with Sonos, the speaker manufacturer that specialises in wireless audio. Alice said that the market for high-quality audio streaming was small. This is because of its higher cost and because people mostly stream music through smartphones and computers, which cannot do justice to high-quality audio.
UK mobile service revenue growth finally returned to positive territory in Q2 2014 after three years of decline, largely driven by the MTR impact dropping out, but also helped by a 0.6ppt improvement in underlying growth
Data volumes accelerated markedly during the quarter, with 4G and improved 3G speeds encouraging more video/media activity, which is far more bandwidth intensive (as well as having less of a substitution effect) than text communications activity. As consumers move to higher data bundles, smartphone usage may actually start to enhance ARPU through tariff upgrades as opposed to damage ARPUs through lower out-of-bundle voice and text usage
The outlook remains positive, with headline pricing stable, contract ARPUs stabilising and the competitive environment relatively benign
The continuing value of linear television is underlined by the fact that television is still comfortably the biggest display advertising medium, and we expect to see strong growth in 2014 and 2015 in spite of the growing impact of online to TV viewing.
Viewing among the 35+s has held up well, and the subset of 45-64s, who control most of the UK’s disposable income and are heavy TV viewers while embracing new technology and modern attitudes, will become increasingly important for broadcasters as the age profile of the UK gets older.
We do not see an overall dramatic shift away from television to other forms of entertainment, though this cannot be taken for granted.
UKTV has posted annual figures showing record revenues of £278 million in 2013, with the promise of more to come after an H1 2014 that has seen it overtake Channel 4 main channel in adult 16+ Share of Commercial Impact (SOCI) delivery and now closing in on Sky and Channel 5.
The rise in adult 16+ SOCI every year since the Freeview launch in 2002 reflects not only UKTV’s preparedness to invest more in content over time, but also management focus on EPG prominence on the free-to-air and pay platforms and unceasing willingness to try new channel ideas.
The challenge now facing the UKTV group is how to maintain growth in an increasingly connected TV landscape. Innovative UKTV Play notwithstanding, the big question comes down to content strategy and the scale of future investment.
Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch, a platform for watching and broadcasting live streams of video gameplay, provides the ecommerce giant access to a large, fast growing and highly engaged gaming audience.
Like other media, retailing of games is in a state of transition away from physical media, where Amazon is more dominant, to digital, where Amazon is one player among many; this acquisition echoes those Amazon has made in other media.
Twitch looks set to be a successful business in its own right, arguably reason enough to buy it; more importantly it offers valuable consumer behaviour data, as well as technology and platform benefits, and enhances Amazon’s increasingly ambitious customer proposition.
After a relatively benign year in 2013 for UK recorded music thanks to a small pickup in trade revenues, we project a 5% decline in 2014, with digital music purchasing now falling as consumers shift to ad-supported and subscription access services, while CD sales continue to drop at a double-digit pace each year.
The UK reached a new milestone at the end of 2013 surpassing 1.3 million paying subscribers, a large number of non-paying 'hard bundled' subscribers on Orange/Deezer and Vodafone/Spotify 4G plans, plus several million Spotify freemium and Spotify Free 'smart radio' users.
We project steady expenditure on recorded music as a whole in the period to 2017 from consumers and advertisers at £1.1 billion annually, but anticipate the loss of £90 million in trade revenues in the shift to access due to the labels' lower revenue-share.
Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article regarding Vice Media and Buzzfeed's business models, which have dedicated units for creating "native" forms of advertising for brands. These business models have in recent years proved more successful than traditional news publications. Douglas said " Buzzfeed and Vice Media are so good at attracting young consumers and developing content and native advertising that their businesses are to some degree agencies. Their effectiveness with younger demographics gives them a creative authority for many brands."
Douglas McCabe was quoted in an article on the launch of Reddit, the anarchic social media site, dedicated app in an attempt to rebrand itself on mobile. Douglas said "they are a great success story on the desktop, but they're a late-starter on mobile", he noted that the "retro layout" of a typical Reddit forum is "out of sync in the way young consumers are looking for content".