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The Court of Appeal held full day hearings on 5 and 6 December 2013 in response to the appeal by BT against the earlier verdict of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) published on 12 August 2012 that the core competition concerns that led to Ofcom’s Wholesale Must Offer (WMO) remedy were not justified by the evidence

Although it may take some weeks or months before the verdict is published, the hearing appeared to run in BT’s favour (contrary to what we had anticipated), as the judges seemed convinced that the CAT had made an important mistake in not assessing whether Ofcom’s price proposals were a reasonable response to Sky’s dominance in retailing premium pay-TV sports

It looks as though the Court of Appeal will send the case back, saying that the CAT must now properly examine whether Ofcom’s WMO price levels were set carefully and appropriately. The CAT will not redo Ofcom’s work but rather it will check that its methods were reasonable and well thought through

BT’s case that the Competition Appeal Tribunal failed to address the reasons why the premium sports market works badly will finally arrive at the Court of Appeal tomorrow. We think BT’s chances of success are low, though a win would substantially enhance its competitive position in its battle against Sky BT’s complaint is that it has always wanted to retail Sky Sports channels, however Sky has always been unwilling to wholesale them, thereby resulting in no prospect of effective competition in the provision of premium sports on TV Ofcom implicitly endorsed BT’s position when it introduced the Wholesale Must Offer remedy. However, Sky took its case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which overturned Ofcom’s WMO remedy on the grounds of misinterpreting the evidence, only for BT to retort by taking its case to the Court of Appeal, which is to deliver a final verdict on whether BT is disadvantaged by Sky’s alleged anti-competitive behaviour

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request

The UK residential communications sector again had a strong quarter for revenue growth, with reported growth from the top four operators at 5%, or around 4% excluding the one-off impact of extra BT Sport related revenues

Unfortunately cost growth was even stronger, with margins dropping at three of the four largest operators. The aggressive launch of BT Sport has driven up content costs, marketing costs or both for all of the operators

The main issue going forward will continue to be actual and potential disruption relating to BT Sport. Content and marketing costs have likely been set at a new higher level, with further increases possible up to and following mid-2015, when the next Premier League auction is due and BT takes over the Champions League rights

Scotland’s SNP-led Government has published its White Paper setting out its assumptions for independence, including on broadcasting and telecommunications, where spectrum management will be assumed by the new Government, implying a discontinuity in existing UK-wide 3G and 4G licenses attributed by Ofcom.

The SNP promises no change in the broadcasting environment except for the creation of a Scottish Broadcasting Service (SBS), which would occupy the BBC’s position today. Channel 3, 4 and 5 licensees will be able to continue to broadcast without discontinuity, although free access to spectrum was not promised, which BSkyB of course doesn’t require.

The big ask is BBC One and BBC Two on free-to-air terms, implying a subsidy of £270 million to Scotland. This seems very unlikely to be agreed by the rest of the UK (rUK), since BBC Worldwide offers only commercial terms to other countries. However, the BBC will not comment on this assumption, so the Scots will only learn of the facts after the referendum.

France’s Canal+ faces an increasingly challenging domestic market, due to IPTV expansion, competition from Al-Jazeera’s beIN Sport and the threat of a Netflix launch – on top of sluggish consumer demand in a dull economy

Inflated promotional activity has brought rising churn and failed to stop subscriber base erosion, while denting profitability. Headline revenue growth comes from international channels, film production and FTA TV

Anxious to avoid interference from its owner Vivendi, Canal+ has followed a conservative investment policy that may have undermined growth. The spin-off of SFR and possible dissolution of the conglomerate would leave Canal+ free to contemplate more aggressive moves, in IPTV, set-top boxes and possibly through acquisitions

After several years of preparation Sky’s AdSmart launched in August and is on schedule to be offered to all advertisers in January/February 2014 after beta trials involving some 50 advertisers in the second half of 2013 AdSmart is all about addressable and low waste targeted segmentation on the Sky pay-TV satellite platform, which for the first time in UK TV history allows national channels to offer highly localised, targeted advertising AdSmart promises to grow significantly the TV advertising ecosystem, though success in realising the full revenue potential of AdSmart, possibly in the order of several hundred million pounds per annum, will depend on Sky’s ability to handle various challenges on the way, with regional press and direct mail most at risk