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Claire Enders was quoted in an article discussing BT's sports deal with Virgin Media. She said that "it looks like a fairly defensive move from both parties." "Of course, BT has given up the long-term strategic value of BT Sport in terms of winning customers off Virgin Media, but it would be churlish of us to focus on this downside given that we never believed the upside in the first place."
UK residential communications revenue growth was again strong in Q2 2013 at 4% supported by strong unit volume growth (despite seasonal factors in the quarter) and firming ARPU, helped by firm pricing and high speed broadband take up
High speed broadband adoption continued apace at BT and Virgin Media, but much more slowly at the other operators. This may start to change in the second half of the year, as Sky and TalkTalk market the product more aggressively, and a wires-only self-install version becomes available
Overall the market outlook remains very healthy, with two potential areas of market disruption – BT Sport and regulated pricing – looking like they will resolve without prompting a damaging price war
Claire Enders appeared on the Woman's Hour programme to discuss The Irish Sun's decision to cover up Page 3. The interview begins at 02:17 into the programme.
Benedict Evans was quoted in an article on the FT's Tech Hub about a rally in the share prices of several major internet companies. One of the main beneficiaries was Facebook. “There’s a hunger for something that looks like a mobile stock that’s a good investment,” Benedict commented. “The Facebook spike reflects people hunting for places to put money that look like a mobile play.”
An article on the possible disruption to desktop-oriented internet companies by the growth of mobile quoted Benedict Evans, who discussed the case of Facebook. “It may not matter that lots of people are using WhatsApp – they are using Facebook too,” he said. “It may be a different dynamic [on mobile] – that Facebook hasn’t won in the way they have on the desktop, but that may not matter.”
The ITV Interim 2013 results show a very strong start to the year to yield an 11% rise in EBITA, reflecting primarily strong growth in content production revenues and reductions in both schedule and other costs The weak spot was the -3% fall in NAR in a market that was estimated to be down -1% in H1 2013, although this was owing to seasonal sports factors and ITV anticipated ITV NAR to be broadly flat across the first three quarters of 2013 The overall outlook for H2 2013 and 2014 looks very positive, as ITV continues to build its content and online, pay & interactive revenues, but we also anticipate strong NAR growth in H2 2013 to continue in 2014 and for ITV to return to growing share of total TV NAR
Virgin Media’s subscriber figures were slightly soft in Q2, even accounting for seasonality, with transaction distractions and reduced marketing spend likely contributing
RGU ARPU growth however remains strong at well over 2%, and increased marketing activity around high speed broadband by competitors will give the company the ongoing capability to keep pricing firm
The company management has had a number of changes, but Liberty Global’s overall strategy – profitable growth, not subscriber chasing – would indicate that any changes in approach will not be radical
Reports of the death of the PC have been greatly exaggerated, but rapid adoption of mobile devices is changing how, when, where and why consumers access the internet.
Over the next few years, we forecast that PC user growth will be limited to population growth, smartphone penetration will rise from two thirds currently to over 80% by 2020, and tablet users will converge to the same level as the PC audience.
In addition, we project that overall internet consumption will nearly double by 2020, with PC-based usage declining before levelling out, and smartphone and tablet use increasing threefold.
Of the traditional media sectors, we expect print media to be the most negatively affected by the rise of the mobile internet, with less impact on radio and TV viewing and advertising likely to be relatively resilient.
Douglas McCabe appeared on Channel 4 News to comment on Jeff Bezos's decision to buy The Washington Post. The interview begins at 3:49 into the programme.