Nearly a year after rolling out Google TV in the US, Google has confirmed plans to launch its ‘smart TV’ operating platform in Europe and the UK by early 2012
To date, Google TV in the US has been a disappointment, with little broadcaster support and, until recently, expensive devices, resulting in low adoption
The content issue is likely to dog Google TV, both here and in other European markets; access to key broadcaster TV and video programming will be a major challenge
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
This report provides our annual assessment and forecasts for recorded music sales and music publishing revenues, which engage all four of the ‘majors’ – Universal Music Group (UMG), EMI, Sony and Warner Music Group (WMG). In the context of the ongoing physical-to-digital transition of music consumption, retailing and buying, documented in the report, we estimate a 10% decline in recorded music sales to $18.4 billion in 2010, the sixth consecutive year of decline. We also project further overall declines in our forecast period to 2015. The recorded music sales decline has fed into music publisher revenues via mechanicals, and will continue to do so. In addition, the recession of 2008-09 continues to feed through to music publisher revenues via the lagged distribution of royalties. Thus, for 2010, we estimate that the global total fell by 3.1% in 2010 to $5.6 billion, and project an overall return to modest growth in 2012. Together, our analysis of recorded music and music publishing provides an industry-level context to evaluate the likely development of the majors themselves, bearing in mind that shifts in market share and currency movements will continue to differentiate their relative performances.
We have revised our central case forecasts of total year-on-year NAR (Net Advertising Revenue) growth in 2011 from 5% to 1%, as the advertising outlook has progressively worsened since mid April
2011 is marked by a further round of consolidation in airtime sales and a number of noteworthy channel and programming changes
Channel 4 Sales, and above all its flagship Channel 4, appears the most challenged of the leading market players, while we expect the ITV group to continue to outperform the NAR market in the rest of 2011 and 2012
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
Q1 2011 TV NAR (Net Advertising Revenue) has delivered strong year-on-year growth of about 8%, yet the monthly variations are large, with a predictably sharp decrease in March based on past year comparatives countered by a large Christmas-style upswing in the Easter and Royal Wedding month of April
After several years of decoupling total display and TV advertising trends from those in the broader economy due to negative structural causes, the underlying positive correlations are expected to reappear as the structural factors subdue
The general economic outlook suggests stable growth in TV NAR during 2011 of about 5%, remaining flat to marginally positive in real terms beyond 2011 as long as conditions of weak economic growth last, but with significant risks of a sudden sharp downturn in the short to medium term