On Monday 15th December, Virgin Media (VMed) announced the launch of its 50 Mbit/s ‘XXL’ broadband service, implemented over the existing cable network using the DOCSIS3 standard. This note looks at the details of the offer and the implications for VMed, other ISPs and the residential telecoms market as a whole
UK broadband net additions in Q3 2008 fell sequentially, the first time this has happened in a third quarter. Q3 net adds almost halved year-on-year to 320,000
The consultation period for the second phase of Ofcom’s Second Public Service Broadcasting Review closes on 4th December 2008. The central issue before Ofcom is that the current PSB model is broken, lacking the flexibility to “adapt to audiences’ evolving needs”. The primary concern lies with the commercial sector, which is under increasing strain to deliver its PSB commitments due to structural changes in the television medium that have been compounded by the present economic crisis. This presentation sets out our views about the role of structural changes in restraining TV net advertising revenues (NAR) growth in recent years along with our latest TV forecasts to 2013. Whilst some of the current downward pressures on TV NAR may be expected to ease, a new structural change that threatens the commercial PSB sector is the growing chasm between BBC investment in its PSB services and the advertising revenues of ITV, Channel 4 and Five
Virgin Media’s Q3 results represent a significant step in the recovery of the business, with ARPU and consumer cable revenue stable for the first time in 18 months. Group OCF growth was hit by one-off opex reductions in the prior quarter but continues to grow on an underlying basis
Another robust set of subscriber KPIs provides little indication of the economic downturn taking its toll, other than a sharp 1.1% jump in churn over the previous quarter, which could reflect other factors. The bigger issue appears to be subscriber spin-down to less expensive packages
Google has lost another copyright proceeding in a major European market, this time in Germany (it will appeal), on top of the 2007 judgement in Belgium that found against Google in favour of Copiepresse, on behalf of a group of newspapers. In the US, Google is also facing litigation over copyright, plus the suits filed against YouTube
Ofcom’s second consultation document in its pay-TV investigation has focused on BSkyB’s wholesaling of designated premium film and sports channels, reviving memories of previous regulatory efforts to address the content wholesale/retail issue
The long awaited first Android-driven handset was launched this week, and with the Google logo emblazoned on the back it has been swiftly christened the Googlephone
Encouraged by the way that Google has come to dominate the global market for online search advertising, Clear Channel and its rival CBS Radio are now eyeing the potential to dominate the global market for online radio advertising, and fend off Google. In July 2008, Clear Channel announced its plans to dominate the ‘internet radio’ market, by launching a ‘portal’ offering a vast array of radio programming, along with a new business unit to sell online advertising inventory. Although Clear Channel’s targets initially are US advertisers and US internet users, the company will likely target the UK market when it eventually decides to roll out its business model for online radio to the rest of the world. As a result, within the next decade, the UK commercial radio sector could face an additional source of competition from overseas media companies offering radio content delivered via the internet
VMed’s Q2 results represent a further step in the recovery of the business, with fixed line churn continuing to fall and operating cash flow (OCF) continuing to grow, helped by a dramatic improvement in OCF at Virgin Mobile