BT’s announcement of a project to extend fibre beyond the exchange for some existing homes as well as newly built ones is good PR, a useful regulatory gambit, and offers the prospect of regaining some initiative from unbundlers and Virgin Media at the wholesale and retail levels respectively
Consumer take-up both of DAB receiver hardware and of listening to digital-only radio stations has been slow, in spite of considerable investment in content and in transmission infrastructure for the platform by the BBC and commercial radio since 1995
The privatisation of the BBC’s two national music radio networks – Radio One and Radio Two – is in the news again and is being proposed by certain commentators as a potential solution to the current problems facing the UK commercial radio industry. This report argues that, far from being a solution, unleashing these two highly successful BBC stations on the commercial sector will imperil the existence of many stations. This would dramatically increase the volume of advertising time available, at a time of glut, and draw advertising spend away from many stations
Vodafone’s Q4 revenues were healthy if a little weak, with underlying growth slowing from 2.0% to 1.8%, but the improvement in Germany is very welcome
VMed’s Q1 results represent a further step in the recovery of the core cable business, with markedly lower churn and strong growth in operating cash flow (OCF)
The BBC-ITV Freesat venture, launched on 6th May, is the public service response to Sky’s free satellite service. Once fully up and running in 2009, Freesat aims to match Sky with 200 digital TV channels in standard definition (SD), and surpass Sky with extra channels in High Definition (HD), plus the facility to offer iPlayer and Kangaroo
Vodafone UK has announced a tariff refresh that includes ‘free’ mobile browsing with all of its new contract plans
Early figures from the BBC show promising take-up of iPlayer, its web TV application to deliver BBC TV shows. More than 2 million people watched an average of just over one show per week in January, representing about 1.6% of TV viewing amongst iPlayer users
Growth in ARPU is reinforcing the impact of improving cable subscriber growth, but revenue remains in decline, year-on-year
Vodafone’s European performance was very solid, with underlying growth of 1.9%, up from 1.7% last quarter, with some very encouraging moderation to price cuts in Germany and elsewhere