To draw in competitors to Canal+, French football Ligue 1 broadcasting rights are being tendered in 12 lots, offered in three sequential auctions (non-premium Fans matches, Premium, highlights)
Google has announced that it will be bidding for 700MHz spectrum in the US, after the FCC adopted most of the ‘open access’ provisions for which it lobbied
Google has announced that, alongside other industry partners, it is to create ‘Android’, a new operating system for mobile phones which is designed to facilitate the design and use of 3rd party applications, and which is planned to be in handsets from H2 2008
Telecoms subscriber growth has improved sharply but this has been achieved at the expense of ARPU growth; revenue continues to decline
Apparent weaknesses in its Q3 2007 results notwithstanding, Premiere has a good chance of meeting its FY 2007 guidance targets of €1 billion in revenues and €80-100 million in EBITDA after recovering marketing rights to live televised domestic football
Uncertainties over football rights from September 2009 remain and doubts persist about long-term growth in a market where 95% of homes receive 30+ free-to-air (FTA) domestic TV channels. Even with News Corporation’s extra know-how, climbing from 3.53 million (end of Q3 2007) to 4 million direct subscribers will take some push, while 5 million looks a distant dream
Ofcom’s consultation document on Next Generation Access indicates a desire to avoid regulatory impediments to investment, not to force BT to act
Further consolidation could lie ahead for the UK commercial radio sector. EMAP is expected to offer its radio assets for sale and Scottish Media Group plans to divest Virgin Radio. The battleground is competition for listeners drawn by the BBC's increasingly popular national radio networks. This report however examines past consolidation, which produced substantial cost savings, without noticeably improving the commercial sector's fortunes. In our view, for consolidation to succeed in this regard, much greater attention will need to be paid to improving content
The loss of Sky basic channels, strong competition and a maturing broadband market have combined to weaken Virgin Media’s top line results sufficiently to cause cash flow to decline
Virgin Media has recently upped its mobile prices both within the ‘quad-play’ and on the Virgin Mobile standard prepay product
Virgin Media’s Q1 top line results were again mixed, with a growing number of customers leaving as competition intensifies, despite the rebrand to Virgin. But it could have been worse; most higher-spending customers are remaining
Canal+ targeted subscription (as opposed to subscriber) growth of 1.3 million by 2010 has a lot of stretch in view of the intense competition from free-to-air (FTA) services and in particular digital terrestrial TV