VMO2 had a subdued Q1, with EBITDA growth only just positive—this was pre-warned due to tougher comparables and the mid-teens price rise not due to take effect until April/May.

KPIs were mixed: fixed was fairly strong and mobile was slightly weak, with there being realistic hope that the former is a trend and the latter a blip, although more work is required to fully turn around fixed.

Guidance for mid-single-digit EBITDA growth for 2023 has been maintained. This now excludes the nexfibre construction margin benefit, thus is in a sense an upgrade, and still looks eminently achievable.

UK news publishers have rushed to distribute content on TikTok. They are drawn by its enormous young audience, but poor monetisation and data sharing, a lack of referrals to their own sites, and data security concerns are frustrating a full embrace of the platform.

TikTok is increasingly identified as a ‘news source’ by young people: a risk to publishers distributing content on the platform is that their brands may get lost in user feeds.

Publishers should view activity on TikTok as a strategic cost instead of a revenue source: an investment in brand awareness, and development in content and delivery formats that are becoming more widespread across platforms. Brand visibility is key to success here.

Headline inflation-busting price increases of 14% mask effective increases averaging a sub-inflation 8%, due to their limited scope across the customer base and over time.

The high headline increases have led to attacks from political and consumer groups, we would argue unfairly, and may yet drive reputational damage.

Looking forward, inflationary increases may be banned, but we would expect higher fixed increases to replace them, and micro-regulating pricing structures does tend to result in unintended consequences.

Sky is coping reasonably well with the shock of retrenching consumer spending, with revenues almost flat in Q4 2022.

However, profits are under pressure, as the increases in Sky’s costs cannot be fully passed on to customers, and the product mix is rebalanced towards telecoms and variable costs.

Management continues to leverage Sky’s brand strength and its critical mass of consumers to enter new markets, this time with home insurance.

Telcos are pressing the EU to force big tech to make a ‘fair contribution’ to their network costs, although this has drawn opposition from telecoms regulators, who rightly fear risks to the wider ecosystem

There are valid concerns to address however, with content providers not currently incentivised to deliver traffic efficiently, and telcos constrained by net neutrality rules from doing anything about it, resulting in unnecessary costs and service degradation

However, there may be better ways to address these, through reforming the implementation of existing rules to encourage more efficient content delivery, and allowing the telcos to provide enhanced delivery routes of their own, with Ofcom’s approach in the UK a step in this direction, but perhaps not a step far enough

The UK national press remains a ‘big beast’ in UK media, selling 7.2 million copies every day, supplemented by 1.6 million free newspapers; however, the decades long decline in print circulation and advertising has accelerated once again with the take off of smartphones and tablets.

Print still accounts for the vast majority of the nationals’ income, though revenue continues to fall due to declining copy sales and the structural shift of classified ads to the internet; there is also growing evidence that display advertising is declining by more than volume losses in some categories.

Digital is gathering momentum due to acceleration in digital advertising and a shift to pay models. In the UK, where print subscription levels are low, and home delivery lower still, publishers face the obvious challenges of digital transition and migration from a newsstand economy to a consumer relationship mindset.

2013 has seen yet another year of strong growth in consumer adoption of mobile devices and screens adding to the challenges facing traditional media. Press and radio have long been affected, but television is now starting to feel the heat

BT and Sky’s contest for premium pay-TV sports rights has intensified. August saw the launch of BT Sport, while BT’s acquisition of the European football rights in November was a clear statement of intent, spending half of Channel 4’s total programming budget on approx. 200 hours of content

The UK has seen buoyant advertising growth of around 4% in 2013, with similar growth expected in 2014, in the context of the strongest economic recovery in Europe

The UK residential communications sector again had a strong quarter for revenue growth, with reported growth from the top four operators at 5%, or around 4% excluding the one-off impact of extra BT Sport related revenues

Unfortunately cost growth was even stronger, with margins dropping at three of the four largest operators. The aggressive launch of BT Sport has driven up content costs, marketing costs or both for all of the operators

The main issue going forward will continue to be actual and potential disruption relating to BT Sport. Content and marketing costs have likely been set at a new higher level, with further increases possible up to and following mid-2015, when the next Premier League auction is due and BT takes over the Champions League rights

Virgin Media had a very solid quarter, with cable households returning to growth, cable revenue up 4%, underlying group revenue up 2%, and underlying OCF up 3% despite extra content costs weighing

Subscriber net adds were not as strong as last year, when DSL competitors were weakened by supply constraints, but there is little sign of a substantial impact from BT Sport or TalkTalk and BT’s YouView-based TV offerings

BT’s foray into sport has however had an effect on profitability, as it has with BT itself and Sky, with Virgin Media’s premium content costs rising from both BT and Sky

On 30 October, two days after criminal trials for alleged phone hacking begin, the Privy Council will finally seal a Royal Charter to set up regulation of the press. The end of this drawn-out process might be thought near

Several major publishers are planning to boycott the system by setting up their own regulator, which will not meet the Charter’s standards. In recent days, Conservative ministers have said the press is ‘free’ to take that route

The Recognition Panel set up by Parliament’s Royal Charter may not report on the system’s success or (more likely) failure until the autumn after the 2015 election. Whether to have a showdown with publishers who reject the Royal Charter is a decision being put off by everyone