There were approximately 19 million fixed broadband lines in the UK at the end of June 2010 including those used by small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Year-on-year subscriber growth in Q2 increased by half a percentage point, following stabilisation in Q1, the first material since the early years of UK broadband

Looking at net additions in the quarter, Q2 saw a sequential drop of 23%, the lowest Q1 to Q2 sequential decline since 2005 . Year-on-year growth in net adds, at 51%, continued to accelerate rapidly

TalkTalk Group (TTG) reported revenue growth for the quarter to June was flattered by the Tiscali acquisition, but broadband net additions were reasonable given the protracted integration process and temporary absence from TV schedules of the X-Factor

An MVNO could prove challenging in terms of generating a significant direct impact on financial performance, but might help defend against other low price players, notably O2 and Tesco

Increasing demand for pay-TV, stimulated by Sky, VMed and now BT Retail, could potentially leave TTG exposed. Our current view is that there remains sufficient demand for ‘extended’ free-to-air TV for this not to be a major issue

FT has put majority stakes in Orange Sport and Orange Cinéma Séries on the block, and claims to have held discussions with News Corp. We think it unlikely that an investor would be interested in entering the French pay-TV market, dominated by Vivendi’s Canal+

We believe FT could find a buyer for Orange Sport in Disney’s ESPN, which could prove viable if a cross-retailing deal is reached with Canal+. A Eurosport merger is another option. Orange Cinéma Séries could be viable under a new owner, if it widens it distribution to other platforms

Now officially on the way out of the pay-TV production business, a welcome decision in our view, Orange can focus on improving the consumer value of the basic TV offering on the triple play marketplace

There were approximately 18.7 million fixed broadband lines in the UK at the end of March 2010 including those used by small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Year-on-year subscriber growth in Q1 increased for the first time since the early years of the industry, although the increase, from 5.7% to 5.9% was very slight. In our view it should be interpreted as a stabilisation

Looking at net additions in the quarter, Q1 saw the sequential growth drop back to a more normal level of 9% after the 54% spike in the previous quarter, but year-on-year growth, at 21%, was the first really substantial increase since Q3 2005, when market growth was coming to the end of its exponential phase

Subject to BBC Trust approval, Canvas looks almost certain to launch in spring 2011 after the OFT decided that it did not have the jurisdiction to review Canvas under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002. The OFT decision does not rule out complaints on other grounds, but the chances of persuading the regulators look very small

The launch of Canvas promises to strengthen significantly the free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, otherwise very limited compared with satellite and cable platforms in terms of bandwidth, but mass adoption poses numerous challenges and it is open to question whether Canvas will ever extend to more than half the DTT base

In the long term, it is hard not to see Canvas as an interim step in the growing convergence between the TV screen and the internet, raising the question of how successfully its PSB TV-centric approach can adapt to the coming challenges of the full blown digital age

TTG’s indicative full year financial results were solid, but were flattered by the acquisition of Tiscali UK in July 2009

Subscriber growth at TalkTalk is exceptionally strong thanks to effective marketing and a strong proposition, if somewhat at the expense of the acquired businesses

Guidance for the new financial year looks undemanding given additional uplift from Tiscali UK; further underlying progress will depend crucially on continuing strong growth at TalkTalk and old fashioned operating leverage based on a single set of platforms, rather than new developments such as high speed broadband or TV

A hung Parliament now appears the most likely outcome of the UK general election on 6 May, giving the Liberal Democrats influence, in terms of votes and seats, over the next government

Because the Lib Dems are ideologically closer to Labour than to the Conservatives, we anticipate their influence will favour the policy and regulatory status quo in media and telecommunications in relation to the proposals made by the Conservatives

This influence would be strongest in a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but also would persist in a Conservative minority government, reducing the likelihood of a new legislative framework for media as proposed by the Conservatives

The outlook for ad-supported UK media businesses is brighter in the short term than in the medium term, irrespective of who wins the election, since fiscal tightening is inevitable early in the next parliamentWe expect the Conservatives, should they win, to favour commercial media (Sky, ITV) over the BBC in general and in particular in the upcoming negotiations on the licence fee settlement post 2013Super-fast broadband networks enjoy cross-party support, but Labour’s 50 pence landline tax was blocked by the Conservatives, who prefer to use a small portion of the BBC licence fee

The proposal by the Conservatives to remove or to moderate Contract Rights Renewal if elected would put ministers back into the thick of competition issues

The Conservatives strongly supported the move to make the competition authorities independent of government in Enterprise Act 2002, and should this stance be reconsidered, the regulatory landscape for business would acquire a political dimension, to the detriment of UK business generally

CRR is a side issue and the Conservatives could be better advised to examine closely the marketplace for TV advertising sales in order to make it more transparent and thus work better for the industry as a whole

There were approximately 18.4 million fixed broadband lines in the UK at the end of Q4 2009 including those used by small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Subscriber growth over the past year has continued to drop but the rate of decline has slowed to the lowest ever. Year-on-year subscriber growth in Q4 was 5.7%, only slightly down on Q3

Looking at net additions, Q4 saw the strongest sequential growth in percentage terms since the early days of UK broadband, with growth of 54% compared to 10% in Q4 2008. The leap in Q4 2009 was from a relatively low base, but even in absolute terms, the sequential increase in net adds of 111k was the highest since Q3 2004