News Corp will split publishing out of its business by creating a company to include newspapers in the US, UK and Australia as well as book publisher HarperCollins News Corp revenue growth has for some time been driven by explosive growth in cable network programming revenues, with slower revenue growth in film, TV, satellite TV and publishing The structural decline of print-based businesses is the main reason cited for the split. However, the Dow Jones and WSJ, both serving a B2B market, will be at the heart of the new publishing company’s value

In this report we show the findings of our 2012 UK mobile user survey. The report is a wide ranging analysis of the mobile market based on our consumer research, focusing on the competitive landscape among the mobile operators and smartphone manufacturers, and the changing consumer behaviour that has and will continue to impact the market

In this report we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to March 2012, based on the published results of the major service providers.

Highlights for the March quarter include broadband subscriptions exceeding 21 million, a sudden uptick in broadband market net additions and local loop unbundling accounting for a record 40% of broadband subscriptions. The proportion of unbundled lines that are fully unbundled exceeded two thirds for the first time.

This quarter we also include a look at pricing, including prices for high speed broadband that show how BT Retail is using high speed broadband to reduce the price advantage of its competitors.

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request.

Strong cost reduction and mix effects enabled TalkTalk to report a third successive year of high cash flow growth, in spite of declining revenue due to high churn The company appears to have retained its strong position at the value end of the market, and this should result in continuing sales combining with falling churn to generate positive revenue growth Although high speed broadband and a YouView-based TV offer will dilute profitability to an extent, this should be outweighed by other factors, generating further significant cash flow growth

CPW’s key operating metrics worsened again in the March quarter, with connection volume growth dropping to -19% and like-for-like revenue growth dropping to -5.5%

Weakness in the UK prepay market continued to affect CPW’s results, with volumes again down 30-40%, but contract sales did not mitigate this as much as last quarter, with growth in the UK but declines in continental Europe

Prepay is not likely to improve until the end of 2012, as the volume decline annualises out and more smartphones are available at prepay price points, and contract recovery is dependent on economic recovery

EE’s subscriber growth in Q1 was solid enough given a market slowdown, but disappointing given T-Mobile’s Full Monty tariff launch. With O2’s ‘On and On’ launched in late March, the outlook for subscriber growth will be tougher in the rest of 2012

Service revenue growth was more encouraging, improving by 1.5 ppts after a disappointing Q4. This appears to have been largely volume driven (i.e. existing users using their handsets more), which is encouraging for the operators yet to report Q1 figures (i.e. Vodafone and O2)

The company’s main competitive weapon going forward should be the quality of its network – even post-consolidation it will have more 3G sites than any other operator and may be able to use its 1800MHz spectrum to gain a head-start in 4G. However, communicating that both brands have an outstanding network, without encouraging subscribers to migrate to the lower-priced T-Mobile, will be problematic

Sky Deutschland has renewed its broadcast rights contract with the Bundesliga until 2017, removing the most important source of uncertainty for investors and consumers, albeit at the cost of a 77% jump in the fee from 2013/14

Combined with Sky’s new exclusive channels, high definition offer and on-demand services, the contract will sustain subscriber growth, but ARPU will only rise slowly

Although we forecast Sky to meet its EBITDA breakeven target in 2013, cash flow should stay negative until 2015 due to rising spend on receivers

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request.

Mobile operators, services and handset makers are diverging – they all come to the MWC but have increasingly little to say to each other as their businesses move in very different directions

In the context of -5% European mobile revenue growth, the MNOs at the MWC were a sober bunch, focusing on industrial services, defensive moves around messaging, and a (not unreasonable) plea to regulators for some relief

As competition in Android intensifies between hundreds of black plastic rectangles, the picture for OEMs looks tough but Google’s failure to make Android work well for developers may also start to bite, leaving an opening for Nokia and Windows Phone