Amazon’s smart Echo speakers are coming to Europe, powered by a voice-controlled intelligent assistant, Alexa. Echo is thought to have found surprise success in the US

Alexa is best thought of as the most complete Voice User Interface (VUI) on the market. We expect VUIs to supplant graphical user interfaces for a variety of use-cases, in the home, on the move and in the car. Competition in this area is increasing

Alexa is being positioned as the Android for voice, moving beyond devices made by Amazon in an attempt to jumpstart adoption, and with developers building services on top of Alexa’s core voice platform

BT Sport has seen a very clear positive impact from its first year airing the Champions League, with viewing up 60% year-on-year to June. Remarkably, its reach is now not too far off Sky Sports, though it still has some way to go in terms of consistent viewership.

Pay-TV audiences for the 2015/16 tournament were in line with previous years – an impressive feat – but free-to-air disappointed. However, BT should not be too concerned – it has established itself as a worthy pay-TV partner.

While BT’s execution has thus beaten reasonable expectations, BT Sport still carries a heavy net financial cost for BT, with debatable benefits. Yet, whatever the benefits may be, more viewers watching more often must surely help.

More than one third of the UK population is over 50 and this cohort is projected to keep growing. They account for substantial wealth, assets and expenditure, and reveal active multimedia engagement, providing real opportunities for brands  Given their outsize impact, we believe the marketing industry underappreciates the diversity of habits among the over 50s. While 50-65s’ habits and consumer behaviour increasingly resemble that of younger cohorts, their spending power is far greater; expectations from products and services are higher and yet the placement, format and tone of marketing feels misaligned  Online is a huge enabler that can help drive, shape and inform how over 50s spend their substantial wealth. But that can only be done effectively with a clearer understanding of behaviour and level of responsiveness to messages across media, from print to TV to online

UK mobile service revenue growth dipped down in Q2 to -1.7%, with this being driven by some one-off factors, such as MTR and roaming cuts, and some longer terms trends, such as the continued rise in SIM-only

Profitability nonetheless improved at all of the operators, suggesting strong ongoing cost control, and that some of the revenue weakness is caused by factors that do not impact (or even positively impact) the bottom line

Competitive performances were mixed, with EE’s revenue growth improvement contrasting with dips at the other three operators, driven by EE’s strong commercial momentum and it taking the SIM-only and roaming hit earlier than the other operators

UK residential communications market revenue growth was broadly unchanged at 5% in Q2, despite volume growth continuing to slow across all products, with pricing and fibre adoption helping to boost ARPU

The combination of weakening market growth and an accelerating Virgin Media (on the back of its Project Lightning network extension) is putting pressure on the other operators, all of which were weak in subscriber terms

These factors bode for a competitive Q3 with the major operators offering very aggressive promotions in the battle for subscribers at the start of the football season. Underlying pricing though looks firm with price rises already implemented, scheduled or expected in Q4

Cord-cutting has become a major headache for US pay-TV operators in the last three years, while cable network channels face further erosion due to cord-shaving and we now see a rapidly growing population of cord-nevering households that have never taken a pay-TV subscription  

Should we expect it to be only a matter of time for the UK to follow the US? The short answer is no, due to major differences in the pay-TV market infrastructures of the two countries, which leave the UK much less exposed

However, downward pressures from the online space do exist in both countries, while the big cord-cutting-shaving-nevering threat we now see in the UK has most of all to do with the chill Brexit winds on the economy

The Bank’s monetary stimulus will help restore confidence and smooth the economy’s post-referendum transition

If the Bank is right, the economy will avoid a recession and bounce back in Q2 2017

An advertising recession in 2017 still looks likely until the consumer gets his wind back and a growth path emerges

TalkTalk reported net losses in broadband (-9k), with likely negative pressure on line rental, and weakness also in TV (-23k) although fibre (+36k) and mobile (+48k) net adds remained strong. Ahead of insight from competitor performances, the figures suggest a challenging quarter for the operator

Group revenue growth improved 1.3ppts to -0.4% owing to particularly strong carrier revenues, an inconsistent revenue stream. This was in spite of slowing consumer revenue growth (-1.2ppts to -2.5%) partly owing to cyber-attack related impacts

The concerted strategic shift away from being a price discounter to a fuller featured value for money provider may well encounter similarly challenging quarters in a highly competitive market where rivals have larger marketing budgets and offer deep discounts

Video content is crudely defined. If something is not very short (<10 minutes) then it tends to be considered long-form. But there is a middle ground - one which displays a distinctive combination of characteristics in terms of production, broadcasting and viewing

Mid-form video (between 10 and 20 minutes) has the ability to carry the narrative arcs normally associated with long-form programming, whilst also retaining the snackable and shareable attributes of short-form

The footprint of mid-form is, so far, small. However, it is growing, as its unique qualities, such as excellent ad completion, become more readily recognised

Google’s recent product updates and developer conference announcements aim for as many users on as many platforms and devices as possible – a return to strategic form

The company has a dual approach: using Android as a mobile trend-setter while also devising new ways for users and developers on other platforms to use Google services

The reach provided by these initiatives will help Google’s machine learning algorithms to better understand and predict user intent – the cornerstone of the company’s ad business