Vodafone Europe’s service revenue growth dropped by two full percentage points in the quarter to June 2008; Spain plummeted from +5.1% to -2.5%, but the UK and Italy’s underlying growth also fell, with only Germany stable
The TV advertising sector is haemorrhaging in the economic downturn, but troubles could also be brewing in the pay-TV sector. Sky still looks secure, but Setanta appears more exposed in its role of ancillary pay-TV provider in the high stakes and high risk world of premium sports
Consumer take-up both of DAB receiver hardware and of listening to digital-only radio stations has been slow, in spite of considerable investment in content and in transmission infrastructure for the platform by the BBC and commercial radio since 1995
Iliad is to recover the No. 2 spot on the French broadband market, behind France Télécom’s Orange, after acquiring Alice, ending Telecom Italia’s ill fated five-year French venture
The privatisation of the BBC’s two national music radio networks – Radio One and Radio Two – is in the news again and is being proposed by certain commentators as a potential solution to the current problems facing the UK commercial radio industry. This report argues that, far from being a solution, unleashing these two highly successful BBC stations on the commercial sector will imperil the existence of many stations. This would dramatically increase the volume of advertising time available, at a time of glut, and draw advertising spend away from many stations
Vodafone’s Q4 revenues were healthy if a little weak, with underlying growth slowing from 2.0% to 1.8%, but the improvement in Germany is very welcome
Ofcom has linked Sky's plans for a pay service on DTT (Picnic) to its wider investigation into the UK market for pay-TV, announcing on 13th May that it will issue its next statement on both issues simultaneously by the end of the summer. This is the first time the regulator has indicated that it is merging its consideration of Picnic with that of the wider pay-TV market
The BBC-ITV Freesat venture, launched on 6th May, is the public service response to Sky’s free satellite service. Once fully up and running in 2009, Freesat aims to match Sky with 200 digital TV channels in standard definition (SD), and surpass Sky with extra channels in High Definition (HD), plus the facility to offer iPlayer and Kangaroo
Sky Q3 FY 2008 results confirm the strength of the core pay-TV business, where the marketing strategy is now focused on subscriber quality rather than pure numbers. Sky+ boxes continue to fly off the shelves, while weak HD and Sky Multiroom sales call for attention in fiscal 2009
Vodafone UK has announced a tariff refresh that includes ‘free’ mobile browsing with all of its new contract plans