The iPhone has inspired all the major Smartphone makers to launch touchscreen models, and dramatically improve the usability of their interfaces. The iPhone itself remains the most easily usable touchscreen handset in our view, although at the cost of speed of use and adaptability

Unfortunately, the characteristics that make these handsets easier to surf the internet with – large screens and/or QWERTY keyboards – are just the characteristics that are unlikely to trickle down into mass market handset models, meaning that the impact on mobile data usage is limited

We continue to believe that web browsing is unlikely to be popular on mass market handsets for the foreseeable future, but usage of web services can be popularised by more of a widget approach, which the cheap but smart INQ1 handset demonstrates well

The Premier League has succeeded in obtaining a 4.4% increase in live televised rights payments from £1,706 million to £1,782 million for the next three year contract commencing with the 2010/11 football season

The big surprise was that Sky bid more than last time round (by an estimated factor of circa 7.5% for its current four packages), while Setanta bid roughly 20% less for its two packages, thereby losing one to Sky

The highly contrasting bidding approaches appear to reflect completely different mindsets, with the not yet viable Setanta focused on the economic value of the PL rights, and Sky taken up with demonstrating long-term commitment to the PL

Strong Q2 results announced on Wednesday 28th January 2009 provided no evidence of negative impact so far due to the current recession

Sky+ HD looks set to provide a major growth opportunity, especially with the Sky+ HD box prices now dropping to £49. That and another record quarter for Sky+ take-up strengthens the view that Sky will meet its target of 10 million pay-TV subscribers by the end of 2010 with room to spare

Fixed line results again displayed relatively strong subscriber growth in an increasingly difficult market, but the operating loss excluding Easynet continued to deepen. Original standalone IRR guidance for fixed line looks unlikely to be met without further price increases

Major record labels will allow iTunes to sell all its music stripped of digital rights management (DRM), removing a barrier to digital music buying, while iTunes will introduce in April the tiered pricing the industry wants

We expect no real bounce in demand, however, as Apple’s DRM was not a restriction for iTunes customers as most owned iPods, the dominant music player in a market which is almost fully matured – we expect few iPod customers to pay to upgrade their libraries to DRM-free

News of peace breaking out between iTunes and the recorded music industry was overshadowed by reports of the continued steep decline in CD volumes sold in the US market, down almost by one fifth in 2008 from 2007, with digital increases again failing to offset the decline

The consultation period for the second phase of Ofcom’s Second Public Service Broadcasting Review closes on 4th December 2008. The central issue before Ofcom is that the current PSB model is broken, lacking the flexibility to “adapt to audiences’ evolving needs”. The primary concern lies with the commercial sector, which is under increasing strain to deliver its PSB commitments due to structural changes in the television medium that have been compounded by the present economic crisis. This presentation sets out our views about the role of structural changes in restraining TV net advertising revenues (NAR) growth in recent years along with our latest TV forecasts to 2013. Whilst some of the current downward pressures on TV NAR may be expected to ease, a new structural change that threatens the commercial PSB sector is the growing chasm between BBC investment in its PSB services and the advertising revenues of ITV, Channel 4 and Five

Another robust set of subscriber KPIs provides little indication of the economic downturn taking its toll, other than a sharp 1.1% jump in churn over the previous quarter, which could reflect other factors. The bigger issue appears to be subscriber spin-down to less expensive packages

Ofcom’s second consultation document in its pay-TV investigation has focused on BSkyB’s wholesaling of designated premium film and sports channels, reviving memories of previous regulatory efforts to address the content wholesale/retail issue

Another strong quarter of pay-TV and Sky+ growth in the face of a severe retail downturn makes us more confident that Sky will achieve its target of 10 million DTH pay-TV subscribers by the end of calendar 2010 despite falling short of the required run rate of annual net additions in FY 2008

This report explains Ofcom’s ongoing review of Openreach’s financial framework, why it is important, the myriad factors involved, our view on the likely outcome and the implications for BT and unbundlers, in particular Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB

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