Fiscal Q1 2007 results show unexpectedly strong subscriber gross additions (14% up on Q1 2006) and a promising start to Sky Broadband in its pursuit of at least 3 million subscribers by December 2010. Management attributes the strong gross subscriber additions to the ‘halo’ effect of its broadband and telephony offer

Growth will likely slow from 2006's impressive levels, but the business is still a very solid core, with volumes, prices and commission levels likely to hold up well for the foreseeable future

As regards TalkTalk, the rate of customer migration onto fully unbundled lines continues to be an issue, but the situation is improving, albeit gradually

The appeal of the ‘free’ offer appears to have survived the serious customer service issues of 2006, but the new marketing campaign will need to boost subscriber growth significantly for it to remain on-track

Under mounting competitive pressure from Sky, NTL needs to reinforce its position in content and has approached ITV about a possible combination

True to pre-launch speculation, BSkyB has entered broadband with a price-cutting bang that will have sent tremors round the rest of the industry.

The FAPL has just auctioned six packages of televised live Premier League (PL) rights, each comprising 23 games, for the three years commencing autumn 2008. The total consideration of £1,714 million is 67% up on the £1,024 million BSkyB is now paying over three years for the same number of live PL games 

Barça cannot afford to dispense with Sogecable’s support as a pay-TV partner and possessor of contracts with the other leading clubs. A deal has to be struck 

The BSkyB change of strategy announced last August by James Murdoch has claimed its first victim according to this report: the company's own original target of 30% operating margin by FY 2006/07. That leaves the company with just two of its core targets: £400 ARPU and 8 million subscribers by the end of 2005. Meanwhile, the profit target has been replaced by the long-term growth target of 10 million Sky Digital subs by 2010, over 25% with Sky+ boxes and more than 30% with multiroom subs.

BSkyB’s quarterly results will be delivered on Friday 14th November. Prior to these new figures, this report gives our views on the attainability of BSkyB’s medium term targets.

Sky's continued excellent performance has attracted favourable comment in the weeks since its half yearly results. But much of the commentary missed some critical points. The analysts did not question Sky's assertions that it was successfully targeting high value customers. Actually, the last half-year saw a fall in the numbers taking the top-priced package. Similarly, few commentators noticed that despite the favourable comments in the results announcement, interactive revenues actually fell last quarter. The steepest rate of decline was seen in betting, which a year ago was going to be application that formed the core of Sky's interactive ARPU. Similarly nobody seemed to have noticed that Sky's overall share of TV viewing declined in the quarter, despite the addition of two hundred thousand new subscribers.

According to the Financial Times (27/03/2002), the European Commission is planning ‘to clamp down on the cost of calling mobiles’ and issue ‘tough new rules’, which ‘would make it easier for national telecoms regulators to force mobile phone companies to reduce excessive call termination charges’. According to our research, this is an exaggerated assessment: the likeliest outcome would be a Commission recommendation on ‘best practice’ guidelines, rather than new rules. Our research also shows that the pressures from NRAs on MNOs to lower mobile termination charges are highly uneven in the top three markets: they are most acute in the UK (predictably, given the pro-consumer orientation of Oftel), less significant but nevertheless present in Italy, and non-existent in Germany. Thus, if the UK Competition Commission endorses Oftel’s proposed charge cap in its forthcoming ruling, we can expect the four leading UK MNOs to lose about £880 million in revenues for the 2002-2006 period, with the annual reduction in 2002-2003 estimated at about £265 million.

NTL's share price slide over the last few weeks has focused attention again on the prospects for UK pay-TV.

This report extends the analysis to the two largest European incumbents, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. We look at trends in market share, wholesale and retail pricing, and the impact of increased competition. We identify the companies' strategies in the face of these forces and show the impact of stretched balance sheets on corporate actions.

In this report Chris Goodall carries out a brief analysis of Sky's results published today and compares them to our projections.

Our emphasis in this note is on ITV Digital. What are the options open to the two shareholders of ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada? How can they reduce the burden of supporting ITV Digital through the next few years? What is the likelihood (or otherwise) of substantial improvement in that company’s results, in particular break even in 2003?

In this presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony for the quarter to March 2010, based on the published results of the major service providers. We include our own estimates where reported data is incomplete.

Highlights in the quarter included a bounce in quarterly broadband market net additions sufficient to pause the historical decline in year-on-year subscriber growth, continuing relatively strong broadband subscriber growth at the major ISPs, stabilisation in both the level of telephony market revenue and the rate of growth in unbundled lines, and the soft launch of highly competitive bundled offers by Tesco.