German unbundlers are in decline, unable to match cable for price or bandwidth, or to invest in new fibre networks. Vodafone, the second largest unbundler, must choose between consolidating and divesting Merging with Kabel Deutschland would deliver fixed line synergies – with high execution risks. But, based on the French and Spanish experiences, we doubt that a quad play strategy (synonymous with a price war) would generate value Mobile operators’ fixed line ventures are also in decline elsewhere in Europe, but cable is not always to blame, with pure play fixed line altnets also tending to outperform them, suggesting that genuine cross-selling advantages are marginal at best
Facebook’s announcement of Graph Search, the company’s first move into socially-powered search which now in beta trial in the US, leaves many details unanswered including full launch and monetisation plans. Reliance on user-generated content from Facebook friends limits the usefulness of Graph Search as a conventional search engine and hence its impact on Google and other web search businesses in the near term. In the longer term, Graph Search could become a powerful recommendation engine for certain categories like travel, but its dependence on user data and privacy restrictions are likely to limit its wider utility and revenue potential.
Just three players now account for most French broadband connections: Orange’s DSL market share is closing on 50%, Iliad’s rose to 25% from consolidation with Alice, while SFR’s dropped to 23.7%, with Neuf’s rebrand imminent. Cable remains a minimal presence on broadband
Having acquired national broadcast TV rights for premium content, France Télécom’s Orange TV will launch on satellite on 3rd July and introduce subscription football and film and series services from August, in a first for a major European telecoms incumbent
Canal+ is entering a critical phase of growth following the recent merger with its former rival Télévision Par Satellite (TPS). Vivendi has set short term guidance targets for 2010 of 11.5 million subscriptions, turnover above €5 billion and more than doubling of EBITA from €490 million to over €1 billion. This presentation examines these targets and concludes that Canal+ will fall short of all them. In the best case baseline scenario of least competition from other pay-TV and free-to-air (FTA) services, it projects EBITA in 2010 of just €890 million
To encourage investors, TF1 announced continued diversification of group revenues from reliance on the flagship TF1 channel, and an increase in group Ebitda from 16% in 2007 to 20% in ‘4-5 years’. Accelerating audience share decline at the TF1 channel indicates that new programming is also urgently required to maintain TF1’s ‘premium’ for advertisers
France’s football rights auction for the four seasons starting in 2008 ended with a second round on 6th February. Canal+ will keep most rights, while France Télécom picks up some live rights for the first time
Vivendi’s preliminary results for FY 2007 show weak subscription growth by France’s leading pay-TV operator Canal+ despite the existence of special positive factors. Strengthening free-to-air (FTA) competition on the DTT and DSL platforms appears the main cause
In an apparent change of direction, France Télécom said it would consider bidding for all the 12 packages of French televised football rights at the auction to be held tomorrow, 31st January, including the primetime slots that last went to Canal+ – but FT also claims to rule out an all out assault against Canal+