Google Home will compete against Amazon’s Echo in the contest to supply voice-activated home hubs to US homes

Google claims Home is better at voice-based search due to its superior capabilities; pricing is unknown, but is likely to be at par with Echo ($179)

Prime, Fire devices and media services are competitive advantages for Amazon in the US that will make it hard for Google Home to succeed there

Paid placements for content marketing online in Europe will increase by 186% from 2014-2020, to over €2 billion

It is a particularly exciting area for premium publishers, who can leverage their content expertise to reverse the flight of ad money to lower-cost properties. Almost all are developing creative content offerings to capture this value

Metrics and measurement, disclosure and cost remain as challenges for content marketing online, but growth is strong due to high commitment to spend from advertisers

Vivendi is to acquire the main pay-TV division of Italy’s Mediaset in an all-share transaction, creating a ‘strategic alliance’ between the two groups. Each partner will own a 3.5% stake in the other. The deal is positive for Mediaset but the benefits for Vivendi can only accrue long term

Mediaset Premium claims two million subscribers and recorded €640 million revenue in 2015. However, EBIT losses amounted to €115 million and are likely to more than double through 2016 and beyond. The deal has no discernible impact on Premium’s bigger rival Sky

Vivendi and Mediaset will also jointly operate a ‘global’ online video platform and collectively develop content production and distribution. The pair’s respective assets are sizeable but domestically focused with little demonstrable international synergy

European mobile service revenue growth was flat at -0.8%, while underlying country movements were somewhat more dramatic. The key highlights were Italy returning to positive growth driven by pricing stability, and France showing worsening growth decline for the first time in over two years impacted by challenger telco pricing cuts

An assessment of these challenger telcos highlights a somewhat precarious position, as continued price aggression yields diminishing incremental gains, and they all remain some way from gaining the scale to achieve profitability

The only incentive for challengers to remain aggressive is as an encouragement for their competitors to buy them; increasing regulatory hurdles to consolidation would remove even this incentive, leaving price increases as their only rational route to profitability

The UK national press remains a ‘big beast’ in UK media, selling 7.2 million copies every day, supplemented by 1.6 million free newspapers; however, the decades long decline in print circulation and advertising has accelerated once again with the take off of smartphones and tablets.

Print still accounts for the vast majority of the nationals’ income, though revenue continues to fall due to declining copy sales and the structural shift of classified ads to the internet; there is also growing evidence that display advertising is declining by more than volume losses in some categories.

Digital is gathering momentum due to acceleration in digital advertising and a shift to pay models. In the UK, where print subscription levels are low, and home delivery lower still, publishers face the obvious challenges of digital transition and migration from a newsstand economy to a consumer relationship mindset.

2013 has seen yet another year of strong growth in consumer adoption of mobile devices and screens adding to the challenges facing traditional media. Press and radio have long been affected, but television is now starting to feel the heat

BT and Sky’s contest for premium pay-TV sports rights has intensified. August saw the launch of BT Sport, while BT’s acquisition of the European football rights in November was a clear statement of intent, spending half of Channel 4’s total programming budget on approx. 200 hours of content

The UK has seen buoyant advertising growth of around 4% in 2013, with similar growth expected in 2014, in the context of the strongest economic recovery in Europe

In this presentation we show our analysis of revenue growth trends for mobile operators in the top five European markets (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The historical analysis is based on the published results of the operators, although they include our estimates where their data is inconsistent or not complete. A copy of the underlying data in spreadsheet format is available to our subscription clients on request

France’s Canal+ faces an increasingly challenging domestic market, due to IPTV expansion, competition from Al-Jazeera’s beIN Sport and the threat of a Netflix launch – on top of sluggish consumer demand in a dull economy

Inflated promotional activity has brought rising churn and failed to stop subscriber base erosion, while denting profitability. Headline revenue growth comes from international channels, film production and FTA TV

Anxious to avoid interference from its owner Vivendi, Canal+ has followed a conservative investment policy that may have undermined growth. The spin-off of SFR and possible dissolution of the conglomerate would leave Canal+ free to contemplate more aggressive moves, in IPTV, set-top boxes and possibly through acquisitions

The Vivendi empire is shrinking in revenues, cash flow and also in debt: Activision Blizzard and Maroc Télécom were sold in 2013, SFR will be spun off

We expect SFR’s topline revenue decline to halt in H1 2014, ending the pain from the disruptive launch of Free Mobile in 2012. With SFR and Bouygues Telecom intending to conclude a network-sharing agreement outside urban areas by the end of 2013, SFR should have a more positive story to tell investors when it comes to the Paris stock market in late 2014

With SFR spun off, Vivendi 3.0 will own just Canal+, Universal Music Group (UMG) and GVT (telecoms operator in Brazil), three companies without visible synergies. The end point appears to be the full dissolution of the Vivendi conglomerate

On 30 October, two days after criminal trials for alleged phone hacking begin, the Privy Council will finally seal a Royal Charter to set up regulation of the press. The end of this drawn-out process might be thought near

Several major publishers are planning to boycott the system by setting up their own regulator, which will not meet the Charter’s standards. In recent days, Conservative ministers have said the press is ‘free’ to take that route

The Recognition Panel set up by Parliament’s Royal Charter may not report on the system’s success or (more likely) failure until the autumn after the 2015 election. Whether to have a showdown with publishers who reject the Royal Charter is a decision being put off by everyone