Fiscal 2011 was a vintage year for Sky, which reported a 23% growth in operating profit and 51% increase in free cash flow as it started to reap the full benefits of its investment in multi-product growth

Q4 2011 showed signs that tougher economic conditions are starting to bite, although the sharp fall in TV product additions was balanced by a fourth consecutive bumper quarter in home communications, in which Sky outperformed the rest of the market

Strong focus on operating efficiencies and product innovation combined with big investment in UK originated content should position the company well as competitive pressures build in the medium- to long-term, at the same time as allowing continuing strong profit growth

Trinity Mirror, Northern & Shell and DMGT helped the market more or less offset the absence of the News of the World, though impressive volumes have come at a price

More generally, newspaper circulations have a temporary reprieve, as strong newsflow but also discounts and marketing techniques have been deployed to attract readers

What happens next at News International, and also competitor responses, could soon change market dynamics again

The uncovering of criminal behaviour at one newspaper (so far) has led to a much broader review of how the press is regulated, seeking to put a stop to dishonest and unethical behaviour, legal or illegal, and touching on ownership, ethics and on the freedom of the press in general

However, much of investigative journalism relies on activities that are certainly dishonest and arguably open to prosecution: any new code and enforcement will need to rely on judgement and selectivity, not prescription

Statutory, compulsory, enforceable regulation of the press will risk running into the sand in a world in which casual chat between friends is viewable by millions on social networks and celebrity gossip is sent to pixel in Los Angeles or São Paulo, not Wapping

BT’s plans to deploy next generation access, combined with state-aided rural broadband projects, look set to give almost three quarters of UK households access to high speed broadband by 2016

New wireless technology is a feasible substitute for wireline for some low-end users and in specific areas, but we do not expect it to have a major impact on high speed broadband deployment

BT Retail and Virgin Media will in effect move significant numbers of their customers onto high speed broadband, but without significant price reductions we believe that, even by 2016, consumers’ reluctance to pay more will result in two-thirds of households remaining on lower speed options

France’s Canal+ has won the rights to show two Ligue 1 games a week from 2012 to 2016 for €420 million per year. A surprise (and skilful) bid by Qatar’s Al Jazeera won two lower profile games for €90 million per year

We believe Al Jazeera could, at best, reach EBITDA break even by the end of the four year licence. Merging with CFoot and Orange sport would help

No bidders met the reserve price for the package of lower tier six games, but Canal+ would be well advised to bid in order to avoid the strategic risk of leaving competitors with most Ligue 1 games. Without this package, Canal+ faces limited subscriber and ARPU erosion balanced by €45 million savings on the current licence

In this presentation we show our analysis of trends in UK broadband and telephony to March 2011, based on the published results of the major service providers. This quarter’s edition includes an updated outlook for broadband market subscribers and market shares to 2015.

Highlights in the quarter included broadband market growth moving back into line with consumer confidence, continuing strong broadband subscriber growth at both BT Retail and Sky, greater stability in the proportion of the market served by BT Wholesale and a significant price increase at O2. We project that, by the end of 2015, about 21 million households will subscribe to fixed broadband, and that Sky’s market share will exceed that of TalkTalk Group to rival that of Virgin Media.

The most dramatic observation from our survey is the surge in mobile data service usage: 48% of UK mobile users now use a data service at least once a month, up from just 30% last year. This increase is substantially all from the increased number of internet-centric smartphones (i.e. iPhone, BlackBerry and Android handsets) in the base

The internet-centric smartphones themselves had substantially no reduction in data usage penetration rates (all at 90%+) despite their volumes surging, with users from all age and socio-economic groups using them for data services. Data service usage penetration on a daily basis actually increased for Android and BlackBerry handsets

This supports our view that it is the nature of these handsets in terms of their ease-of-use for data services that is driving overall usage, and that overall data usage will continue to surge as they continue to diffuse through the subscriber base

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.

Sky’s revamped model has delivered a sharp reduction in churn and higher gross additions, accelerating subscriber growth. Rising high definition take-up is sustaining the increase in average revenue per user

Business prospects are improving on stronger private consumption and a carriage deal for HD versions of German commercial channels

Our forecasts have been revised upwards and we now expect faster improvement in cash flow, though it will still be negative in 2013

Some of Ofcom’s proposed wholesale charge controls for Openreach fixed access services sound stringent

However, we estimate that the overall financial impact on BT and other players is likely to be very small

We do not expect the proposals to result in changes to many retail prices, but they should tilt the playing field slightly in favour of BT Retail’s competitors, particularly smaller providers of broadband and business services