Following Channel 4’s decision not to proceed with its plans for digital radio, there is a glut of unused capacity on the existing national digital commercial radio multiplex (owned by Digital One) which threatens its commercial viability
Channel 4 has announced the immediate withdrawal of its majority stake in 4 Digital Group, a new venture that was awarded the licence by Ofcom in 2007 to build the UK’s second national commercial radio DAB multiplex, and Channel 4 will not be launching its promised portfolio of broadcast radio channels
The obvious culprit is the weak economy, with mobile telecoms seeming to be more vulnerable to consumer cutbacks than previously thought, a hypothesis supported by recent consumer research
With European economic growth forecast to decline further, revenue growth is likely to drop below zero by the beginning of 2009, and then progressively worsen through 2009 as regulatory effects worsen, creating a very tough environment for mobile operators to preserve margins
We have downgraded our short-term forecasts of TV NAR (net advertising revenue) growth from -5% to -5.75% for 2008 and from -3% to -6% for 2009 in light of the worsening economic conditions and early indications of Q4 advertising spend
2005 was an all time high for total TV net advertising revenues (NAR), even if ITV1, the leading commercial channel, had peaked the year before. 2008 is now proving particularly nasty for everyone as budgets take a plunge in the second half of the year, while expectations are growing that things will only get worse in 2009. This presentation sets out our latest five-year forecasts of total TV and ITV plc NAR, taking into account latest market trading expectations for September and October 2008 and trends in the economy
ITV interim results for 2008 confirmed expectations of a sharp downturn in H1 profits combined with dire predictions for net advertising revenues in the second half of the year, although ITV has so far succeeded in outperforming the rest of the commercial sector in 2008
Project Kangaroo, the planned joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and C4 to pool archival resources and supply video-on-demand (VOD) to UK retail and wholesale customers, was referred by the Office of Fair Trading to the Competition Commission on 30th June
The worsening economic outlook has caused us to lower our forecasts of TV net advertising revenue (NAR) growth in 2008 to -2.5%, although there is still little visibility beyond H1, which is expected to register -1% growth
The BBC-ITV Freesat venture, launched on 6th May, is the public service response to Sky’s free satellite service. Once fully up and running in 2009, Freesat aims to match Sky with 200 digital TV channels in standard definition (SD), and surpass Sky with extra channels in High Definition (HD), plus the facility to offer iPlayer and Kangaroo
Disappointing headline figures showing a 35% drop in pre-tax profits largely reflect exceptional and non-core items, in particular the fallout from the phone-in scandals that occurred in 2007
Microsoft’s $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! represents the software giant’s last opportunity to compete with Google in the rapidly growing market for online advertising, which is forecast to double to $80 billion within three years