Q1 2011 TV NAR (Net Advertising Revenue) has delivered strong year-on-year growth of about 8%, yet the monthly variations are large, with a predictably sharp decrease in March based on past year comparatives countered by a large Christmas-style upswing in the Easter and Royal Wedding month of April

After several years of decoupling total display and TV advertising trends from those in the broader economy due to negative structural causes, the underlying positive correlations are expected to reappear as the structural factors subdue

The general economic outlook suggests stable growth in TV NAR during 2011 of about 5%, remaining flat to marginally positive in real terms beyond 2011 as long as conditions of weak economic growth last, but with significant risks of a sudden sharp downturn in the short to medium term

French ISPs are about to enter a disruptive four month window of penalty-free broadband subscriber churn, triggered by the VAT rise on IPTV

SFR has followed Iliad’s Free by offering unmetered fixed-to-mobile calls at the risk of ARPU decline

We expect Free’s market share to stabilise, whilst those of SFR and Bouygues should rise to the detriment of Orange

Wanadoo just reported its H1 2003 results and the FY 2003 Group EBITDA target looks well in hand thanks to the outstanding performance of the directories division. The performance of the Internet segment has been less satisfactory for two reasons: Wanadoo France is facing stiff competition from Free on the 512k DSL segment; and Freeserve in the UK and Eresmas in Spain have seen very slow subscriber and revenue growth due to barebones customer acquisition activity. Wanadoo will be ramping up DSL customer acquisition activity from September onwards to achieve Internet segment targets and may reduce prices in the UK.

Last week Enders Analysis interviewed David Elstein. Elstein is leading a team attempting to put in place a new management at ITV in the event that the merger is allowed by the Competition Commission. This note carries his views on the remedies likely to be imposed by the Commission and also on the scope for cost savings and improvements in business strategy at the merged group.

Wanadoo reached an important milestone in 2002, reporting its first (very small) positive EBITDA margin on its French Internet business, thanks to broadband-related revenue increases and lower narrowband and broadband access costs. In contrast, losses widened at Wanadoo's Internet properties outside France, in particular Freeserve in the UK and Eresmas is Spain, but these were more than fully offset by profits on the Directories segment. This note looks ahead to 2003, when Wanadoo expects to reach positive EBITDA on the Internet segment as a whole, thanks to continued improvement in France and tightly contained losses at Freeserve and Eresmas.

The public debate about the ITV merger has revolved around whether the maintenance of two separate sales houses is the appropriate remedy to be imposed by any Competition Commission inquiry. We argue that the real issues are more complex.

This report picks apart the evidence on why ITV1 is rapidly losing audience share. It shows that more intense competition in terrestrial homes is the key reason, not the impact of the growth of the multichannel universe. The decline of ITV1 is across all times of day and almost all demographic groups. Can ITV turn itself around in the face of this secular decline in audiences?