Iliad is to recover the No. 2 spot on the French broadband market, behind France Télécom’s Orange, after acquiring Alice, ending Telecom Italia’s ill fated five-year French venture
The privatisation of the BBC’s two national music radio networks – Radio One and Radio Two – is in the news again and is being proposed by certain commentators as a potential solution to the current problems facing the UK commercial radio industry. This report argues that, far from being a solution, unleashing these two highly successful BBC stations on the commercial sector will imperil the existence of many stations. This would dramatically increase the volume of advertising time available, at a time of glut, and draw advertising spend away from many stations
Vodafone’s Q4 revenues were healthy if a little weak, with underlying growth slowing from 2.0% to 1.8%, but the improvement in Germany is very welcome
International performance continued to be weak apart from Macau, although well within EBITDA guidance. Turnaround in Jamaica remains a significant challenge
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
Vodafone UK has announced a tariff refresh that includes ‘free’ mobile browsing with all of its new contract plans
Iliad will be challenged to meet its target of a steady EBITDA margin of 36% in 2008 despite further cuts in mobile termination charges due to the continued drift of the subscriber mix to higher cost (for Iliad) full telephony packages. Some benefit to cash flow could result from reduced charges for one-off LLU services to be mandated by regulator ARCEP
Early figures from the BBC show promising take-up of iPlayer, its web TV application to deliver BBC TV shows. More than 2 million people watched an average of just over one show per week in January, representing about 1.6% of TV viewing amongst iPlayer users
France is the first major European market where a large scale fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment is under way. Numericable and France Télécom, as well as unbundlers Iliad and Neuf Cegetel, are launching triple play offers over fibre to households. Public authorities actively support the plans, to boost France's growth prospects. This report examines the commercial context for fibre deployment in France
Vodafone’s European performance was very solid, with underlying growth of 1.9%, up from 1.7% last quarter, with some very encouraging moderation to price cuts in Germany and elsewhere