In the past five decades, women have acquired an unparalleled financial autonomy by participating in higher education, joining the workforce and becoming entrepreneurs, despite still present barriers.

Nevertheless, the portrayal of women in films, TV programmes, and even more so, advertising campaigns, continues to channel stereotypes of times long gone, leading to a dearth of role models for girls.

Companies that commit to diversity internally are in a stronger position to recognise clichés and innovate in their activities and messaging—only companies that walk the talk will convince.

The UK lockdown since mid March has boosted TV time to levels not seen since 2014, with broadcast TV and online video each growing by nearly 40

minutes/person/day

While trends vary significantly by demographic, news consumption has been a common catalyst for linear TV’s growth, benefitting the BBC above all. Although Sky News has also flourished, Sky’s portfolio has been seriously impacted by the lack of live sport

2019 extended many of the long running trends of the last decade, but, notably, online video’s growth rate appeared to slow among youngsters, in contrast to older demographics. 35-54 year olds watching more VOD will have significant implications for linear broadcasters down the line

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented decline in advertiser demand for TV, and while the steepest drop has occurred, broadcasters will feel the impact over a long period of time.

Programming costs are being cut or deferred, but it is not possible—or even sensible—to reduce total programming budgets significantly in the mid-term due to existing contractual commitments.

Increased government support in the form of advertising spend, a loosening of Channel 4's programming obligations—the lifeblood of the independent production sector—and revisions to existing measures (to capture a greater proportion of freelancers) will be required to ensure a flourishing, vibrant sector for the future.

European mobile service revenue growth improved by 1ppt to -1.2% primarily as a consequence of diminished competitive intensity in France. Trends elsewhere were largely flat.

The mobile sector is playing an important role in tackling COVID-19 and is likely to be relatively resilient in the short term with a broadly neutral financial impact. Longer term it will be exposed to the fortunes of the economy.

There are reasons to believe that the improvement in trends evidenced in the last quarter may continue as churn reduction takes the heat out of some markets, cuts to intra-EU calls annualises out and for most countries, end-of-contract notifications will only begin to impact in 2021.

 

Although increases are moderate so far, it is inevitable that overall video viewing will rise given a reduction in competition for people’s time. So far, unsurprisingly, TV news consumption has ballooned while unmatched viewing—a proxy for SVOD usage—has increased.

However, disruption to production of TV content and cancellation of live events will leave holes to fill in the schedule.

Flexibility is built into some types of programming, however nothing can replace live sport, while disruption in the production of scripted programming—especially high-volume soaps—will have knock-on effects that continue for years.

Iliad is getting ever closer to securing the French 4th 3G licence on terms with which it is happy, with progress slow but seemingly inevitable, and a licence award likely in H2 2008 followed by service launch in 2010

This report presents our analysis of Neuf Cegetel alongside that of close rival Iliad (which trades under the Free brand). Neuf and Iliad are France’s two leading unbundlers, are both quoted on the Euronext exchange and, since Neuf’s IPO in November 2006, have been assessed largely in parallel by investors. We anticipate Neuf's Investor Day on 12th September will provide analysts with greater detail on Neuf’s strategy to improve by 2010 its profitability to the level enjoyed by Iliad.

Channel 4's digital diversification strategy is a topic we first considered in 2002. At that time, we urged Channel 4 to husband its resources to meet its public service remit and maintain audiences on its terrestrial service, rather than diversify into new digital satellite channels. If anything, the progress of time has reinforced our conclusion that Channel 4's digital diversification strategy is risky. The risks for Channel 4 are greater than for the BBC, since Channel 4's public service remit is funded by advertising alone

On 27th July the BBC will open access to the iPlayer to UK internet users, en route to a hard launch later this summer. This PC-based application allows the user to download BBC TV content after broadcast to view on the PC for a limited time, and provides a TV-like display on the PC. Delays to the launch will mean the iPlayer enters a field already crowded by other broadcasters, including Channel 4's 4oD service, ITV's broadband portal, Sky Anytime, as well as content aggregators such as Joost and Babelgum (both currently in beta)

Ofcom has awarded the UK’s second national commercial digital radio multiplex to Channel 4 Television, having rejected a competing bid from National Grid Wireless