The Premier league (PL) will be hoping for another huge increase in rights payments in the upcoming auction for the three seasons starting 2019/20.

Aggressive competition between BT Sport and Sky has led to hyperinflation of most premium sports rights. Sport now accounts for two thirds of multichannel content spend, but only 8% of its viewing.

BT’s current financial position makes it difficult to justify expansion or further hyperinflation of its PL rights portfolio, but it cannot withdraw completely.

BT had a reasonable quarter in its consumer broadband business given market pressures, and a very strong one at EE with continued growth acceleration. It had a good quarter for fibre adoption as well, helping its wholesale divisions stabilise their revenue, but business/IT was weak as expected

Regulatory pressure remains intense despite the (welcome) Openreach agreement, with price cap regulation proposed or due on a range of products, and a regulatory approach which is far from investment-orientated

Pressures in the business/IT market are likely to continue, and pressures in the consumer broadband market are likely to intensify, justifying BT’s current cautious approach to guidance and dividends

Our latest forecasts point to the continued strength of DTT within the UK broadcast market. We predict DTT-only homes will account for 42% of TV viewing ten years from now, up from 38% today.

Much of this is due to the UK’s ageing population profile, since DTT skews older. The number of over-45s in DTTonly homes is set to increase by 13% by 2026.

The other key factor is the continued growth of flexible pay-lite services—for example, Netflix and NOW TV— which are of greater appeal to younger audiences.

The latest auction of UEFA Champions League televised UK rights has seen further high 32% inflation as BT renewed its ownership for the three seasons from 2018/19 for an annual payment of £394 million

Although BT annual payments are to increase by £95 million from 2018/19, the new contract offers added commercial attractions, though we expect BT’s efforts to monetise them will fall some way short of the cost increase

However, BT had to win to cement its position against Sky as a strong number two in UK premium pay TV and we expect weaker future inflation of premium football rights. For Sky followers, the focus is now on the UEFA auctions in Germany and Italy, where the outcome is far from certain

In the UK, traditional broadcast television's future appears threatened, as technological developments increasingly allow people to access video content on demand, whether on TV sets or other screens, or from traditional broadcasters or online services.

This report examines the extent to which timeshift viewing, by which we mean personal video recorder (PVR) playback and viewing to catch-up services, has bolstered linear TV.

The linear schedule is still very relevant for both consumers and advertisers, maintaining television’s status as an effective mass medium for building brands.

Carphone Warehouse’s H1 2011/12 results were overshadowed somewhat by the announcements that it is shutting down its UK ‘big box’ consumer electronics venture and selling its share in the Best Buy US handset business

Its actual core business operating performance was grim, with drops of 12% in volume and 4.5% in like-for-like revenue in the September quarter, with the slashing of prepay subsidies in the UK hitting volumes, and the late arrival of the iPhone 4S hitting revenue

With the iPhone 4S having now launched, H2 is likely to be much better, with like-for-like revenue returning to growth, and a focus on the core business will help in weathering the economic headwinds to come

After strong underlying improvements in growth and profitability in 2010, in H1 2011 H3G Europe’s service revenue growth was steady at 3% and margins only slightly improved to (underlying) EBIT breakeven

In the UK, service revenue growth accelerated to 7% (from -1% in H2 2010), with EBIT maintained at about breakeven, as the UK company’s ongoing strong contract subscriber growth fed through

Italy suffered roughly the opposite fate, with service revenue growth falling to -8%, as its recent subscriber losses fed through, and EBIT remained firmly negative

CPW Europe had a weak first quarter, with like-for-like revenue growth of -3.3%, with all of the drop coming from the 18 to 24 month contract length shift in the UK

We expect its performance to improve through the rest of its fiscal year, but it will need to in order to hit even the bottom end of its full year guidance

The US mobile retailing operation is doing much better, with very strong revenue growth, and is likely again to exceed full year guidance

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

CPW Europe had a difficult quarter, with volumes falling 9% and like-for-like revenue 2%, due to continued prepay weakness and the shift to 24 month contracts in the UK

The US business was again very strong, growing volumes at 26%, and this strength is likely to continue due to an acceleration in store roll outs

Keeping the European business flat in 2011/12 will be a challenge, but the US business is likely to more than make up for this at the group level