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

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

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

To encourage investors, TF1 announced continued diversification of group revenues from reliance on the flagship TF1 channel, and an increase in group Ebitda from 16% in 2007 to 20% in ‘4-5 years’. Accelerating audience share decline at the TF1 channel indicates that new programming is also urgently required to maintain TF1’s ‘premium’ for advertisers

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

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

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

Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print