News Corp will split publishing out of its business by creating a company to include newspapers in the US, UK and Australia as well as book publisher HarperCollins News Corp revenue growth has for some time been driven by explosive growth in cable network programming revenues, with slower revenue growth in film, TV, satellite TV and publishing The structural decline of print-based businesses is the main reason cited for the split. However, the Dow Jones and WSJ, both serving a B2B market, will be at the heart of the new publishing company’s value
The New York Times has generated $243 million from its digital services in the four quarters since the launch of its new subscription strategy, representing about 15% of New York Times Media Group revenues, according to our estimates.
This scale is the clearest signal yet that digital-only newsrooms could be able to generate enough revenue to fund expensive breadth and depth in journalism – though there will be many fewer profitable scale players than in the print news era.
Meanwhile, bundling digital and print subscriptions has helped the New York Times develop an integrated and valued approach to consumer service provision, and in so doing has mitigated print circulation decline, at least for now.
The weak spot of 15,000 net TV additions in a positive quarter for operating profit growth reflects the continuing downward pressures of a struggling economy, with little indication of headwinds to do with connected TV Very strong growth in home communications in a weak quarter for TV net additions underline Sky’s competitive strengths in a market now close to maturity, as well as bringing revenue growth and churn reduction benefits Overshadowing Sky’s Q3 results, Ofcom’s investigation into the “fit and proper” status of News Corp’s shareholding in BSkyB is unlikely to affect the company in 2012
US music publishers have reached agreement on rolling over the mechanical royalties due on sales of digital and physical music formats for 2013-17
The expanded scope of the statute to cover ‘scan and match’ cloud locker services, such as Apple’s iTunes Match, provides incremental revenues to music publishers; the unlicensed ‘storage’ cloud locker services are not concerned
ASCAP’s agreement on US radio performance royalties will however reduce music publisher revenues
The London Olympics promise to be a major success for both the free-to-air broadcast licensees and the leading pay-TV platforms as a result of co-operative deals being forged between them
Recent distribution agreements with Sky provide the BBC and Eurosport with a massively bigger window to showcase their credentials in in-depth sports coverage and new technologies, especially 3D
For Sky, and assuming VMed in due course, there exist a number of potential indirect commercial benefits, as the message is sent out loud and clear that there is no better place to go for London Olympics free-to-air coverage than the pay-TV platforms
We forecast print media advertising will be down by about 4% in 2012, with national newspaper display roughly flat, performances we envisage will be seen as a temporary reprieve once the substantially tougher 2013 that we expect to follow is underway
Print media is not out of the structural woods, and even relatively small revenue contraction will amplify pain as the opportunities for further streamlining fixed-cost physical distribution operations are realistically diminishing
Digital is a greater challenge for paper than for screen media, as consumer and advertiser demand continues to weaken, yet publishers struggle to generate the killer service solution to stimulate scale revenue online
News International is to launch the Sun on Sunday on 26 February, seven months after closing the News of the World
In the intervening period, Trinity Mirror has picked up the bulk of the 55% of NoW copies that have not entirely fallen out of the market since June 2011
The £150 million revenue once generated by NoW is diminished and dispersed among rival publishers and we estimate that even a triumphant launch would likely generate half to two thirds of the income of the closed title
Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Deloitte, in London on 19 January 2012. The event featured talks by 13 of the most influential figures in media and telecoms, and was chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette. An edited transcript of notes taken during the speaker presentations follows.
The speakers were Sir Martin Sorrell (CEO, WPP), Glen Moreno (Chairman, Pearson), Martin Morgan (CEO, DMGT), David Levin (CEO, UBM), Dan Cobley (MD, Google UK & Ireland), Mike Pocock (CEO, Yell), Vittorio Colao (CEO, Vodafone), Charles Dunstone (Chairman, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk Group), Stephen Carter (President, Alcatel-Lucent EMEA), the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt MP (Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport), Neil Berkett (CEO, Virgin Media), Liv Garfield (CEO, Openreach) and Ed Richards (CEO, Ofcom).
Rumours that News International will consider launching a newspaper to replace the News of the World have circulated for months, and probably only one event can dispel them
Trinity Mirror has picked up the bulk of the 60% of NoW copies that have not entirely fallen out of the market since June 2011, and arguably the longer any launch is delayed the harder it will be for NI to attract them back
The £150 million revenue once generated by NoW is diminished and dispersed among rival publishers and we estimate that even a triumphant launch would likely generate half to two thirds of the income of the closed title
The launch of Netflix in the UK and Ireland has ignited the debate on the threat from over-the-top video to pay-TV services from Sky, Virgin Media and BT
Unlike in the US, Netflix’s UK prospects and those of competitors such as Lovefilm, are fundamentally limited, given the availability of low priced pay-TV with strong on-demand components included for free
The impact of Netflix on the UK pay-TV industry is therefore likely to be even smaller than the (hard to discern) effect it has had in the US