This report examines pay-TV developments in Spain where Digital+, Sogecable's DTH pay-TV service, has just celebrated its first birthday (Sogecable [2003-23]). Sogecable financial targets for 2005 are within reach.

The long drawn out merger between the two Spanish pay-TV operators will finally be consummated in the next few weeks. As we have seen elsewhere in Europe, competition in pay-TV produces little but red ink. Investors will be pleased that Sogecable and Via Digital are finally combining. We have little doubt that this merger will eventually produce a profitable and successful business. But management appears too optimistic about the likely continuing cash drains as operations are combined and costs reduced over the next two years.

Claire Enders set out the implications of a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum for the media available in Scotland. She critically examines the SNP's plans for a Scottish media, and argues that Scotland's small population would make an independent media hard to sustain. When the effect of a nationalist 'nation-building' project is factored in too, the overall results would be serious costs to the quality of democracy Scots enjoy.