The digital transition is almost complete in France, five years after the launch of DTT. After undergoing an audience share decline, TF1's share is stabilising. In contrast, M6 improved its audience share during the transition. Both groups are likely to remain dominant in the FTA TV market, thanks to the partial withdrawal of public TV from advertising sales

The advertising recovery in 2010 was strong. Thanks to its diversification, M6 is less exposed to the cycle than TF1, which is rebounding more strongly. M6 is also structurally more profitable

Pay-TV platform growth has stalled, with subscription decline at Canal+ somewhat balanced by growth of low cost packages of IPTV providers. Canal+ will benefit from the withdrawal of Orange from premium TV and a new distribution deal with Orange. Combined with the roll out of new set-tops with PVRs, we are moderately optimistic on Canal+ prospects

Facebook Messaging adds email, IM and SMS to Facebook messages. Some portion of the social network’s 600+ million users will switch to Facebook for an all in one text-based communications service

Switchers to Facebook Messaging in the US will reduce the display ad revenues of traditional portals, like Yahoo! and Microsoft, which use such tools to drive traffic

Less affected is Google. Some Gmail users will switch, but Google’s core business model is selling search advertising, where it is not challenged by Facebook (yet)

C&W Worldwide’s performance over the six months to September was strong in terms of cash flow growth, although this was partly due to lower bad debt cost

Revenue decline is easing, but weakness in the mid-market business and reduced public sector spending are weighing on EBITDA

Looking ahead, this should improve somewhat, as the retail mid-market business recovers, but we expect growth in the core business to remain unexciting

Vivendi is close to being in a cash position to buy out minority shareholdings in SFR and Canal+, shedding the image of a ‘conglomerate’ of partly owned and diverse assets, which has weighed on valuation Acquiring Vodafone’s 44% stake in SFR (now only a question of price) would allow Vivendi to rebrand itself as a telecoms story, serving France, with Maroc Télécom and mainly Brazil’s GVT supplying the upside To fully acquire Canal+, Vivendi’s offer will need to consider Lagardère’s option of floating its 20% stake. Owning 100% of Canal+ and SFR opens the narrative of a ‘French media/telecoms champion’ – which we find less credible

We forecast UK online advertising to grow by 8% CAGR to £5.1 billion by 2014, representing approx. 33% of total advertising spend, overtaking press

Search is the main growth engine, which we predict will reach £3.1 billion in 2014, due to its appeal and value to advertisers as a sales and lead generation tool

Growth in spend on social media and video networks will push online display to just over £1 billion by 2014; whilst classifieds will grow to £840 million

C&W Worldwide’s first set of annual results since demerger were flattered by the inclusion of a full year of Thus

Nonetheless, management has continued to execute well despite difficult market conditions. Excellent cost control generated another year of strong underlying cash flow growth, albeit from a low base

Looking ahead there are grounds for continuing optimism, despite minimal guidance, although the rate of cash flow growth is set to drop, as cost reduction becomes progressively more challenging

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has set out a vision of the social network as the hub of a personalised internet based on real identities and connections – the so called ‘Social Graph’, with Facebook providing the infrastructure

Simplified tools for apps and new social plug-ins for third party sites will increase Facebook’s influence both on and off the core platform, but raise some privacy concerns

These initiatives should help to drive Facebook’s user growth and engagement and ultimately improve monetisation, which we estimate on a per user basis is now more than half that of Microsoft’s online properties

Internet advertising rose 4.2% YoY in 2009 on a like-for-like basis in the UK, according to IABUK/PwC, due to growth in search, with classified and display down; however, previously unreported spend, including Facebook, pushed the total to £3.54 billion

Last year, for the first time, Google accounted for over half of spend (versus one third in the US) and 12% of UK ad revenue, a market presence that is significantly larger than in the US

Including Facebook, now No.1 for display, and increased spend on search, our 2010 growth forecast is 11%, pushing total spend to £3.82 billion or 25% of UK advertising

The internet continues to gain share of media consumption and advertising at the expense of traditional media in the UK. This report highlights key online trends in the UK and our current forecasts for internet advertising in 2010 (we will address mobile advertising separately)

Mobile content is moving to the centre of strategies for online
media. At MWC, the world’s biggest mobile conference, Google announced it now develops
all products ‘mobile first’ and Facebook reported a quarter of its 400m users access
the service through mobile

Three years after the iPhone 
launched, the handset industry is catching up, adding decent user interfaces
and mobile apps to colour touch screens and taking easy access to mobile content
beyond the iPhone

Beyond the self-selecting early adopter iPhone base, we found
real evidence of companies already successfully providing mobile content to much
wider segments of the population