The UK business (EAUS) is continuing to improve ahead of guidance as expected and its turnround can now be judged a success. Management has announced an aggressive plan to extract synergy from the recently acquired Thus
H3G Group’s H1 2008 results showed static revenue and EBITDA slipping back into negative territory, neither of which bode well for the company’s target of being EBIT positive next year
In our view the potential for synergies from an acquisition of Thus by C&W, though more limited than might be supposed, would still have a significant impact on the combined entity at the EBITDA level
International performance continued to be weak apart from Macau, although well within EBITDA guidance. Turnaround in Jamaica remains a significant challenge
H3G Group’s growth continued to slow in H2 2007, and it is now growing at just 6%, versus 10% 6 months ago, with falling ARPU combining with static subscriber net additions
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
This note looks at the position of TPS, the satellite pay-TV venture largely owned by TF1 in France. We particularly focus on the issue of payments for football rights because sports rights have become the crucial ingredient in pay-TV success, in France and elsewhere.
This note discusses the likely obstacles to a successful launch of H3G UK, the most aggressive 3G new entrant in Europe. Our main points:
What does this mean for the media industry? Does the increasing power of media buyers mean further downward pressure on rate cards? We suspect that many of the effects have already been felt, particularly in the European and US TV businesses. In fact, we see a different issue emerging: the explosion in advertising inventory in the last few years, which has resulted in a worldwide glut. This has coincided with what we think may be a permanent reduction in the absolute number of advertisers. As a result, media buyers will continue to obtain better terms, whether in buying as part of a large group or not, but media price deflation may be a feature of the industry for many years to come.