Low-priced quality tabloid the i has been bought by DMGT for £49.6m, a 4.5x multiple on historical operating profit. The sale provides a lifeline to JPI Media as Reach has withdrawn from negotiations for the local estate

The i signals growing confidence in consumer media at DMGT after a long period rebalancing the portfolio towards B2B, and new ownership serves as an opportunity to rethink and drive the i’s online service

Although the acquisition will be reviewed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), we expect the deal to pass

While Sky’s overall revenues continue to rise, Q3’s growth was hampered by a significant fall in advertising revenue and to a lesser extent a slowdown in content sales

Underlying EBITDA growth was in the mid-teens. Next quarter, Sky will continue to benefit from lower Premier League rights costs versus last season, and profit appears on track to meet full year guidance

Q3 saw a rare decline in Sky’s total number of customers due to the conclusion of Game of Thrones. Sky clearly understands the value of unique content—recently extending its HBO deal. In our view, this was essential, since without a distribution deal for Disney+ (launching in the UK in March) Sky would lose Disney’s alluring content

New SVOD entrants are prioritising reach over revenue in the US with extensive ‘free’ offers, including Apple TV+ (to hardware buyers), Disney+ (to Verizon customers), HBO Max (to HBO subscribers) and Comcast’s Peacock (to basic cable homes)

This is the latest development in an unfolding global story of partnerships, continuing on from multiple Netflix and Amazon distribution deals with platforms, bringing benefits to both parties

In Europe, Sky faces price pressure, but it has secured its HBO partnership and can now talk to Disney from a position of strength

Media coverage of women’s sport escalated this summer thanks to the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which ignited national interest. The Lionesses attracted an exceptional peak TV audience of 11.8 million for England’s semi-final match against the USA

Still, coverage of women's sport remains minimal outside of major events: only 4% of printed sports articles reference female athletes. Quality press are leading the way—the launch of Telegraph Women’s Sport being the prime example—but the popular press are yet to follow

Freely-accessible coverage will generate greater interest and audiences for women’s sport, but continuous investment from all media will be needed to fulfil its potential

The average cover price of national newspapers has risen by 58% since 2010, more than twice the CPI increase of 22%. Are publishers “shooting themselves in the foot” at a time when buyers and advertisers are defecting to online?

To settle this, we analysed all the cover price events by national titles between 2010 and 2018, which reveals the relative success of The Times when it has raised its price.

For mid-market and popular titles, cover price hikes have on balance reduced circulation revenues and, by lowering reach, drained advertising revenue: a lose-lose scenario.

Zoopla and The Digital Property Group, DMGT’s property portfolio which includes Findaproperty, Primelocation and Globrix, announced a merger on 14 October 2011. Under the terms of the proposed merger, DMGT would receive a 55% interest in the merged entity

A merged Zoopla and DPG will compete more effectively with market leader Rightmove, in a property market scaled down by one-third in terms of the number of transactions

We think the merger will give advertisers a better choice and constrain Rightmove’s pricing power, which has seen hefty fee increases on members, most recently in 2010, in 2011 and most recently again in November 2011

Cable &Wireless Worldwide’s performance for the six months to September was weak but made to look worse by one-offs

Underlying performance continues to be hit by strong competition and loss of voice revenue, but the impact of this has been made worse by underinvestment in data centres and neglect of the wholesale and SME businesses

The outlook for the year to March 2012 is poor, in line with the June warning. Beyond that, further investment in hosting and related capabilities will be necessary, and we continue to expect modest growth

National newspaper circulation continued its inexorable decline in September, with daily circulation down 7% year-on-year, although we estimate retail sales value decline was marginal

Sunday popular and mid-market newspaper circulation fell 4% month-on-month, as News of the World buyers continue to drop out of the market; we estimate around a third of ex-readers have not migrated to another title

Publishers are responding to circulation decline in a variety of ways, from churning out bulks to maintain scale, to increasing cover prices, axing international editions and developing their subscriber base

Openreach has announced large cuts in the prices of some important components of physical infrastructure access (PIA). A further substantial reduction in duct prices is possible as a result of an adjustment by Ofcom to Openreach’s regulatory asset value (RAV)

The reductions are helpful to the economics of bids by altnets such as Fujitsu for government funds to deploy rural next generation access (NGA), and to Virgin Media, as it expands its existing cable network footprint

However, the economics of NGA continue to strike us as challenging and we expect the impact of PIA on BT to be modest due to the remaining potential wholesale revenue, and BT Retail’s ability to use third party PIA-based networks

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgment in the Portsmouth pub landlady case looks to have opened the door to legitimising the private or domestic use of decoders to watch premium sports and other pay-TV content outside the territories for which they were licensed

The outcome could prove to be a significant commercial opportunity for Sky to expand its overseas distribution among residential customers, but an extra test for the Football Association Premier League (PL) as it designs the next round of contracts with a view to at least maintaining current revenues

The ECJ judgment is more ambiguous over the question of public screenings for commercial purposes against the wishes of the right holders and the conclusion appears some way off