Television's old world of analogue scarcity produced a clutch of big names in free-to-air (FTA) commercial broadcasting: ITV1, TF1, Mediaset, RTL and Sat.1/Pro7 being among the most prominent in Europe - companies grown rich and powerful through advertising demand and lack of competition. Today, they face the common challenge of making a successful transition into the new world of digital plenty. Can they prosper? Or must they disappear like dinosaurs in a whirl of audience fragmentation, ad avoidance, on demand, downloading, video-streaming, convergence, piracy and whatever else the future holds?

The new UK management team, led by former Energis CEO John Pluthero, still has the opportunity to improve C&W UK’s longer-term position

Rapid implementation of a Next Generation Network to cut costs and refocusing Bulldog remain critical

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.

Last week Nokia launched its first 3G handset, the 6650. Or did it? Although the size, weight and price initially looked impressive, the handset has not really been launched (not until H1 2003), and technically it is not really 3G (the data rates are too slow). By the time the handset is actually widely available to consumers, GSM-only handsets will have a much better feature/price combination, with a 3G handset only appealing to laptop users who would probably prefer a data card anyway. This is good news for the operators - they can comfortably delay potentially expensive 3G roll-outs safe in the knowledge that competitors will not gain any advantage by being first to market with the current generation of handsets.

This note looks at what has happened to NTL in the past year, and the prospects for 2003-2004. It emerges from a period of introspection to face stronger competition than ever. Sky has won the battle for digital TV. Although NTL has been successful in broadband this year, BT has serious plans for this market.

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.