European mobile service revenue growth improved by 0.5ppts to -7.2% in Q2 2014, but all of this and more was driven by a reduced regulatory impact; underlying growth has been stuck at around 6% for the last four quarters, with progress in some areas consistently being countered by further pricing pressure

Industry consolidation has progressed to some extent, but would have had little impact in the quarter. Further in-country mobile/mobile mergers are more than likely but uncertainty driven by the changing European Commission may be delaying decisions to move forward

The UK example shows that consolidation is not necessary for market repair, but in the present environment the smaller operators in continental Europe have every incentive to be as disruptive as possible to encourage their acquisition, so further mergers cannot come soon enough

European mobile service revenue growth improved to -7.6% in Q1 2014 from -9.0% in the previous quarter, but most of the improvement came from a drop in the regulated MTR cut impact, with underlying growth only improving 0.2ppts

This is in spite of continued improvements in GDP growth and the highest level of consumer confidence in six years, confirming that the often-blamed economic conditions actually have been having little impact on the market, with competitive intensity the real cause

For this very reason, the approval by the EC of in-market mergers in Germany and Ireland has been warmly welcomed by the industry and investors. Our view is that market repair is dependent on a change of attitude of the incumbents towards long term investment and away from chasing short term subscriber share via price discounting; consolidation may well help with this, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient

European mobile service revenue growth again disappointed in Q4, dropping slightly from -8.9% to -9.1%, with underlying revenue growth dropping a little further from -6.0% to -6.3%, again reaching a record low

There had been hopes that improved GDP growth would drive a volume rebound, that price declines would start to annualise out, and that declining out-of-bundle usage would wane in its impact as this usage declined. In the event, ongoing price competition from smaller operators, MVNOs and quad play offerings, combined with surging use of OTT communications platforms, have dominated trends

In the medium term, the development of 4G and Vodafone’s Project Spring may bring some much needed network differentiation back to the market, allowing pricing power to return to the larger operators. However, it will be 2015-2016 before these factors come into play: in the short term, the main source of optimism is consolidation

Non-subscribers can download this report in full - alongside all our other coverage of the BBC during the Charter Review process - from the 'BBC Charter Review' page of our site.

The Charter Review of the BBC officially opened with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into the Future of the BBC asking the question “What should the BBC be for and what should be the purpose of public service broadcasting?” The only obvious answer is that the BBC and public service broadcasting should be for the people of Britain, and the BBC rates highly on different measures of public and audience engagement. The BBC plays an irreplaceable role in the supply of PSB programming that UK audiences appreciate, most importantly news, where the BBC accounts for 70% of TV news time and for 22% of online news time in 2013.

National newspaper advertising revenues should be up 6-8% year-on-year in 2010, with ‘popular’ titles in particular attracting display ads from national retailer brands

Local and regional press advertising revenues will fall by about 6% year-on-year, mainly on the continued decline of recruitment classifieds

Publishers are exploring more efficient printing, new digital models, and staking a claim on e-commerce

European mobile revenue growth improved by 0.8ppts in Q3 to reach -0.3%, but all of this improvement and more was due to easing regulatory pressures, with underlying growth actually declining marginally

GDP growth continues to improve year-on-year, but in the current low confidence environment underlying mobile revenue growth is not (yet) responding. Smartphone sales are surging, but their net impact on revenue is hard to discern

Looking forward, the regulatory impact is likely to turn negative again for the next few quarters, so some underlying growth catch-up is required for revenue growth to stay at around zero

This report on Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, News Corporation’s Continental Europe pay-TV assets, complements our coverage of BSkyB in the UK. We look at the market environment, including regulation and competition. The report also provides subscriber, revenue and earnings forecasts and SWOT analysis.

The decline in UK residential broadband market growth has paused due to accelerating adoption by older householders and increased household formation. We expect 970,000 net additions in 2010 and 20.5 million broadband households by 2015. However we expect growth will continue to decline from 2011 as the impact of the government spending review feeds into consumer confidence and the market becomes increasingly saturated

As BT’s next generation access network is deployed, there is likely to be accelerated improvement in DSL price/performance, with DSL customers migrating to a 40 Mbit/s headline speed as it becomes available. The impact of this is likely to be compounded by Virgin Media up-rating its broadband portfolio from speeds of 10, 20 and 50 Mbit/s to 20, 50 and 100 Mbit/s

In the absence of further consolidation, in market share terms the industry appears set to remain divided into three strategic segments: the ‘big three’, brand extenders, and Sky. We expect residential broadband market revenue (excluding content) to continue to decline gradually, stabilising by 2015 as the impact of market share gain by lower priced ISPs attenuates due to a combination of a maturing market and reduced price differentials caused by NGA

Everything Everywhere’s maiden investor day presentation was soured by the disappointing results it reported for Q2 2010, with service revenue growth underperforming its UK competitors by 7 percentage points. At current relative growth rates, O2 will retake its lead by June 2011

The synergy savings targets have been maintained, but focused more towards back office functions and away from front line assets such as shops and network base station sites, with the brands being kept separate for the time being. This is a sensible enough approach, and the cost savings still look eminently achievable

Going forward, the company will have the advantage of a better network but the disadvantage of disruptive integration for the next few years. Its main challenge will be to reverse the current negative revenue momentum, which puts both its revenue and margin targets at risk

Strong FY 2010 adjusted revenue growth of 11% was powered by a 15% rise in subscription revenues, reflecting a mixture of solid subscriber growth in spite of the recession and burgeoning multi-product sales, with HD subscriptions registering a net increase of 1.63 million to end the year at 2.94 million and the telecoms sector breaking into operating profit in Q4

Firm cost control and streamlining of manufacturing and subscriber management expenses now make Sky’s 25% TV operating margin target look very achievable, but also leave it room to increase spend on programming substantially within the guidance limits of pegging increases to the rate of revenue growth

Overshadowing the results is News Corp’s proposal to purchase the 60.9% of BSkyB shares that it does not already own, subject to regulatory review. Assuming it goes ahead, News Corp will have a larger market share in the UK across media (TV, newspapers and books) than any other company in a major market