Our latest forecasts point to the continued strength of DTT within the UK broadcast market. We predict DTT-only homes will account for 42% of TV viewing ten years from now, up from 38% today.

Much of this is due to the UK’s ageing population profile, since DTT skews older. The number of over-45s in DTTonly homes is set to increase by 13% by 2026.

The other key factor is the continued growth of flexible pay-lite services—for example, Netflix and NOW TV— which are of greater appeal to younger audiences.

The latest auction of UEFA Champions League televised UK rights has seen further high 32% inflation as BT renewed its ownership for the three seasons from 2018/19 for an annual payment of £394 million

Although BT annual payments are to increase by £95 million from 2018/19, the new contract offers added commercial attractions, though we expect BT’s efforts to monetise them will fall some way short of the cost increase

However, BT had to win to cement its position against Sky as a strong number two in UK premium pay TV and we expect weaker future inflation of premium football rights. For Sky followers, the focus is now on the UEFA auctions in Germany and Italy, where the outcome is far from certain

In the UK, traditional broadcast television's future appears threatened, as technological developments increasingly allow people to access video content on demand, whether on TV sets or other screens, or from traditional broadcasters or online services.

This report examines the extent to which timeshift viewing, by which we mean personal video recorder (PVR) playback and viewing to catch-up services, has bolstered linear TV.

The linear schedule is still very relevant for both consumers and advertisers, maintaining television’s status as an effective mass medium for building brands.

BT had a strong quarter for revenue growth, improving to over 1%. This was helped by some temporary factors, but underlying trends look nonetheless strong across the board

Network development looks strong, with G.fast pilot pricing announced and development on track, selective FTTP builds gaining momentum, and mobile coverage and speed capabilities accelerating

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the regulatory outlook is as murky as ever, with Openreach’s future structure still not resolved, spectrum auction rules still to-be-decided, and rulings on copper and fibre pricing from April 2017 heavily delayed

BT Sport has seen a very clear positive impact from its first year airing the Champions League, with viewing up 60% year-on-year to June. Remarkably, its reach is now not too far off Sky Sports, though it still has some way to go in terms of consistent viewership.

Pay-TV audiences for the 2015/16 tournament were in line with previous years – an impressive feat – but free-to-air disappointed. However, BT should not be too concerned – it has established itself as a worthy pay-TV partner.

While BT’s execution has thus beaten reasonable expectations, BT Sport still carries a heavy net financial cost for BT, with debatable benefits. Yet, whatever the benefits may be, more viewers watching more often must surely help.

BT will soon for the first time charge the majority of viewers for their own channels with the launch of the BT Sport Pack. The Pack includes BT Sport Europe, exclusive home to UEFA’s European football tournaments from this August, the rights to which BT are paying £299 million a year.

Viewing figures for the big European tournaments are not as high as one might expect given their prominence. Consumer demand for the new channel will also be highly dependent on the success of British teams, notably lacking in recent seasons.

We therefore do not expect a dramatic impact on BT Sport (or BT broadband) subscribers, and the widening losses will put pressure on BT’s margin squeeze test regulation, although they are easily absorbable at BT Group level.

Customer movement between operators shows susceptibility to dynamism in branding; O2 are picking up the majority of EE churners as customers move to the new “cool brand” while EE pull in Vodafone churners tempted by the new “best network”. O2 have the lowest churn though the lion’s share move to Vodafone and H3G churners are more evenly picked up by the other three

Customer perceptions of own operator network quality are high among the big 3 with no less than 75% of customers reporting theirs is the best network. O2 is the best regarded while H3G is the least best regarded highlighting a stark contrast between the (prospective) merging parties

Consumers report little interest in quad play and indeed operators in the both fixed and mobile markets have publicly confirmed the same from other market research. However the arrival of converged players in the form of a merged BT/EE or Vodafone re-entering the fixed space will see operators seeking to change this

Microsoft dominated PCs and Nokia mobile phones, but both are irrelevant in the dominant model for tech in the next decade, smartphones and tablets. An acquisition may have been necessary, but by itself it solves nothing.

Smartphones are now half of all mobile phone sales, and the 255m smartphones and tablets sold in Q2 2013 dwarf the 76m PCs sold. Microsoft now powers less than a quarter of all the personal computing devices being sold.

Microsoft retains a leading position in enterprise and in console gaming. But if it cannot return to relevance in consumer, the strength of the whole business will suffer.

Amazon, Nokia and Apple are expected to announce new mobile devices in the next fortnight. We outline the main products and features expected and their implications

Around 125m smartphones were sold globally in Q2, up over 30% from Q2 2011. Around 450m mobile handsets were sold in the quarter, giving smartphones a volume share of around 28% Apple and Android dominate with a combined of 85% of units sold, and a cumulative total of 810m devices running their mobile platforms. Of these we estimate that 680m are active, of which 95m are tablets Android arrived later and has grown faster, but Apple’s market share of smartphones as been steady at 20-25% for several years: Android’s growth has come at the expense of Nokia, RIM and feature phones