Results of the league’s new call for tender for its 2018-21 broadcasting rights will be unveiled on 22 January. The platform-based packaging was reviewed after last year’s aborted auction, apparently to accommodate loss-making Mediaset Premium, the participation of which remains nevertheless uncertain

Sky could keep its current satellite and internet coverage without increasing its outlay. We expect no major Telecom Italia (TI) or GAFA bid

Serie A seeks an unrealistic €1.05 billion per year (up 24%). If the auction results fall short, it hopes to sell rights to financial investors or, in a last resort, to launch its own channel – both ideas smacking of recklessness

BT and Sky’s content cross-wholesaling deal much reduces their risks of losing packages in the upcoming Premier League auction, with most of the strategic platform value of exclusive sports rights now wiped out.

The PL auction structure offers more games but less value, with the two smaller packages particularly unattractive, which cleverly nudges BT to retain a more expensive package, and thus most of its spending, if it wishes to downsize.

While demand from all potential rights buyers appears weak, paying less money to retain the same position will be challenging for the incumbents Sky and BT given high minimum package prices, with courage necessary to force these minimums to be reassessed

Even with the decline in linear television viewing, online video remains a small component of total video consumption. The growth area is unsurprisingly SVOD; subscription video now makes up about two thirds of the UK's digital video spend.

Netflix is moving from an aggregator of content to a "channel" in its own right, increasing proportionate spend on original programming, something that the public service broadcasters are unable to do for differing reasons. Amazon had a tough 2017 for video, and are still struggling to create a hit.

New Nielsen audience data suggests that the long-term "library value" of Netflix's originals may be overstated, while the BBC's iPlayer continues to be hampered by not really having a library at all.

Almost half of Facebook’s impressive revenue growth and turnover is still reliant on the US, where user growth has slowed down

Among GAFA platforms, Facebook’s core business is the one most directly dependent on dwell time, but the metric for the crucial home market is clouded in mystery

The company has yet to create significant compensating revenue streams outside display advertising, raising the importance of international markets for Facebook’s future

Our last report of the year 2004 covers device and network convergence – a recently resurgent growth story for media, telecommunications and consumer electronics companies. But does it represent any more of a reality, threat or opportunity than before?

H3G has made great strides this year, but these have mainly been in terms of reported subscribers and market perception rather than in fundamental terms. In this report we examine in depth both its global business model and the all-important funding available in order to assess the likely future for the business, and its subsequent impact on the GSM operators.

France's Ligue de football professionnel (LFP) will reveal the outcome of its first assessment of bids for broadcast rights to 380 first division football events and highlights for the seasons 2005-2008 on this coming 10th of December. The 2004 auction picks up the thread of the 2002 auction, 'won' by Canal+ by offering an exclusivity premium, but whose outcome was annulled following a complaint by rival TPS. Broadcast rights, first split between Canal+ and TPS in 1999, have simply been carried over.

The experience in France of local loop unbundling (LLU) could be indicative of LLU in the UK. About 20% of France's 6 million DSL connections will be unbundled by Q4 2004 (just 4.5% of all lines), and the LLU share of DSL connections could climb to 50% by the end of 2006.

Vodafone this week announced its formal 3G launch to great fanfare, with new handsets, services and pricing. This brief note gives our view on the launch and likely impact in Europe and Japan.

TV-over-DSL has been pioneered in the UK by HomeChoice and Kingston Interactive Television (KIT), but their combined customer base is only about 15,000. ISPs and telcos are considering TV as a potential extra application for the local networks they intend to build in urban areas by unbundling local loops. We define TV-over-DSL as the multicast distribution of conventional free-to-air (FTA), subscription and PPV channels over the copper wire to the TV set. Unicast on demand video (VoD) services is the subject of a forthcoming report because its characteristics and market context are entirely different.