Steep drops in US and UK recorded music sales dragged EMI’s group revenue 15.8% lower for FY 2006/07. EMI’s underperformance of the sagging recorded music industry highlights the scale of the challenge facing any prospective new owner
French altnet Neuf Cegetel is buying Club Internet from Deutsche Telekom for an estimated €500 million and will overtake its rival Free as the #2 on the DSL market, still way behind Orange
Growth in Q1 2007 for the aggregate non-Vodafone European mobile operations was 4.2%, a slight decline from 4.7% last quarter (Vodafone reports its results next week)
Trinity Mirror’s recent optimism about the market for newspaper advertising “stabilising” is questionable, and we expect 2007 to be another year of decline, although less pronounced than in 2006
Warner Music Group reported a mild revenue decline in Q2 FY 2006/07, despite continued steep declines in CD sales in the US and elsewhere, by outperforming other CD suppliers, gaining from rising downloads and ringtone sales, persistent strength in music publishing, as well as favourable currency movements
The new consumer data tariffs from Vodafone and Orange in the UK continue the trend towards dramatically lower data prices for high end users, although they are cunningly structured to involve more moderate increases for low end users
Virgin Media’s Q1 top line results were again mixed, with a growing number of customers leaving as competition intensifies, despite the rebrand to Virgin. But it could have been worse; most higher-spending customers are remaining