Kangaroo, the BBC/ITV/Channel 4 VOD project, looks unlikely to see the light of day any time soon, based on the Competition Commission’s (CC) provisional findings announced on 3rd December

This report examines the role of local commercial media in supplying the information needs of the UK’s many communities, in the context of the BBC’s ‘Local Video’ plans to add video to its local online services. Unlike the BBC services, which are publicly funded, regional and local commercial media must cover their costs from revenue earned from circulation and advertising. On top of the structural shift to the internet of media consumption and advertising, their business models are severely stressed by the ongoing recession, which will only widen the gap between the BBC’s revenues and that of commercial media. The BBC Trust’s decision on the local video plans will be a game-changer for local commercial media in the UK

UK classified advertising, which generated £4.8 billion in 2007 (26% of total UK advertising spend), could decline to £4.2 billion in 2008 and to £3.7 billion in 2009. In our view, advertisers are accelerating their shift online as a result of the economic downturn, while the property market’s steep decline depresses associated classifieds. Online has already overtaken national newspapers and magazines as classified advertising media, and looks set to rise above directories in 2008. In the near future, online will be the leading classified advertising medium, ahead of regional newspapers. The enclosed presentation updates for 2008 the information contained in Classified Advertising in the UK [2007-55]

Deteriorating economic conditions are impacting growth in online advertising, with display and classified especially affected, though search, which accounts for about 60% of spend, remains relatively robust

Encouraged by the way that Google has come to dominate the global market for online search advertising, Clear Channel and its rival CBS Radio are now eyeing the potential to dominate the global market for online radio advertising, and fend off Google. In July 2008, Clear Channel announced its plans to dominate the ‘internet radio’ market, by launching a ‘portal’ offering a vast array of radio programming, along with a new business unit to sell online advertising inventory. Although Clear Channel’s targets initially are US advertisers and US internet users, the company will likely target the UK market when it eventually decides to roll out its business model for online radio to the rest of the world. As a result, within the next decade, the UK commercial radio sector could face an additional source of competition from overseas media companies offering radio content delivered via the internet

Project Kangaroo, the planned joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and C4 to pool archival resources and supply video-on-demand (VOD) to UK retail and wholesale customers, was referred by the Office of Fair Trading to the Competition Commission on 30th June

France’s Council of State gave the green light to the draft law on ‘Creation and the Internet’, to combat internet piracy of content. If it completes the final hurdle of adoption by the Parliament, most likely in the autumn, France could become the first country to adopt a three-strikes rule to disconnect file-sharers

We expect UK online advertising to reach £3.56 billion this year overtaking TV ad spend which we estimate will be £3.39 billion, making the internet the UK’s largest single advertising medium, accounting for over 19% of total expenditure

Early figures from the BBC show promising take-up of iPlayer, its web TV application to deliver BBC TV shows. More than 2 million people watched an average of just over one show per week in January, representing about 1.6% of TV viewing amongst iPlayer users

Dramatic growth in datacards and Blackberry users has fuelled excitement that the mobile internet is finally arriving to the mass market, even though these remain largely business devices