Vodafone Europe’s revenue growth again notched up, increasing by 0.7ppts as reported or 0.3ppts in underlying terms, with minutes volume growth accelerating by 1.8ppts

This is a little disappointing in the context of the rate of reported GDP recovery, but consumer confidence, particularly in Southern Europe, has re-dipped in the last few months, making raw GDP figures less relevant than they once were

Data revenue is forging ahead, but voice pricing is steadily weakening, and with many offers linking voice, text and data into an inseparable bundle the former may be causing the later, implying that data’s contribution to overall revenue is easy to overestimate

UK reported mobile subscriber growth has returned to stronger growth over the past few quarters as the UK economy slowly recovers

O2 is still the leading operator in terms of both its own customer loyalty and share of other operators’ customers who intend to switch, though its lead has narrowed considerably on last year

UK handset sales are likely to continue to rise, with intention to replace in the next 12 months rising from 32% in 2009 to 35% in 2010, which is albeit still some way short of the 40% pre-recession figure

Data usage overall is up –the proportion of consumers regularly browsing news and information increased to 22% from 16% last year. However, this increase was not uniform; 5ppts of this was the direct result of there being more iPhones and BlackBerrys in use, and only 1ppt was due to increased usage on any other handset

Spain’s free-to-air (FTA) television advertising recovery may stall in H2 2010, but growth at Telecinco and Antena3 will remain vigorous due to the end of airtime sales on state-owned Televisión Española (TVE)

The two broadcasters have a strong, resilient model, with a high share of cheap, in-house programming, improved pricing power due to consolidation and large multichannel capacity on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform (analogue was switched off in April)

Telecinco will leverage its merger with Cuatro (due by end 2010) for economies of scale, but the benefit of its investment in pay-TV platform Digital+ is uncertain. Further consolidation involving laSexta is expected

UK consumer magazines continue to be squeezed by every consumption, technology and market trend, yet we believe the sector, while rebasing in scale, continues to offer unique attributes as a media experience for consumers and marketers

Circulations are falling, and in the context of digital media usage leading titles in each magazine genre are not just typically gaining market share, but emerging as the only ‘must have’ brand for consumers and advertisers

Publishers with multiple titles in mid-table positions may be able to draw short-term margin from some of them, but long-term investment plays increasingly need to be at the top of the pile

FT has put majority stakes in Orange Sport and Orange Cinéma Séries on the block, and claims to have held discussions with News Corp. We think it unlikely that an investor would be interested in entering the French pay-TV market, dominated by Vivendi’s Canal+

We believe FT could find a buyer for Orange Sport in Disney’s ESPN, which could prove viable if a cross-retailing deal is reached with Canal+. A Eurosport merger is another option. Orange Cinéma Séries could be viable under a new owner, if it widens it distribution to other platforms

Now officially on the way out of the pay-TV production business, a welcome decision in our view, Orange can focus on improving the consumer value of the basic TV offering on the triple play marketplace

BT’s launch of Sky Sports should help reduce customer churn to Sky and other competitors, although we expect the extent of ‘win back’ to be modest

The financial impact on BT should be positive but of limited significance at group level due to the negative margin involved on the Sky Sports element of the bundle

Sky is likely to deploy a number of countermeasures that may negate some of the benefits to BT

On 2 July News International switched Times online from a free to a subscription service, probably losing at least 90% of its traffic and shifting its strategy from reach and scale to a more traditional targeted brand and loyalty model

The challenges are substantial: while the Times is competitively advantaged with a strong roster of star writers and columnists, NI knows news itself is more commoditised than other content types, and most newspaper and broadcaster sites have been giving away news for a decade

News Corp may well realise the most benefits from the Times subscription service in a larger convergence play, aggregating audiences across group services such as Sky pay-TV and broadband, Sky News and the Wall Street Journal

Data on UK fixed line broadband revenueis sparse. Ofcom‘squarterly statistics do not include broadband revenue and neither Virgin Media nor TTG report it. Ofcom’sannual communications market report, published each year in August, includes an estimate of UK fixed broadband, dial-up and related revenue based on non-public data provided by operators. In June this year Ofcom published a provisional estimate of £3.3 billion for 2009 as part of the background to a discussion document on net neutrality

News Corp’s bid for the shares it does not own in BSkyB is unlikely to generate much concern at the OFT because newspapers and TV will be seen as being in separate markets

But, separately, the Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, is entitled to make a ‘public interest’ intervention that requires the plurality issue to be assessed alongside the competition investigation over the next few weeks

We think that there is a strong case that the transaction does raise substantial issues of ‘plurality’ as defined in the Court of Appeal judgment on the purchase of ITV shares by BSkyB in 2006.1 Whether the new Secretary of State has the stomach for a fight with the company must be open to substantial doubt

This report provides our annual assessment and forecasts for the recorded music market on the one hand, and the music publishing industry on the other hand. The reason for our dual focus is the key role played by mechanical revenues generated by the sale of recorded music formats in revenues of the music publishing industry, despite their decline since 2000

Revenues from performance (licensing fees from the use of music in broadcasts, music piped in shops or performed live) and synchronisation (music licensed for adverts and TV/film) have proved more resilient. Performance in particular was affected by the severe advertising recession in the music publishing industry’s core markets in 2008/09, whose impact we anticipate will still be felt in 2010

On the whole, however, music publishing revenues should recover and stabilise in our forecast period to 2014.