21st Century Fox and Sky plan to notify their proposed merger to the European Commission, perhaps by March, and obtain clearance on competition grounds, as rapidly as in 2010.

The merger could also face, along the lines of 2010, a separate regulatory process in the UK on media plurality grounds, by a decision of Secretary of State Karen Bradley.

If the UK process happens, Ofcom will provide its advice on the merger’s impact on news and current affairs, whose consumption has shifted massively online since 2010.

As smartphone ownership nears saturation in almost all consumer groups, the base for the UK digital economy is widening: media consumption continues to move to connected devices and use of consumer services on mobile grows

Ecommerce is now responsible for 75% of retail growth, steady even during periods of decline for the overall market

Google and Facebook take up almost 90% of gross online advertising growth this year, and the ecommerce and mobile service markets show early signs of platform concentration

Brexit has not noticeably depressed advertising spend in 2016, as consumer spend is buoyant, fueled by borrowing and lower savings. Yet, businesses are being cautious as uncertainty weighs on the future rules of trade with the EU

We forecast total advertising spend to rise by 0.6% at constant prices in 2017, almost entirely due to digital growth, which is expanding the total advertising market. Its share has soared from 1% in 2000 and looks likely to hit 50% in 2017

Up to now digital growth has always been at the expense of print and not television, but this could just be changing as mobile increasingly holds centre stage for the consumer

This is the third and final report in our annual review of vertical marketplaces (classifieds), focused on used cars, and follows Vertical marketplaces overview and recruitment outlook [2016-116] and Property classified marketplace [2016-119]. Auto Trader continues to dominate online auto listings, accounting for 85% of UK revenues in 2015 by our estimates as total UK online auto spend increased 13%.  We believe that growth will slow to -7% this year and low single digits in 2017/18 as Brexit bites and consumer confidence retreats, although used and new car sales have so far remained buoyant since the vote. In common with the other classified verticals we see a period of sustained innovation on the horizon which will challenge the existing market leaders; data provision rather than audience listings will likely become the main source of value to advertisers while further out the advent of autonomous vehicles promises to disrupt the established structure of the entire auto industry.

Pay access now predominates in print-rooted national digital news across Europe, with meters the most popular model. Reliance on digital advertising is retreating. Best of class Continental publishers have roughly stabilised revenue, and the risk of print ad decline acceleration looms – as in the UK

Digital is still typically below 20% of revenue as online advertising CPMs decrease and newsstand buyers are reluctant to migrate to digital subscriptions – on current trends digital revenues will be insufficient to sustain a full-scale newsroom

Emerging innovations include aggregation, bundling (with broadcast, music, telecoms), and youth-skewed spin offs, but execution is uneven. Profitable native digital news sites provide templates for focused coverage at a fraction of traditional newspapers’ costs

This is the second of three reports in our annual review of vertical marketplaces (classifieds), focused on property, and follows Vertical marketplaces overview and recruitment classified outlook [2016-116]

Stamp duty reforms and the impact of the Brexit referendum triggered a -10% fall in UK residential property sales between April and October 2016 and the consensus among estate agents and commentators is that the property slowdown will continue into 2016/17 as buyer confidence recedes. As a result, we expect UK property classified advertising to slip into decline in 2016/17 driven by losses in print, while online advertising growth will slow to low single digits

In the online market, while Rightmove continues to deliver outstanding financial results from its simple listings model, we believe that a new phase of innovation is imminent. Consumers are demanding enhanced services through data and personalisation, and there is clear potential for virtual/augmented reality and artificial intelligence to disrupt the market in the longer term

Brexit poses direct risks to exports to the Continent of regulated services, such as audiovisual (AV) media services, if the UK ceases to qualify for the Single Market

Since 1994, the EU has formalised a ‘cultural exception’ in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and in all trade agreements aside from the European Economic Area (EEA)

Many countries have emulated the policy since, making it challenging for the UK’s AV cluster to gain significant additional market access from future bilateral trade deals

UK digital advertising has enjoyed strong growth in 2016, with forecast growth of 12.7% for the full year, just scraping under the £10 billion milestone

However, this growth is highly uneven, being led by mobile display and mobile search, while desktop spend looks set to decline by over 5% year-on-year. More significantly, 90% of the growth is accruing to the two big players: Facebook and Google

Cross-device campaigns, the convergence of marketing and advertising functions, and new consumption trends all threaten our traditional categorisations of online ad spend

Our annual review of vertical marketplaces (classifieds) is presented in three reports, with the first providing a summary of the key macro trends, technological developments and spending outlook for the total UK classified advertising market followed by a detailed analysis of recruitment marketing; we will look at the property and auto verticals separately in two upcoming publications. Overall, we believe that the UK classified market is poised for a period of sustained innovation as the print to digital transition matures and incumbents search for new revenue streams induced by slowing digital revenue growth and consumer and client demand coupled with increasingly applicable emerging technologies. Across the three verticals we identify voice, video, virtual and augmented reality, user-generated content; and, critically, Artificial Intelligence as potentially disruptive forces. In terms of macroeconomic drivers, we observe that the Brexit referendum has had a minimal impact thus far but believe that economic uncertainty around the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU will prove a significant dampener on revenue growth in the next two years.

In recruitment, the jobs market remains in growth despite the initial shock from the referendum and the recruitment industry continues to grow its revenues, up 2% in 2016 by our estimates. However, recruitment advertising spend itself was down -1% in the first half of this year reflecting the saturation of the online market as the print to digital transition reaches its latter stages; online now accounts for 76% of recruitment spend. The pay per listings model of traditional job boards appears increasingly outdated and in the future we believe that recruitment advertising services’ main value will lie in collecting and organising job seeker data rather than charging for advertising space, a view corroborated by Microsoft’s $22.6bn acquisition of LinkedIn announced in June. Meanwhile, the online jobs aggregator Indeed continues to build its revenue share while print brands’ digital revenues fell in both 2015 and H1 2016.

Snap’s IPO is reportedly pressing ahead as expected, suggesting a remarkably early maturity for the company’s advertising business model

Snapchat creatively adapts the tried and true TV advertising formula, focusing on content, context and audience affinity – this goes against the grain of digital advertising and could unlock new brand budgets for online

After an IPO, Snap’s founders would have the freedom to expand their platform with new content, distribution channels and even devices