Growth in advertising for TV and the largest popular newspapers has not spread to local media, with regional press suffering declines in recruitment, auto and retail in 2010 despite colossal falls the previous year

Operating profit recovery in 2010 demonstrates firm management cost control, although the largest businesses have suffered 20% decline in annual profits since 2006

Publishers have engaged in various brand extensions, yet digital and other revenues remain stubbornly low, suggesting the scale of opportunity is destined to be a fraction of that from the sector’s recent past – and that consolidation is an industry inevitability

The New York Times is shortly to switch its free desktop and app services into a part-free and part-paid metered system. We also expect the UK Times to switch from its subscription ‘Berlin wall’ to a similar system

In the UK, quality newspaper circulation is moving into freefall, as smartphone and tablet devices provide target consumers with 24/7 news coverage on the sofa and on the move

Paid apps are in the pipeline for the Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Mail, and for some Trinity Mirror local and regional sites, as publishers enter a new era of digital innovation

The concept of demerging Sky News is evidently a plausible one and we consider it very unlikely that critics of the deal will have much success undermining its appropriateness as a protection of plurality

However, it is harder to judge whether the proposed implementation secures the channel’s independence as fully and clearly as it might

We outline a series of issues that the information supplied for the public consultation does not appear to deal with. We note, in particular, that the proposed undertakings seem not to block Rupert Murdoch, or members of his family, from buying the 60.9% of the shares in Sky News not to be held by News Corp

Enders Analysis co-hosted its annual conference, 'Media and Telco: 2011 and Beyond', in conjunction with OC&C and BNP Paribas, on 31 January 2011. We can now provide a transcript of the presentations by industry leaders from a wide variety of organisations.

Publishers are committing no offence by using Amazon as their agent and insisting on a high price for their e-books. Owners are entitled to set their own price and remunerate retailers with a standard percentage commission

On the other hand, retailers such as Amazon that demand publishers do not sell their e-books through other channels at lower prices may well run into legal trouble

Separately, the recent assessment of the legality of using a Greek decoder card to view Premier League football in an English pub will eventually mean that retailers and rights owners will be unable to block the purchase of virtual goods in one EU country for use in another. Publishers may move towards setting single prices for the whole of the EU

2010 marked the recovery of lost ground since 2006 as ITV outperformed the TV advertising market, which saw year-on-year growth of 14-15%, and delivered £40 million in cost savings as well as benefitting from a further £20 million reduction in Channel 3 licence payments

The short term outlook for continued advertising revenue growth in 2011 looks promising in spite of the risks of renewed downturn due to uncertainties about the economy and retail spend

ITV’s five year transformation plan is now more clearly sign posted. The company seems to be taking the right steps, though it will take another year or two before the results start to show

Canal+ France has issued a prospectus in view of the April flotation of Lagardère’s 20% stake, which could still reach an agreement to sell with majority owner Vivendi

The prospectus provides a unique insight on the performance of Canal+, which has increased ARPU and profitability in the past three years, despite erosion of its subscriber base due to competitive pressures and the recession

Management’s revenue and profit targets for 2013 appear within reach, and we also see potential upsides

Q1 2011 TV NAR (Net Advertising Revenue) has delivered strong year-on-year growth of about 8%, yet the monthly variations are large, with a predictably sharp decrease in March based on past year comparatives countered by a large Christmas-style upswing in the Easter and Royal Wedding month of April

After several years of decoupling total display and TV advertising trends from those in the broader economy due to negative structural causes, the underlying positive correlations are expected to reappear as the structural factors subdue

The general economic outlook suggests stable growth in TV NAR during 2011 of about 5%, remaining flat to marginally positive in real terms beyond 2011 as long as conditions of weak economic growth last, but with significant risks of a sudden sharp downturn in the short to medium term

After a bounceback of 3% in commercial radio consumption in 2010, we forecast a return to the long term trend of decline, at an average rate of around 1.2% a year, as young people increasingly turn to other music listening options

We forecast revenue growth in 2010 of +3.8% for 2010, despite the collapse of COI money, due to stronger private sector appetite for radio as an advertising medium

The removal of localness requirements and liberalisation of product placement rules should help improve the operating model of large industry groups like Global

Citigroup acquired Terra Firma’s EMI Group on 1 February and may look for buyers in the near future. Although Terra Firma paid far too much for EMI Group in 2007, it significantly improved the operating metrics

Warner Music Group has entered the fray as a buyer or a seller of music assets. We think WMG’s management will keep the recorded music division and sell Warner/Chappell

A pairing of the recorded music divisions of WMG and EMI will face moderate regulatory clearance risk; we discount private equity interest in recorded music assets amidst the industry decline, ill-suited to the PE model