This issue of our regular report on TV trends in the UK looks at pay-TV subscriber numbers, the position of Freeview, and the impact of the huge expansion in the number of digital channels. Our analysis tries to clear away the fog produced by problems with BARB data over the past year.

BT will be announcing tomorrow its latest results on meeting the target of 1 million broadband connections by H1 2003. Some difficulty could be anticipated from the slow monthly pace of connections in H2 2002, mainly due to disappointing take-up of the revolutionary ISP-less BT Broadband product (as we had anticipated), despite high levels of marketing investment.

The public debate about the ITV merger has revolved around whether the maintenance of two separate sales houses is the appropriate remedy to be imposed by any Competition Commission inquiry. We argue that the real issues are more complex.

Interactivity via the TV set was one of the most misguided bubbles of the late 1990s. Fancy software and mini keyboards were supposed to provide a replacement for the PC. As matters have turned out, the use of SMS to accompany TV programmes is the means by which new technologies provide a limited form of interactivity to viewers.

On 23 January, the French Competition Council dealt what is likely to be a deathblow to the ambitions of Canal+ Group to obtain exclusive rights to French Premier League football events. The Competition Council ruled in favour of TPS and ordered the 2002 competition suspended pending delivery of its final ruling.

A few weeks ago, it looked as though EMI would follow Safeway into a frenzied auction in which trade buyers competed with canny buy-out funds. The rumoured interest was sparked by the steady fall in EMI's share price over the course of 2002, which had reduced the value of the entire company to close to the perceived worth of the Music Publishing division.

This report picks apart the evidence on why ITV1 is rapidly losing audience share. It shows that more intense competition in terrestrial homes is the key reason, not the impact of the growth of the multichannel universe. The decline of ITV1 is across all times of day and almost all demographic groups. Can ITV turn itself around in the face of this secular decline in audiences?

In January the UK Competition Commission (CC) is expected to issue its report on the pricing of mobile termination rates, an issue that was referred to it by Oftel after the UK operators rejected Oftel's initial decision. In this note we speculate on the likely contents of the report, and the impact on the UK mobile industry.

This report provides our forecasts for the growth rate of digital television homes in Europe over the next three years. We split countries into four groups and predict how the numbers of households with access to digital delivery of television will change in each group. The growth in satellite delivery has slowed considerably during late 2001 and 2002. The digitalisation of cable has stalled almost everywhere. So the only major uncertainty lies in the growth of digital terrestrial homes. This year has seen the failure of two of the four existing services, but the rebirth of the UK operator, in the form of the BBC's Freeview, may herald a more successful era. First indications are that Freeview is doing well. In other countries, however, the obstacles to the growth of a free-to-air service are more significant than in the UK and we do not believe that DTT will experience rapid growth in many other countries, despite the plethora of launches planned in the next few years.

This note looks at the position of TPS, the satellite pay-TV venture largely owned by TF1 in France. We particularly focus on the issue of payments for football rights because sports rights have become the crucial ingredient in pay-TV success, in France and elsewhere.