This report updates our readers on the disappointing advance of online console gaming in the UK. Although the UK is the third largest video games market in the world, and was the first country in Europe to offer online gaming for Xbox and PS2, we estimate only 90,000 UK online console gamers at the end of Q1 2004 (just over 1% of 128-bit consoles sold to date).

Modest progress has been made towards consolidation in commercial radio since we last reported on the issue in mid-2003. Although the new Communications Act has liberalised the ownership rules, the potential blocking role of the Competition Commission continues to be a restraining factor in the wake of the Galaxy/Vibe ruling. That ruling found that anti-competitive outcomes could emerge even if the ownership rules were respected and it has had a chilling effect on M&A activity.

We expect the music publishing market to grow from $3.7 billion in 2003 to $5 billion in 2010. Performance, mobile phone ring tone and synchronisation revenues will be the most important drivers of growth in the near term, with legitimate downloads becoming significant in the medium-term (a big if given piracy, but one that we still are confident about). These will offset the expected decline in mechanical copyright revenues derived from physical sales of recorded music, as volumes continue to fall. There are however worrying signs that the standard mechanical copyright rates currently being applied (according to an expired agreement) may be reduced, which has the potential to negate the expected market growth.

A new menace hangs over the future of regional newspapers, an industry already suffering from declining display advertising and paid circulation. Starting with the NHS Electronic Recruitment Programme (ERP) launched this month, we expect the public sector will shift recruitment activity to its own sites, in the wider context of e-Government objectives to bring all services online by 2005.

Our first report on Mediaset, the Italian commercial TV empire controlled by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, covers the company's strong results for 2003 and prospects for 2004 and 2005. The company reports on 24th March 2003.

Although the prospect of a successful Comcast bid for Disney has receded almost completely, we expect it to come back. The strategic imperative for Comcast to integrate with a leading content producer remains acute. It confronts a reinvigorated and very aggressive competitor in DirecTV. Satellite is rapidly draining high ARPU pay-TV subscribers from the cable companies. Increased expenditure on programming, services and marketing are the only responses possible to combat the erosion.

Does Freeview, the free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service, represent a serious and growing threat to the pay-TV offerings from BSkyB, NTL and Telewest? This report presents the results of a survey we commissioned that strongly suggests that Freeview is starting to drain subscribers from pay-TV platforms.

Location-based services (LBS) have long been credited as a key new mobile data application destined to generate substantial extra revenues for the mobile operators. A number of consumer-focused LBS have been now launched, and in this report we examine their progress and potential, drawing on our own experience and a number of consumer studies.

European digital TV take-up enjoyed a mild recovery in 2003, adding about 4 million households to reach 30 million households at the end of the year. We expect the momentum to build in 2004 and 2005. This is the main conclusion of our assessment of European trends in 2003 of take-up of digital satellite TV (DST), digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and digital cable TV (DCT).

As we predicted in our last report on the music business, the end of 2003 saw the beginning of the corporate activity that the industry has been itching to carry out for a decade. In this note, we look at the major record companies’ current position in the world music industry and consider how it is likely to evolve in 2004 and beyond.