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

Last week Apple introduced a new subscription payment system for publishers using its devices, but also clamped down on publishers using their own payment systems, obliging them to offer Apple’s system (with a 30% commission) in parallel or leave the platform

For publishers selling their own content with no marginal cost, this is an extra cost that most will grudgingly accept. But aggregators obliged to pay rights-holders a fixed fee for each content sale, such as music or ebook vendors, face bigger problems: some will be forced off the platform

Apple is trying to strengthen its ecosystem, increasing the range and user-friendliness of apps and locking users in with content only usable on its devices. Yet it risks pushing some popular services off its platform entirely, increasing the appeal of the newly launched Android devices

VMed’s Q4 results were strong financially, although this was partly due to an exceptionally sharp drop in capex; cable volume growth continued to weaken in the face of strong competition from BT Retail and BSkyB

VMed’s results for the past seven quarters have benefited heavily from price increases, which are unlikely to have as great an impact in 2011

Management is developing a range of strong initiatives, including TiVo, 30 and 100 Mbit/s broadband, and fixed-mobile service convergence, but the financial benefits are likely to be felt in 2012 and beyond rather than in 2011. A revamped Virgin Media Business should have a more immediate impact, but we expect group performance in 2011 to be more modest

With the Daily, Rupert Murdoch has launched an iPad-only mass market ‘newspaper’ with a fifth of the journalists and just 15% of the revenue per reader of a conventional popular newspaper. Whether it succeeds or not, this sort of radicalism may be essential if the spirit of newspapers is to survive

The Daily is using every tool Apple and the social web can give it to drive adoption, but for all the video and twitter feeds it remains at heart a print product on a tablet. The first truly native iPad news voice has yet to come

The Daily and its peers are discovering that a platform owner such as Apple has power the print unions never dreamed of, with the payment models they want conflicting with bigger strategic objectives at technology companies ten times their size

The year ended on a strong note, as Sky broke passed its milestone of ten million homes and achieved yet another record breaking quarter for multi-product take-up

Home communications once more achieved exceptional growth, with triple play penetration jumping from 18% to 24%, while HD take-up resumed strong momentum after halving in Q1 2011

Financially, the company has never looked in better shape, with good prospects for continuing strong multi-product growth, leaving the question of where Sky will choose to invest next to drive further revenue growth

Jeremy Hunt announced on 25 January his intention to refer News Corp’s bid for BSkyB to the Competition Commission

However, he is first providing News Corp with the opportunity to address Ofcom’s concerns, and in so doing protecting his department and Ofcom from any legal threats

If Ofcom or the OFT say the News Corp remedies don’t go far enough, Jeremy Hunt will be then almost obliged to refer the transaction to the CC

Google’s UK gross revenue rose 18% YoY in Q4 to £550 million (excluding estimated hedging gains), with bad weather and the impending VAT rise helping to deliver better than expected performance

The company’s core search business continues to be a key driver and beneficiary of the growth in consumer e-commerce, which we project will increase by 20% in 2011, compared to 4-5% for retail sales (excluding fuels)

We have raised our 2011 growth forecast for Google’s UK business to 15% – with search supported by growth in mobile and display – we now project UK internet advertising spend will increase 11% this year