This report provides an update on the UK commercial radio sector, covering listening trends, digital platforms, group strategies and advertising expenditure.

Over the last few years, Global Radio has cleverly exploited the regulatory framework to rebrand, merge and share programming across its stations, creating the quasi-national Heart and Capital networks and slashing its operating costs in the process. But Global appears to have misjudged the competition regulators’ attitude towards local media mergers in its purchase of GMG Radio and has been ordered to sell off eight stations in seven local markets.

With at least eight stations to be divested from the Global/GMG portfolio and Absolute Radio still potentially up for sale, hot on the heels of Bauer's recent acquisition of Planet Rock, the radio industry is in the midst of a new wave of M&A activity. This report assesses the performance of the leading commercial groups and the strategies they have employed in recent years.

Alongside the formation of branded networks, another key development has been the launch of digital spin-off stations, first by Absolute Radio and more recently by Smooth and Kiss. We also discuss the impact of DAB growth on listening behaviour, the continuing challenge of getting digital radio into cars and the potential for smartphone listening growth.

Following a return to broadband subscriber growth last quarter, TalkTalk has now returned to overall revenue growth for the first time since acquiring Tiscali in 2009

Pay TV net adds nearly doubled to 150k; the associated SACs weighed on EBITDA, but TV did support the upper tier ‘Plus’ base returning to solid growth

TTG’s outlook is positive, save for uncertainties over regulation, and the unpredictable impact of BT Sport on broadband market shares

BT has thrown down the gauntlet to Sky, as it has launched a premium sports offering that will be free to all BT broadband customers upon its launch on 1 August 2013 The product being ‘free’ makes it a potentially effective defence of BT’s broadband base, with the possibility for win-back as well, but this also raises the direct operating losses that have to be set against these benefits The main damage to Sky comes from elevated rights costs, with there being a risk of further inflation in three years as another major round of renewals comes up

This comprehensive, 52 slide report provides detailed analysis of the UK print consumer magazine sector in terms of circulation and consumer and advertiser expenditure

Circulation decline has drifted from important, but non-core, male and teen readers, to young, lower and middle income, female readers, with UK paid circulation decline accelerating, down 9% year-on-year in 2012 compared to 6% in 2011

We discuss the impact of mobile devices, the merits of publisher’s discounting and cover price strategies, the continuing success of free magazines, the importance of 'category killer' digital services such as Mail Online and the challenging relationship between publishers and retailers. This report also provides a description and analysis of the IPC Media print magazine portfolio

Facebook’s audience and engagement continue to rise as a result of the migration to mobile devices – on its current trajectory more people will access the social network via mobile devices than PCs by the end of 2014

The transition to mobile is cannibalising desktop time on Facebook but significantly higher usage on mobile devices and rising mobile ad yield is driving growth in overall consumption and revenue

Whilst CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claim that “Facebook is now a mobile company” is increasingly justified, longer term questions remain over whether it can maintain its central position on the mobile internet or develop significant new streams of revenue

Q3 2013 results show a sound financial performance and strong growth in home communications, offset by low DTH net additions under a testing economic climate With a heavy emphasis on its own product initiatives in the broader connected screen and on demand space, the results release also shows Sky to be preparing for increasing competition from BT Vision and others in the IPTV space Although the rising competition promises extra programme and marketing costs and constraints on future product price increases, we expect limited impact on subscriber numbers, but also significant opportunities for incremental revenues

The completion of digital switchover has left an equilibrium between the digital satellite, cable and terrestrial platforms that is not expected to alter significantly by 2020

The main anticipated change over the forecast period is pay-TV subscription take-up where the 50/50 split between pay and free TV households is expected to rise steadily to 60/40, or even 67/33 if we include more individually-, as opposed to household-, based OTT online services such as Netflix, LoveFilm or Sky’s NOW TV

Most of the pay-TV subscription growth will occur at the lower end of the price range among BT Vision and TalkTalk customers, where the popularity and success of YouView will be critical in driving subscriber growth as TiVo has been and will be to Virgin Media holding its ground

In January 2013, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google of anticompetitive practices in its core search and advertising business – a corresponding European antitrust investigation is pending, but looks set to take a (slightly) stricter stance on Google.

The FTC’s closing of the search bias investigation is key to Google’s strategy to integrate and expand its general and vertical search products, such as its e-commerce channels Google Shopping and Google Maps, with direct positive revenue implications.

The European Commission will most likely not impose search bias remedies later this year that significantly impact Google’s current practices, and we therefore have a positive outlook on additional vertical search revenues materialising.

Apple’s numbers have got so good they’re bad: after growing at over 50% for two years, relative revenue growth has, inevitably, slowed. The products remain very strong, and direct competitors continue to have little impact. (Apple’s mobile phone market share has never been higher, for example.) However, the premium phone market itself, which the iPhone dominates, is at a potential tipping point.

Virgin Media’s consumer business had a very strong quarter in revenue growth terms, but a weaker one in subscriber terms, both driven by the annual price increase occurring during the quarter

On the wholesale side, the company signed up both Sky and two mobile operators for backhaul services, likely at BT Wholesale’s expense

Net net Virgin Media is well on course, with the completion of the acquisition by Liberty Global expected by the end of Q2 unlikely to derail this