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.

The Competition Commission inquiry into the proposed merger of Carlton and Granada imposed a remedy called Contracts Rights Renewal. Ofcom devised the details. We conducted a series of interviews to determine the likely effect of these new rules.

So far, the PVR has had indifferent success. Despite the extraordinary enthusiasm of owners, PVRs have struggled to become a fixture in the home. This is now changing as prices fall and pay-TV operators begin to push the technology. This report examines the future of this device.

The elaborate mating dance in the music industry is nearing a conclusion. We look briefly at the main participants in the game and conclude that the Warner/EMI combination still looks likely to happen.

BSkyB’s quarterly results will be delivered on Friday 14th November. Prior to these new figures, this report gives our views on the attainability of BSkyB’s medium term targets.