This note provides an update on UK Internet trends covering the post-Christmas period. It covers usage, shopping and other online activities of the 17.7 million connected adults. The note highlights the feminisation of the UK online population and its impact on shopping behaviour.

Broadband cable suffers from several technical performance problems, including installation, actual performance and the costs of providing content, in particular to gamers.

In Germany, less than 5% of cable homes have been upgraded to digital, suggesting that Deutsche Telekom’s DSL push has irresistible momentum.

This report looks at how consumers in the UK spend their money on TMT goods and services. It tracks changes in the portion of household expenditure going to TMT. It shows that expenditure patterns are very different in the lowest 40% of all households, with very little expenditure going on newer technologies. The greatest increase in TMT expenditures has been concentrated in the upper middle of the income range. The richest consumers have actually decreased the portion of their expenditure devoted to TMT in the last five years.

On the other hand, the published commentary failed to note that the new BARB panel will allow analysts to get more accurate figures for the actual watching of TV advertisements. This data, to be released in a couple of weeks, will provide important new information. We doubt whether the figures will make pleasant reading.

This report provides our forecasts for online advertising revenues in 2001 and 2002 in the UK, Germany and France. Our central forecasts are for a decline of 3% in online advertising in 2001 over 2000 (€610 million versus €615 million), and for a maximum increase of 8% in calendar year 2002 (€660 million). For Europe as a whole, online advertising will be flat: increases in Italy and Spain are offset by decline in more mature markets.

In this report we look at one of the subsectors of UK media - regional newspapers - to see whether these companies would be relatively resilient in a downturn - this is the product of our review. The main points are as follows:

Our rationale is simple. This year has been profoundly affected by the impact of high levels of inventory in the early months of the year. This stock has now been disposed of, and handset shipments from manufacturers will revert to a level more aligned with retail demand. This will push up shipments next year from this year's artificially depressed level.

This note has been prompted by a flurry of activity in UK television media: the renaming of ONdigital (‘ITV Digital’) and its absorption into the ITV mother ship; the launch of ITV Sport, a new pay-TV channel aimed at sports enthusiasts; the impending final results of BSkyB (‘Sky’) on 25th July 2001 (dealt with in a separate note issued on 20th July) and the renewed concerns over the funding of the UK cable companies.

ITV Digital itself stresses the importance of thinking about the 'platform' and its associated channel, ITV Sport separately. ITV Digital and its shareholders, Carlton and Granada, are highly optimistic about the future performance of the platform. We look at each of the many reasons for optimism that they have advanced. There is strength in many of their arguments, but we still see their breakeven target as very difficult to achieve.

This report updates our thinking on the market segmentation of Internet access in the UK, one year after we buried the European portal model (Portal Strategies, May 2000). It analyses the connectivity needs of large businesses, medium-sized and small enterprises, and residential customers.

NTL's share price slide over the last few weeks has focused attention again on the prospects for UK pay-TV.

This report extends the analysis to the two largest European incumbents, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. We look at trends in market share, wholesale and retail pricing, and the impact of increased competition. We identify the companies' strategies in the face of these forces and show the impact of stretched balance sheets on corporate actions.

This report updates our UK E-Commerce 2000 report from December 2000 and our European B2C E-Commerce Update of April 2001. It draws mainly on data provided by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) collected in February 2001.

In this report Chris Goodall carries out a brief analysis of Sky's results published today and compares them to our projections.

Our emphasis in this note is on ITV Digital. What are the options open to the two shareholders of ITV Digital, Carlton and Granada? How can they reduce the burden of supporting ITV Digital through the next few years? What is the likelihood (or otherwise) of substantial improvement in that company’s results, in particular break even in 2003?