Both subscriber and revenue growth in the UK home communications market perked up in Q4, with an easing of weather related supply-side constraints helping the former and firm pricing helping that latter. We expect both trends to continue into 2013

BT’s high speed broadband net adds accelerated in the quarter, as did that of the other DSL operators, albeit from a much lower base. High speed broadband is already a mass market phenomenon within the BT and Virgin Media subscriber bases, with it only a matter of time before this spreads further

Virgin Media had a record quarter, as it continues to benefit from being able to offer high broadband speeds at very competitive prices, with its planned acquisition by Liberty Global unlikely to change its strategy or performance going forward

The Competition Commission has provisionally decided that local (but not national) advertisers will suffer if the Global/GMG radio merger is passed and its suggested remedies are for Global to divest stations outside London and the West Midlands or simply unravel the whole transaction.

If these provisional findings are confirmed in May 2013, Global will find itself in the unenviable position of looking for a purchaser or more of radio assets, since the transaction was finalised in June 2012.

Although the Competition Commission is likely to prefer a single buyer of the portfolio to minimize the purchaser’s risk, it may be content with a carve up of the GMG stations, in which case we see Bauer Media as being a strong contender for stations out-with its current footprint.

The US recorded music market (at retail level) touched bottom in 2012 on strong digital sales and adoption of digital subscription services, and will grow in 2013 The industry’s licensing revenues in 2012 were also boosted by much higher performance revenues collected by SoundExchange from digital radio services such as webcaster Pandora and satellite provider Sirius XM The margin enhancing effect of an improved sales mix as the physical to digital transition proceeds to a licensing model is mirrored in the results of Warner Music Group, which also includes a music publishing segment

BT Group’s acquisition of ESPN’s television business in the UK and Ireland marks an important step in cementing BT Sport’s position as the number two premium sports provider from the moment of launch.

The acquisition also raises the stakes, leaving BT with the strategic challenge of what distribution to opt for on the satellite and cable platforms to mitigate the high costs of BT Sport, but without overly sacrificing its USP for strengthening customer retention and building demand for high speed broadband on its own platform.

Crucial to BT’s success with BT Sport, yet obscured by the intense focus on the impending sports contest between BT and Sky, is how BT exploits YouView and multicast, all part of the bigger picture.

The UK 4G spectrum auction raised a total of £2.3bn, broadly in line with similar auctions, although the highest quality spectrum raised less and the lowest quality spectrum raised more than might have been expected

The main short term consequences are as was expected beforehand; Vodafone and O2 will launch 4G services around May/June 2013 and H3G will launch in October 2013

Longer term, O2 and H3G may suffer from their lack of 2.6GHz spectrum, although with other bands likely to come free within the next ten years this may not affect them

EE’s Q4 results exhibited a resilient performance for a market leader, with net adds and revenue growth slightly declining, but likely in line with a weak market

The 4G launch and partial rebrand were implemented in October 2012, and resulted in little customer leakage (a substantial short term risk), but also little evidence yet of ARPU enhancement (a longer term upside)

With the rebrand successfully completed, a headstart in 4G established, and significant scope for merger synergy savings to come, the outlook is positive

In 2006, the EU Commission forced the Premier League to sell TV rights to at least two separate broadcasters. The explicit purpose was to encourage the return of some matches to free-to-air channels and to stimulate competition, driving down prices and encouraging more people to watch football on TV The regulatory intervention has had none of the intended effects. Instead, insisting on multiple buyers has inflated the price of watching football and dragged many over-adventurous companies into bidding against pay-TV incumbents The only beneficiaries of the EU’s actions have been the players, whose salaries continue to rise exponentially, capturing all the extra money that broadcasters have paid

The Conservatives have put forward their proposal for a system of press regulation set up by a Royal Charter – an unusual constitutional device used here to avoid the need for statute

Their proposal represents a watering down of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations in several areas. Questions remain about how independent the resulting regulator would be, and whether the ‘slippery slope’ towards greater regulation is really avoided

Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Hacked Off, the campaign group for victims of press abuses, have all expressed concerns about the proposal. Negotiations between the three main parties will eventually produce a solution, but are ongoing

Vodafone’s European revenue growth slowed again in the December quarter, to -4.8% on a reported basis from -3.8% in the previous quarter, with growth excluding the MTR impact also dropping While macroeconomic conditions and the decline in the mobile broadband dongle market are not helping, there also appears to be some competitive weakness, with churn increasing markedly in the quarter The new Vodafone Red tariffs are sound from a strategic perspective, but in the short term they do not appear to be helping subscriber numbers or ARPU

Virgin Media had a very strong Q4, with subscriber net adds improving across all main products, ARPU solid, and margins improving to record levels, with revenue growth set to accelerate in the coming quarters

This was overshadowed by the announcement that Liberty Global is planning to acquire Virgin Media to form the world’s largest cable TV subscriber base

The impact of this acquisition on the rest of the UK market would be minor, as Liberty Global is likely to follow the current Virgin Media approach on content, network and pricing