Hostilities between Sky and Virgin have intensified during the course of cable’s re-launch, Sky’s announcement of its pay-DTT plans, and bilateral negotiations over channel carriage fee payments on the satellite and cable platforms

Virgin Media’s Q4 results were again mixed – increasing competition is continuing to have a significant effect on net additions but, as yet, most higher ARPU customers are staying put, permitting modest revenue growth

Set for launch in May/June, the BBC’s iPlayer is a PC-based application offering live and on-demand access to around 3,500 hours of BBC programmes per week via the internet, using peer-to-peer (P2P) and multi-cast technology to overcome cost and bandwidth issues

With 84,000 net pay-TV additions in 2006, Sogecable resumed subscriber growth, but we expect this pace to decline in 2007 unless Sogecable re-positions on basic and expands distribution from satellite to cable and DSL

Using a little understood provision of the merger rules, the government has asked Ofcom to take a look at the Sky stake in ITV, just in case the OFT did not come up with the right answer the first time round. As a result of the intervention, Ofcom will decide whether the share purchase reduced the number of separately managed broadcasters in the UK. Since this is almost exactly what the OFT is already doing, it is impossible to see how Ofcom could reach a different conclusion to the OFT. In this sense, the intervention has little point

The spat between Virgin and Sky over cable carriage of Sky basic channels has generated much blogging, mostly supportive of Virgin, although neither party appears to be gaining from the ‘zero sum game’ dispute

The boardroom coup at Scottish Media Group instigated by Hanover has revamped management with the aim of executing a turnaround strategy quickly

Canal+ targeted subscription (as opposed to subscriber) growth of 1.3 million by 2010 has a lot of stretch in view of the intense competition from free-to-air (FTA) services and in particular digital terrestrial TV

Strong FY Q3 2007 results across all parts of Sky’s increasingly diversified portfolio testify to the success of its multiple product and service strategy as it makes the transition from a high price, high value to low price, high value business

Virgin Media’s Q1 top line results were again mixed, with a growing number of customers leaving as competition intensifies, despite the rebrand to Virgin. But it could have been worse; most higher-spending customers are remaining