Commercial Broadcasters' Association (COBA) TV hub report

Robin Foster and Tom Broughton have compiled a report for the Commercial Broadcasters Association (COBA) which examines the UK's future as a global TV hub, and the role that multichannel broadcasters can play in securing further growth in the UK TV sector.

The report highlights the contribution made by major multichannel companies such as Discovery, Disney, Viacom and Sky in helping the UK TV sector consolidate its scale and competitiveness, leveraging their  international funding and other resources, and using the UK as a commissioning centre for their global channel networks.

Download the full report and press release below.

Building a global TV hub: full report
Press release

Connectivity for the Gigabit Society

In this paper for Liberty Global, Rob Kenny and Brian Williamson review the right policy approaches to deliver the European Commission's 'Gigabit Society' ambitions.

The paper reviews evidence regarding consumer and business requirements for bandwidth, latency and so on. It also considers the technical capabilities, cost and deployment times for different broadband technologies, and concludes that there is a strong case for technology neutrality.

Consumer lock-in for fixed broadband

In this report for the CCIA, Rob Kenny and Aileen Dennis considered the barriers to switching in fixed broadband. Such barriers are important since many regulators expect consumers to 'police' ISP behaviours, such as traffic management policies and net neutrality violations, by switching to another provider if those policies do them harm. However, if switching barriers are high, consumers may not switch even in the face of such harm.

The report considers:

• Which types of switching barriers are present in broadband
• Whether ISP practices and statements suggest they believe switching barriers are high
• Levels of switching between providers
• The likelihood of switching in response to a decline in quality

The report also uses new consumer research to quantify broadband switching barriers, finding that for consumers in France, Germany and Italy they are equivalent to a cost of €183.

Consumer outcomes and price differentiation in UK telecoms

There has been growing attention in UK telecoms to the issue of fairness. In particular, there has been concern regarding 'loyalty penalties' (that is, a reversion to standard prices when initial discounts expire).

This paper by Robert Kenny & Brian Williamson argues that consumer outcomes in UK telecoms have been very positive. Further, price differentiation (and initial discounts in particular) are an absolutely standard feature of many markets. In telecoms initial discounts have great value since they both enhance competition (by acting as a negative switching cost) and encourage adoption.

Highlights of the paper are available as a presentation.

Content Regulation in an Internet Age

Tim Suter has authored a short report on the changing role of content regulation in an internet age.

You can download the paper here.