MediaCommunications

MediaCom View: Freeviews 10 million sales, whilst impressive, accounts for both unique sales and secondary sets in the UK, with 6.4m homes adopting Freeview as their primary digital option, which leaves them still some way behind Sky's presence in over 8m unique homes. Freeview has recently been described as 'pushing 20th century technology to the 21st century market' and will struggle to deliver the demands of HDTV later in the year, highlighting Sky's continued strengths within the market.

MediaCom View: IPC have revamped their 20 year old title Country Homes and Interiors as the Home Interest market welcomes launches from News Magazines, Inside Out, and Media 10, 4Homes. In response to reader research the April issue will see a number of significant changes. Firstly the new content will offer more real country homes, seasonal food features, commencing with an Easter special, weekend living and more general lifestyle features, such as how to earn whilst living in the country. In addition to this, the magazine has also been made squarer in size and new fonts have been used throughout. Also changing will be the cover price, up from 2.95 to 3.20. Editor Rhoda Parry has said that The new generation of country dwellers are changing the face of the countryside, this being due to urban switching, the rejuvenation of market towns and the new-build estates in rural areas.

MediaCom View: George Reyes, Google's Chief Financial Officer, admitted at an investor conference in New York that Googles "growth will slow", although he added, "Will it be precipitous? I doubt it." As a direct result of his statement, shares in Google fell 13% in early trading on Wall Street. 99% of Google's revenue is earned through the advertising space it auctions off next to the search results. The paid-search market will stabilize over time and Mr Reyes' comments, taken in context, make sense. The real challenge for Google and its US$111.26B market valuation, other than defending market share from the likes of Yahoo and MSN, will be that of effectively monetizing its other activities which include Picasa, Blogger, Google Earth, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Sholar, Google Pages, Google Base and many more.

MediaCom View : A Radio Station's promise of performance is incredibly important as it's the basis of what they were awarded the broadcast licence for in the first place. Some stations don't always stick to their remit and may include more or less speech for example or not enough local interest programming in favour of more sexy or competitive output. The second phase of the Radio Review lays down Localness Guidelines, setting out how stations can best deliver local elements of their output. Previously Ofcom said localness could be delivered using a number of different elements, which included news, comment, outside broadcasts, what's-on, travel news, interviews, charity involvement, weather, local artists and local arts and culture. Ofcom has now added sport coverage, phone-ins and listener interactivity to this. Stations should be providing output that is specific to their area and offers an alternative to national or other regional services.