Financial Times

Vodafone and Liberty Global have secured approval from Brussels for their plan to combine their Dutch businesses, clearing the way for the companies to create the Netherlands’ second-largest mobile and cable operator.

British telecoms group Vodafone agreed to sell its Dutch consumer fixed line business in exchange for being allowed to go ahead with the joint venture, in a sign of the tough line Brussels has adopted on tie-ups that it fears could harm competition in the telecoms market. The deal marks the first time Vodafone and Liberty will have united a part of their mobile and fixed-line telecoms empires, after on-off discussions over the past two years failed to result in a wider agreement to merge their operations. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, said that “the commitments offered by Vodafone [would] ensure that Dutch consumers will continue to enjoy competitive prices and good choice.”

The four largest US wireless carriers are signing up new mobile phone customers at their slowest rate in more than 15 years as consumers put off switching networks and upgrading their smartphones.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile US and Sprint recruited 7.1 million of the most lucrative “postpaid” mobile phone customers in the second quarter. Analysts are divided on the reason for the phenomenon, with some blaming pent-up demand for the Apple iPhone 7 and a paucity of new smartphone features. Others argue that efforts by the networks to stop customers leaving have started to bear fruit, resulting in a smaller pool of switchers for their rivals to pick off.

Openreach should become a “legally separate” company within the BT Group, the UK telecommunications regulator said in a long-awaited verdict on the future of the telecoms group’s profitable infrastructure arm.

Ofcom said that Openreach, which owns the fibres and wires that allow homes and businesses in Britain to get broadband connections, should have an independent board and chairman, as well as control over its own budget.

The regulator stopped short of recommending a full-blown break-up — an option favoured by rivals TalkTalk, Sky and Vodafone. But it said that complete structural separation, with Openreach and BT under distinct ownership, remained an option if the infrastructure division does not act “more independently” and “take decisions for the good of the wider telecoms industry and its customers”.

Europe’s largest wireless carriers have pledged to launch superfast 5G networks in at least one city in every European Union country by 2020, as part of a manifesto signed by the heads of BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and Vodafone among others. But as a quid pro quo for more investment, controversial new EU rules on net neutrality should be watered down, according to the document signed by 17 different companies. In the document, the telecoms groups threaten to postpone investment unless regulators offer more light-touch arrangements.

After a record summer in 2013, box-office receipts for the 2014 peak moviegoing season have fallen by more than 15 percent. If it were any time other than summer, this would not be cause for alarm.

But the period defined in Hollywood as the 18 weeks between the first Friday in May and Labor Day (the first Monday in September) is when the studios typically make 40 percent of their annual revenues.

British people spend more time glued to screens than they do sleeping, according to the annual report on the nation’s communications habits by Ofcom.

The regulator found that average television viewing has dropped below four hours a day for the first time since 2009. Ofcom found that people using several devices at the same time -- for example, making calls while surfing the Internet on a tablet -- meant that total use of media and communications averaged more than 11 hours a day so far in 2014.

This was an increase of more than two hours since the regulator conducted equivalent research in 2010 and reflects a sharp increase in Internet use on the move as mobile data networks have improved.

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has offered $80bn for Time Warner – setting up the possibility of the world’s biggest merger in media since AOL bought Time Warner at the height of dotcom mania in 2000.

What would Murdoch get for his money?

Television clout, Sports prowess, A bigger bite of Hollywood, and International reach

YouTube has postponed a controversial plan to block certain record labels from its video platform, following an outcry from the creative community and growing scrutiny from European regulators.

Two weeks ago, the Google-owned company warned that “in a matter of days” it would start taking down videos from a number of record labels that had refused to sign its new licensing terms.

But the uproar that followed the revelations has prompted YouTube to make a last-minute U-turn. The world’s largest video streaming company is allowing more time to negotiate a solution with labels, although it still intends to block them if they cannot reach agreement, according to people familiar with the matter.

YouTube has already sent letters to a number of record labels giving notice that their existing contracts will be terminated.

The media industry failed in 2013 to persuade more customers to pay for its online news services, in spite of experimenting with new ways of charging for content, new research has found.

According to a survey of 19,000 people in 10 countries, conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, only one internet user in 10 was willing to pay for digital news -- exactly the same proportion as in 2012. However, the study did contain some encouraging news for media groups as, even though paying customer numbers remained flat, the proportion willing to commit to subscriptions -- as opposed to one-off payments, day passes or app downloads -- increased.

Of all those paying for online news, 59 percent now have a subscription, compared with 43 percent in 2012. As subscribers generally pay more than occasional customers, they are likely to have boosted the online revenues for many publishers. This phenomenon is consistent with the findings of another report by US research group Pew that concluded “more revenue is being squeezed out of a smaller, or at least flat, number of paying consumers.”

Digital video is making a leap from the tablet to the television. A growing number of US homes are utilizing streaming devices, such as the Apple TV box, Google’s Chromecast and Roku, or Internet connected televisions to watch online video, according to media consultancy and research group Frank N Magid Associates.

People with connected TVs are watching nearly 12 hours of video programming each week via the Internet, according to research from video advertising company Tremor Video, and Nielsen, the media measurement company. Of that, people spend about seven hours per week watching film or TV show-length programming and about five hours watching short videos, such as five-minute clips. That compares to about 33 hours per week people spend watching traditional television.

The uptick in digital video viewing on television sets comes as more people in the US cancel their pay-television subscriptions in favor of cheaper online streaming alternatives.