GAMES HARDWARE

ASIA: Wii's success drives Nintendo's market capitalisation.

Both Microsoft and Sony have cut the price of their core consoles in the US market. The various formats of the Xbox will see discounts of between $20 and $50.

These moves are in part spurred by the availability of the cheaper Nintendo Wii.

The Wii is outselling Sony's Playstation 3 by a factor of six in the Japanese market and a factor of 2 in the USA. This success resulted in Nintendo's market capitalisation outstripping Sony's in July 2007.

GAMBLING MARKETS

EUROPE: Television advertising by gambling companies deregulated by the 2005 Gambling Act.

The Gambling Act 2005 which comes into force on 1 September 2007 contains a number of provisions, key amongst which is the deregulation of television advertising.

Gambling companies will be able to broadcast advertisements after 9pm; sports betting advertisements will be permitted during sporting events broadcast before this watershed.

However, the Act only applies to companies based in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar or a 'white-list' of other approved domiciles. Key centres of online gambling activity such as Costa Rica and Antigua have not yet applied to join the 'white-list'.

The measures have been criticised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists as a 'recipe for disaster'.

MEDIA

EUROPE: The winds of change are blowing through the French business press.

Bernard Arnault's LVMH is in exclusive talks to buy Les Echos from Pearson Plc and has, according to Reuters, made an offer of 250 million Euro's.

Arnault currently owns the loss-making La Tribune and its journalists fear that if he acquired its rival he would divest La Tribune in such a manner that its future would be threatened. Financier Vincent Bolloré has declared his interest in acquiring it.

In common with their counterparts at Dow Jones the French journalists are also concerned that their newspapers' new ownership would threaten editorial independence. Christine Albanel, the French culture minister, said that the government would examine the competition implications of a sale of either or both newspapers.

RECORDED MUSIC MARKETS

AMERICAS: Music piracy costs the global industry $4.2 bn annually.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fetchingly describe piracy as 'Old as the Barbary Coast, New as the Internet' and they are concentrating their efforts on counteracting it in all the forms in which it impacts their members. They estimate that it costs the global industry $4.2 bn annually.

The RIAA's team of internet specialists, with the assistance of a 24-hour automated webcrawler, attempts to stop internet sites that make illegal recordings available.

ADVERTISING MARKETS

AMERICAS: Brazilian city lives happily without public advertising.

In September 2006 the Brazilian city of São Paulo voted to ban all advertising in public spaces with effect from 1 January 2007.

This restriction applied not only to billboards, screens and neon displays but also to the distribution of fliers, hoardings on public service vehicles and the size of shop fascias.

Initial impressions are that the public supports the ban and welcomes its positive impact on the environment whilst the advertisers are learning to live with it.

MEDIA

EUROPE: Changing trends in communications consumption and the potential impact of convergence emerge in Ofcom's Communications Market report.

On 10 August 2006 the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK's communications industry regulator, published their third annual Communications Market report.

Total retail revenue in the UK communications sector in 2005 increased 5% to £50bn whilst average household spend on communications rose by less than 1% to £87.67 per month; mobile communications was the largest component, representing 35% of total spend. The proportion of household expenditure spent on communications service fell for the first time in 5 years from 4.63% in 2004 to 4.60% in 2005 due in the most part to falling pric

Media coverage of the report has focused on the evidence relating to the divergent consumption patterns of the key 16-24 year age group who spend on average 21 minutes more time online per week, send 42 more SMS text messages, but spend over seven hours less time watching television than the average for the population as a whole. The Simultaneous Media Usage Survey (SIMM), conducted by BIGresearch in October 2003 for the American Press Institute noted similar trends in the US when they observed that for "simultaneous online users, TV viewing is down 8.8% among 18 to 24 year-olds and down 12.2% among 25 to 34 year-olds in favor of video games."

The emergence of converged services has continued into 2006 with the bundling of fixed-line and broadband offerings predominant alongside internet television, television to mobile and internet telephony.

MEDIA

EUROPE: UK MEDIA TARGETING LOCAL MARKETS

In a speech to the UK Newspaper Society's Home Truths conference Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, highlighted the importance of local media to individual decision making. He stated that most decisions that individuals make that are relevant to their lives are made within a radius of 15 to 30 miles of the home. He argued that ITV's acquisition of Friends Reunited and the creation of Local Google were examples of the recognition by national and international media companies of the importance of the need of advertisers to target consumers at the local level. In a speech to the same conference Tim Bowdler, CEO of Johnston Press, argued that the growing diversity of media delivery channels increases the difficulty for advertisers in targeting specific groups at a national level. He stated that the local media sector had enhanced their reach by investing in digital outlets. Over 600 websites, the vast majority associated with print media, had been developed to enhance the ability of advertisers to target specific communities.