View source for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION TRENDS ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS

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This section is a compilation of data from latest emerging media news reports and provides latest penetration figures, audience usage and behaviour and trends analysis of the key distribution platforms. [http://www.lamp.edu.au Back to main LAMP site]  
=== Print Media ===

==== Newspapers ====
*4 November, 2006 - USA - Reading Between the Lines 
**Daily newspaper circulation is down an average of 2.8% over the last six months, continuing a slide that started at least a decade ago.[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/business/04online.html?th&emc=th - NY Times]
**However, the Newspaper Association of America released the results of a study it commissioned showing that when Internet readership is counted, the newspaper audience is actually way up â nearly 8% over all from February 2005 to March 2006. [http://www.naa.org - Newspaper Association of America]

*18 September, 2006 â UK - Readership decline in the line with falling sales[http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2006/09/readership_decline_in_line_wit.html â The Guardian]
**The total readership of the 10 national daily titles in the first six months of this year was 26.96m. That means a reasonable slice of the 47.97m estimated adult population of Britain reads a paper on a daily basis, and that figure is boosted by 2.75m reading Scottish dailies and many hundreds of thousands reading provincial mornings or evenings. 
**The worst results recorded were for the Financial Times, down by 22% (within its UK audience); the Daily Star (-12%); the Daily Express (-11%); and the Daily Mirror (-10%). The Daily Telegraph lost 6% of its readers and the Daily Mail lost 4%, though it was still able to boast the second-largest daily readership with 5.45m regular readers. The Sun, despite a 1% drop, remained way ahead with a readership of 8.07m. Then there were the success stories: The Independent recorded a 24% increase, lifting it from 617,000 readers to 766,000; The Times went up by 3% to 1.79m, taking it within 300,000 of the Daily Telegraph, (and, incidentally, making it more popular than the Daily Star); while The Guardian increased by 1%. 
**Independent on Sunday and Observer recorded rises of 9% and 8% respectively. The only other paper to add extra readers was the Sunday Times (2%). All the other titles lost readers, with the Sunday Telegraph (-8%). 

*12 September, 2006 - The fourth estate's number is up [http://www.theage.com.au/news/perspectives/the-fourth-estates-number-is-up/2006/09/11/1157826873797.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 â The Age]
**Newspapers' share of global advertising declined from 36 per cent in 1995 to 30 per cent in 2005.
**The number of people employed by American newspapers declined by 18 per cent between 1990 and 2004.
**In 1980, there were more than 3000 afternoon newspapers published around the world. Today, there are four.
**In a 1994 survey (by the Pew Research Centre), 58 per cent of adults said they had read a newspaper the previous day. In 2006, the same survey found the figure had dropped to 40 per cent.Add to those figures the recent announcement by Fairfax Media, publishers of this newspaper, that profit in the past year had fallen by 16 per cent.

==== Magazines ====
*18 September, 2006 â UK - Readership decline in the line with falling sales[http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2006/09/readership_decline_in_line_wit.html â The Guardian]
** Magazine Titles: Auto Express (-27%); Autocar (25%); Autosport (-9%); and Auto Trader (-8%). Exchange & Mart, fell by 18%. The TV magazine market is crowded and competitive, with a variety of ups and downs reflecting shifting loyalties. The four largest all lost substantially - What's on TV (-9%), Radio Times (-6%), TV Quick (-8%), and TV Times (-10%) - while the newer Total TV Guide rose by 41% and TV Easy made its first entrance into the chart. Among the women's weeklies, Closer enjoyed a 22% increase, New! advanced by 17%, Heat rose by 10% and OK! leapt by a further 9% to boast 2.54m readers while its rival Hello! slipped back by 7% to 2.09m. The women's monthlies also revealed decline, with slight falls for Cosmo, Marie Claire, Elle and Prima, though Glamour recorded a 5% rise and Good Housekeeping eased up a little. 
**There was a noticeable readership decline for the overall monthly market, especially for the men's mags. Market leader FHM declined 14%, followed by Loaded (-19%), Maxim (-19%), Esquire (-13%) and GQ (-13%). Again, car magazines also proved less popular, as did most of the mags dedicated to sports and leisure pursuits.

=== Television ===

==== Traditional TV ====
*14 December, 2006  Free to Air Australia Study 
**According to FTA, baby-boomers tuned in to Free TV in record numbers in 2006, with the average metro audience of 40-64s has increased 5.4 per cent, and the regional audience increasing 2.1 per cent. 
**In Sydney, the average boomer audience for increased by 12.5 per cent.
**The FTA folk also note that the average length of time spent viewing by baby boomers is also up by 3.9 per cent in metro areas.
** The valuable Grocery Buyer 40-64 demographic watching Free TV has increased 7.8 per cent this year.â

*2005/06 National survey of feature film and TV drama production [http://www.afc.gov.au - Australian Film Commission]
**In TV drama, the value of the annual slate (budget expenditure in Australia) rose relative to last year - from $206 million to $228 million - but remained below the five-year average of $253 million.
**The slate included less hours of Australian adult series than in previous years, but more Australian telemovies and children's programs, and more co-productions.  No adult series from the ABC went into production during the year.
**As in previous years, the main source of finance for the Australian/co-production TV drama slate came from the Australian film/TV industry (54%).  Government sources contributed 18% and foreign investors 22%.  Australian private finance remains consistently low, averaging 6% of budgets over the past five years (7% this year).
**There was more foreign TV drama activitity this year: 35 hours worth $26 million in Australian expenditure, compared to just three hours ($4 million) in last year's slate.

*13 September, 2006- Sun setting on TVs, research shows [http://www.theage.com.au/news/laptops--desktops/sun-setting-on-tvs-research-shows/2006/09/12/1157826926545.html â The Age]
**TVs also triumphed among older age groups, and they claimed top spot overall with nearly a third (32 per cent) of all those surveyed still nominating them as the most important device in their lives, compared with 21 per cent who preferred their PCs (desktop or laptop). Mobile phones, meanwhile, ranked third as the must-have device for only one in seven.

*10 August, 2006 [http://informitv.com/articles/2006/08/10/ukcommunicationsmarket/ - UK The Communications Market 2006]
**The number of households with a digital television increased to a total of 18.3 million, driven by the addition of nearly 2 million Freeview homes.

*20 July, 2006 [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19845620-7582,00.html - The Australian]
**Merrill Lynch expects Australian commercial TV's share of the total advertising pie to decline to 28 per cent by 2010 from 31.8 per cent today. 
**Australia OzTam figures reveal commercial-free TV viewing has declined at a compound rate of 2.3 per cent a year since 2001, or 9 per cent in absolute terms. And among 16 to 39-year-old viewers the absolute decline since 2001 was 17 per cent.  

* 14 July, 2006 - A third of those ages 16-34 could not name a single one of the major networks. About 25% of them could name NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002839312 â Hollywood Reporter.com]

* 12 July, 2006 - Meet the Always On Generation [http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/meet-the-alwayson-generation/2006/07/12/1152383751608.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 SMH]
**According to media analyst Bob Peters, Global Media Analysis - Between 1994 and 2004 there appears to have been a reduction in average daily television usage of between 17 per cent and 21 per cent among all viewers under the age of 24.

*28 Feb, 2006  - Younger UK demos 'switching off TV' [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=29104 C21 Media]
**as UK broadband connections reach 10 million and digital radio use doubles, TV viewing among the ad-friendly younger demographics has fallen by nearly 3% in two years - Ofcom 
**over the two years to December 2005, total television reach declined, with the figure falling 2.5% in the 25-35 demo and 2.9% among the 16-24s
**in 2005, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds watching at least 15 consecutive minutes of TV a week (Ofcom's definition of 'reach') tumbled 2.2% to 87%, while the figure for the 25- to 34-year-old age group fell to 92.8%

*May 2005 - Australian home-made drama/comedy have fallen by over 50% and 1993 to 2003 Australia has imported nearly 60% more foreign TV - AFC May 05

*In Australia, only 24% of new TV programs are made locally compared with 96% in the US, 91% in the UK, 91% in Germany and 75% in Canada - Mediametrie 

*2004 - The number of free-to-air TV viewers aged under 40 is down 8.7% compared with three years ago - AFR

==== Digital TV ====
*14 February, 2007 [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21224292%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]
**A RECENT Digital Broadcasting Australia (DBA)study of digital television receiver sales suggests the free-to-view digital format may have penetrated about a quarter of Australian homes.

*16 December, 2006 UK Ofcom quarterly Television Progress Report, a study on viewing habits in the third quarter of 2006 (July-September) [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=33727 C21 media]
**UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has confirmed that by the end of September 2006 almost three out of every four British households viewed digital television on their main set.
**The finding represents growth of around 800,000 households over the three-month period to September, around 600,000 of which were households watching digital terrestrial television (DTT or Freeview) for the first time.
**The report also shows that an increasing number of UK households are watching digital television on second or third TV sets, in addition to their main set. 
**As of September, there were almost eight million second sets connected to some form of digital reception device (set-top-box or integrated digital tuner), up from four million in the same period last year. 
**According to Ofcom, 9.3 million UK households now have DTT on at least one set in the home, up from 6.8 million in Q3, 2005.  

*27 November, 2006 â Australia â ACMA Digital media in Australian homes 2006  Report
**29% of Australian households have now adopted digital free-to-air television (up from a staggering 13% in 2005).
**Combined with subscription television services, 41% of Australian households now have access to digital television.
**The main reasons given for not being interested in digital free-to-air television were not knowing about digital television (25%), cost of equipment (22%), and lack of interest in more free-to-air television (19%)!

*13 August, 2006 - AUSTRALIA - Digital Broadcast Australia
**1.57 million homes have a free to air digital set top box or digital TV tuner installed, showing a penetration of digital free to air television of around 20%.
**Cumulative sales figures to of digital v receivers, sold to retailers and installers by June 30, are in excess of 1.74 million units, with the average monthly sales from April to June 76,000 units, up on the previous high quarter sales to December 2005 of 72,600.
**The estimated home take-up or penetration of free to view digital television has reached a mark of 1.57 million or around 20% of Australia's 7.6 million homes.

* August AUSTRALIA -Over 90% of Foxtel subscribers, or over 1 million, had converted to its digital service and the company is on track to have100% of it
subscriber base fully digital by March 2007. 

*28 Feb, 2006 - UK [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=29104 C21 Media]
**Ofcom reported that the reach of multichannel TV grew to 60.1% by last December, with audience share growing to 30.8%
**by September 2005, 66% of UK homes (16.5 million) had multichannel TV, while pay-TV digital satellite households increased by 2% (123,000) to 7.5 million
**homes using just the DTT platform grew 14% to 5.8 million over the six months to 30 September, while the number of free-to-view satellite households grew by 100,000, a 22% increase, to 545,000. Over the same period, digital cable households grew by 101,000 to 2.6 million

*14 Feb, 2006
**It is estimated that 1.3 million digital televisions or receivers have been bought as of January 1 this year. Half this number was brought in 2005. 
**15.5% of Australia's 7.6 million homes can receive digital TV
**Penetration in Britain 63%, Germany 25%, Italy 17.7% and US 15% - source Digital Broadcasting Australia [http://theage.com.au/articles/2006/02/14/1139679569979.html The Age]

*June, 2005 - Digital TV has reached 63.0% of UK households. Australia less than 10% - source Ofcom  

*May, 2005 
**There were only 0.7 million digital free-to-air TV receivers and 0.5 million Foxtel digital receivers sold to December 2004 
**Only five countries in the world have High Definition broadcast - Canada, Japan, USA, South Korea and Australia - source AFC

*2005 - After 5 years free to air digital television is only in 13 percent of Australian homes - source ACMA

==== IPTV, Broaband TV and cable VOD ====

*January 5 2007 - UK
**Two thirds of viewers are interested in watching on-demand programming on their television over a broadband service. 
**They may not know the meaning of IPTV or internet protocol television, but in a survey of over 1,400 adults in the UK, Tiscali found that 17% were already watching on-demand programmes on their television sets. 
**Some 42% of those already viewing video-on-demand reported watching less television as a result. The same percentage believe that traditional television scheduling will no longer exist in ten years.[http://informitv.com/articles/2007/01/05/tiscalisaysviewers/ Informitv]

*2 October 2006
**More than 106.5 million people, or about 3 out of every 5 U.S. Internet users, streamed or downloaded video during the month of July.  In total, nearly 7.2 billion videos were streamed or downloaded by U.S. Internet users for an average of 67 streams per streamer, which means the typical video streamer viewed an average of more than two streams per day.
**Yahoo! Sites ranked as the top property by unique U.S. streamers with 37.9 million, followed very closely by MySpace, which attracted 37.4 million U.S. streamers.  Fast-rising YouTube ranked third with 30.5 million U.S. streamers, followed by the Time Warner Network (25.7 million U.S. streamers) and Microsoft Sites (16.2 U.S. million streamers).
**MySpace Leads in Number of Streams among U.S. Internet Users - MySpace fared particularly well in U.S. user engagement.  The site ranks first among all sites in individual video streams initiated by U.S. users with nearly 1.5 billion streams, which represented 20 percent of all videos streamed by U.S. Internet users in July.  The typical U.S. streamer on MySpace initiated an average of 39 streams during the course of the month, or slightly more than one per day.  Yahoo! Sites ranked second in total streams initiated by U.S. users with 812 million, followed by YouTube with 649 million.


Top 10 Video Properties Ranked by Unique U.S. Streamers
Unique Streamers (000), Streams Initiated (MM), and Streams per Streamer July 2006
Total U.S. â Home/Work/University Locations

[[Image:TABLE01.gif]]

Source: [http://www.comscore.com/ - Comscore]

*28 September, 2006 - Study: 107M Viewed Online Video in July[http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking-news/study-107m-viewed-online-video-in-july/2006/09/28/1159337255659.html âThe Age]
**More than 100 million Americans, or three out of every five Internet users, viewed video online in July, a new study finds.
**107 million people streamed or downloaded nearly 7.2 billion video clips _ an average of 67 apiece.
**Yahoo Inc. was tops with 38 million unique users, followed by News Corp.'s MySpace.com at 37 million and YouTube Inc. at 31 million, according to comScore. Unlike with MySpace and YouTube, which emphasise user-generated video, the Yahoo offerings generally came through content partnerships. Yahoo only recently started a video-sharing service.
**AOL and other Time Warner video had 26 million users, placing it fourth ahead of Microsoft Corp., Viacom Inc. and Google Inc.

*12 September, 2006 - Deloitte
**Citing recent Deloitte statistics claiming that digital convergence will see generate services revenue of approximately $55 billion for IPTV through 2010, Fitzpatrick said that âthe projected rate of IPTV growth will service the on-demand consumer culture that is developing worldwide.â

*17 feb, 2006 - Survey reveals general consumer awareness of IPTV [http://informitv.com/articles/2006/02/17/surveyrevealsgeneral/ Informitv]  
**56% of respondents have heard of this technology. When prompted, 42% believed that it would be less costly than cable or satellite, while 33% were interested in the ability to watch a programme on demand and 24% were interested in receiving a broader array of programming, although only 12% wanted to view international programming.
**19% expressed interest in adopting it for their PC, while 26% were interested if it were available for their TV. 
**if available for their PC at a very reasonable price, 12% said that they would sign up immediately, while 18% said they would sign up if it were also available to their TV. 
**of those that were likely to use an IPTV service, 17% said they would cancel their existing cable or satellite service, while 66% said they would initially keep their existing service.
**when asked which type of service provider they would feel most comfortable with, 33% said a cable company, 25% said a new company, 15% a technology provider like Cisco or Microsoft, 13% a telephone provider like Verizon or SBC (AT&T), 11% an internet service provider like AOL, and just 4% a content company like Disney.

*12 Feb, 2006 - Program downloading more than doubled in the 12 months to February, with Australians responsible for 15.5% - source Envisional [http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hit-tv-shows-plundered/2006/02/11/1139542446590.html article smh]

*9 Feb, 2006 - Joint Study by Nielsen and Comcast Suggests Traditional TV Viewing Not Reduced by Video on Demand [http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.55dc65b4a7d5adff3f65936147a062a0/?vgnextoid=dcb748f237f49010VgnVCM100000ac0a260aRCRD source Nielsen]
**75% of households with access to VOD used it at least once during the three-month study, indicating a high VOD sampling rate. VOD users averaged 69 minutes of viewing per day.
**Households that tuned to Comcastâs ON DEMAND service watched traditional television for an average of 723 minutes per day â 9% higher than all digital cable households and 38% higher than all cable households.
**The VOD audience is a younger audience. 18-34 year olds comprised 37% of all VOD minutes viewed compared to 20% of all traditional television minutes. Children age 2-11 accounted for 19% of all VOD minutes, but only 9% of all traditional television minutes. In contrast, viewers over age 54 accounted for only 3% of VOD minutes compared to 30% of all traditional television minutes.
**Free VOD (including shows from ad-supported cable networks, a library of movies, music programming and more) was the most sampled VOD content, viewed by about 42% of VOD homes during the survey. However, subscription VOD content (from services like HBO, Showtime and Starz) accounted for the most minutes (54%) of viewing, with VOD homes watching an average of 670 minutes of this content over the three months. 

*7 Feb, 2006 - Aus - The average 13-year-old uses three to five times more broadband than the average small business in Australia, as a result of their penchant for video, games, music and webcams - source Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [http://www.smh.com.au/news/money/wired-for-speed/2006/02/06/1139074157457.html?page=2 article smh]

*21 Nov, 2005 - IPTV to reach nearly 10% of European pay-TV market by 2009 - [http://informitv.com/articles/2005/11/21/iptvtoreach/ informitv]

*14 Nov, 2005 - AOL and Warner Brothers launch web based In2TV that will let fans watch on-demand full episodes from more than 100 old television series. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year [http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1129725,00.html TimeWarner]

*Comcastâs ON DEMAND service has had more than one billion program views so far this year. Now CBS is offering within hours after they air, prime time TV, commercial free, for just 99c

==== DVR's, Personal Video Recorders ====
* 26 July, 2006 [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/technology/26adco.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1153973205-1bfXdZPkc/+eTU40Eb9n3w Hollywood Reporter]
**On average, TiVo has found that its users spend nearly half of their television time watching programs recorded earlier. And viewers of those recorded shows skip about 70 percent of the commercials.
**About 8 percent to 10 percent of the USâs 110 million television households have digital video recorders, and the number is growing rapidly as cable and satellite companies offer the devices. 

* 12 July, 2006 - Meet the Always On Generation [http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/meet-the-alwayson-generation/2006/07/12/1152383751608.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 SMH]
**Nearly half of US households are expected to own PVRs in 2010, according to JupiterResearch.

*13 Feb, 2006 US - DVR's 7% of the Nation's 110.2million TV households. - Nielsen [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/business/media/13adcol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin article nytimes]

*Nov, 2005 - TiVoToGo, that allows users to transfer recorded shows to a PC, was updated to announced software that will move these to video iPods and PSPs. TV companies in the US said they will sue.

*NBC via DirecTVâs new PVR is selling prime time shows for 99c

*Sky+ (Personal Video Recorder) already in over 1 million UK homes

==== Personalisation ====

*âmore content will be created over the next two years than over the
entire history of mankindâand 93 percent of it will be digital.â Accenture

*2005 - 83% of 18-24 years olds demand personalisation. eContent 2005

==== Mobile TV ====
*16 February, 2007 [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2fa2c116-9eea-11da-ba48-0000779e2340.html Ft.com]
**Strategy Analytics, a technology consultancy, has predicted mobile TV will be worth $3.5bn by 2009, and mobile TV trials carried out late last year in the UK by BT and O2 showed encouraging interest in the service.

* 12 September, 2006 - Mobile porn set to rise [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1870846,00.html â The Guardian]
**Juniper Research estimates that the market for mobile adult services will be worth $1.4bn (Â£746m) this year, rising to $3.3bn by 2011 - a cumulative annual average growth rate of 19%. The figures suggest a healthier market than was being predicted by the last major research into the industry - by Informa - in July last year. 

*7 September, 2006 - Advertisers look to mobile phones as users seek free TV[http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,,1866422,00.html - The Guardian]
**But Informa says advertising over mobile TV will be most lucrative, worth almost $4.4bn by 2011. 
**So mobile TV is expected to become free, paid for by advertising. During the World Cup, mobile phone operator 3 offered a free downloadable video magazine show paid for by Canon with advertising. 3 says the campaign had 61% recall.

*19 August, 2006 
**Frost & Sullivan that mobile TV revenue will hit $8.1 billion by 2011. 
**ABI Research adds that related services to this figure to anticipate a market worth nearly $27 billion by 2010. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003019813 Hollywood Reporter]

*July 21, 2006 - Nokia found that an average of 60 per cent of consumers in Spain, Britain, Finland and France are willing to pay for mobile TV. In France, the average daily viewing time was as high as 23 minutes. And worryingly if you are a Spanish TV station, the peak in Spain was in the early evening - when most viewers begin their nightly viewing. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/phones--pdas/on-a-small-screen-near-you-/2006/07/21/1153166556217.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 - The Age]

* 21 June, 2006 - Mobile television services will reach more than 500 million subscribers worldwide in 2011, up from just over 6 million at the end of 2005, according to a report from ABI Research.[http://informitv.com/articles/2006/06/21/mobiletvservices informitv] 

*7 Feb, 2006 - Norway [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=28764 C21 media]
**NRK and Ericsson are hailing the world's first trial of mobile interactive TV a success.
**On average, users of the Ericsson solution watch mobile TV for more than 5mins each session - double the time typically achieved with 'regular' mobile TV.  
**20% of users participated in the interactive Svisj every day.

*7 Feb, 2006 - The results of the trial with NRK claim to show that on average, users of the Ericsson solution watch mobile TV for more than five minutes each session, double the time typically achieved with 'regular' mobile TV. 20% of users participated in the interactive Svisj every day. [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=28764 C21]

*21 Feb, 2006 Mobile content, not including SMS, between 10% and 20% penetration in the Australian market. [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,18224432%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html Teltra]

*27 Feb, 2006 - Thinking outside the box - UK [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/comment/0,,1719076,00.html article]
**BT and Virgin Mobile carried out a six-month test of their new wireless broadcast service, which found that of the 1,000 participants in the test, 59% rated mobile television as either appealing or very appealing, with users watching an average of 66 minutes of television a week on their phone. 65% said they would be interested in receiving digital radio over their mobiles, with an average of 95 minutes spent listening via radio. 
**A similar survey in Oxford, carried out by O2, found that 75% of respondents would watch mobile TV as long as the price was acceptable. 
**Technology consultancy Strategy Analytics has predicted that by 2009 there would be around 50 million mobile TV users, generating around Â£3.5bn in revenues.

==== HDTV ====
*13 September, 2006 - Sun setting on TVs, research shows [http://www.theage.com.au/news/laptops--desktops/sun-setting-on-tvs-research-shows/2006/09/12/1157826926545.html â The Age]
**But with 54% of homes expected to own an HDTV by 2011, the researcher added: "The TV set isn't dead, it's just shifting to become only one of many devices that advertisers, content owners and distributors and media companies should live with in the TV present while preparing for the PC and cell phone future."

*15 August, 2006  - WORLDWIDE - In-Stat Report [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=31715]
**The number of households worldwide watching high-definition TV programming is set to eclipse 20 million by the end of the year â a rise of five million in just six months â primarily driven by growth in the US and Japan.
**At the 2006 mid-way mark, 15 million homes were tuning into HD, but this figure is set to hit 20.3 million by year-end, according to a new report from market research firm In-Stat.
**The US and Japan have the greatest HDTV penetration, accounting for 91% of the global market, but even in the US only a third of households with HD-capable TV sets are actually using them to watch HD programming.
**In-Stat believes that this will trigger a rise to 55 million HDTV households globally by the end of 2009.

=== The Internet ===

==== Internet General ====
*7 March, 2007 Worldwide [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21339933%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]
**A report by US market research firm comScore Networks found that 747 million people aged 15 and up used the internet worldwide in January 2007, a 10 per cent increase from January 2006. 
**The United States still held the largest number of users with 153 million, but growth was just 2 per cent, comScore found. 
**China was second overall with 86.7 million, according to comScore, but growth was 20 per cent. The figure differs from the official Chinese estimate of 137 million, which includes users in cybercafes and other public locations. 
**The strongest growth was seen in India, where the number of users increased 33 per cent to 21.1 million. That placed India with the eighth largest internet population, just behind France. 
**The strongest growth was seen in India, where the number of users increased 33 per cent to 21.1 million. That placed India with the eighth largest internet population, just behind France. 	
**Russia saw its number of users up 21 per cent to 12.7 million. 
**Canadians spent the most time online, with the average user on the web for 39.6 hours each month. That was followed by Israel, South Korea, the United States and Britain, which all have high broadband penetration.

*25 January, 2007 China 
**China could overtake the US as the country with the most internet users within two years, according to its government, which released figures showing that the nation's online population had increased to 137 million people in the last 12 months. 
**Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Centre show that more than a 10th of the country's 1.3 billion people now use the internet, with the figure increasing by 23.4% last year. 
**About 210 million out of 300 million Americans are online - a figure China will surpass in 24 months if it keeps up this pace. 
** A recent report by JP Morgan which forecast that China's internet population would reach 190 million by 2010. [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1998155,00.html The Guardian]

*24 January , 2007 China
**CHINA, the world's second largest internet audience, saw its internet population soar 23.4 per cent last year to 137 million, a think-tank said today.
**In Beijing, it now exceeds 30 per cent of the total population for the first time ever. [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21109535%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]

*31 December, 2006 China
**China's population of internet users has risen by 30 per cent over the past year to 132 million, according to a state news agency. The figure was up from 123 million at the end of June, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the government's China Internet Network Information centre. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/chinas-internet-population-boom/2006/12/29/1166895509752.html The Age]

*14 December, 2006  US The Pew Internet and American Life Project Study [http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking-news/study-growth-in-net-for-home-research/2006/12/14/1165685788579.html The Age]
**Found that more Americans are using the Internet to find a place to live, thanks to the greater wealth of home listings and other real-estate information online.
** 39 percent of online Americans have gone online in search of a place to buy or rent. That's an increase from 34 percent in 2004 and 27 percent in 2000.
**More than half of online adults under 30 have done so, possibly reflecting the fact that they are typically more transient. Nine percent of the Internet users ages 18-29 said they looked for housing information on a typical day, compared with 4 percent two years earlier.
**Pew previously found that about half of Internet users have taken virtual tours, including checking out a home available for rent or for sale. 
**Nearly a third have used an online classified service like Craigslist, where housing information is circulated.

*4 December,  2006 Britain/US [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/technology/04adcol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin - NYTimes]
**On average, Britons spend 23 hours a week on the Internet, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau. The Internet accounts for about a quarter of Britonsâ time spent with all media, according to Citigroup, nearly double the percentage in the United States. Americans use their computers an average of 14 hours a week, according to Nielsen Media Research.

*29 November, 2006 - Europe European Interactive Advertising Association Survey [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1959546,00.html]
**European internet usage is booming with surfers across the region spending over 11 hours a week - an hour more than last year - sending emails, visiting websites, holding online chats and downloading music, according to new research released today. 

*29 November, 2006 - Europe The Mediascope Europe study [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1959546,00.html]
** The survey, which examined the online habits of over 7,000 people in 10 European countries, shows that 45% of internet users go online every day of the week. 
**Daily usage is particularly high among the 16-24 year old age group, with 53% of those in this category who have web access, going online every day. 
**Men also use the web much more than women with 51% of male web users accessing the internet daily compared with just 38% of women. 
**The average European internet user spends 11 hours and 20 minutes online each week, up from 10 hours and 15 minutes last year, an increase of 11%. Denmark leads the pack with Danes spending 12 hours 40 minutes a week online, while of the 10 countries surveyed, Germany is the laggard on 10 hours and 20 minutes. 
**The UK, where the average user accesses the internet five days a week, is firmly in mid-table with people spending 11 hours and 20 minutes on the web a week. 
**On average, European internet users access the web on more than five days a week; 5.4 days to be exact. That is up from 5.2 days last year and 4.9 days in 2004. That growth is in stark contrast, however, to the stagnating growth in TV viewing. In 2004 viewers watched TV on average six days a week, that grew to 6.2 days a week last year but viewing has not grown this year. 
**From 6am to 10am the majority of European internet users prefer to listen to the radio or read a paper. But that picture inverts dramatically as the day wears on. From 5.30pm to 9pm, three-quarters of web users are watching TV but almost as many are accessing the internet - suggesting many are doing both. 

*7 November, 2006 US -  Pew Internet & American Life Project's latest report, found that 80 per cent of American internet users - 113 million people - get health and medical information online. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/australia-still-in-the-dark-on-web-trends/2006/11/06/1162661616378.html The Age]

*7 November, 2006 - USA
**Pew Internet & American Life Project's latest report, published last week, found that 80 per cent of American internet users - 113 million people - get health and medical information online. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/australia-still-in-the-dark-on-web-trends/2006/11/06/1162661616378.html - The Age]

*22 September 2006 â CHINA- China's internet population soars[http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20456839%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html â Australian IT]
**123 million users were counted by the end of June in China, second in the world only to the US.
**Despite its second place in the world list, internet penetration is actually relatively weak per capita in the country of 1.3 billion people. 

*17 September 2006 - CHINA - 70 percent of Chinaâs Internet users are under the age of 30, says Richard Ji, an analyst with Morgan Stanley. China has a population of 1.3 billion, about 130 million of whom are Internet users, an online market second in size only to the American market.[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/business/yourmoney/17baidu.html?pagewanted=3&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1158728653-qbBhCRR+F46rQCu/kXHGGA â The New York Times]

*13 September, 2006- Sun setting on TVs, research shows [http://www.theage.com.au/news/laptops--desktops/sun-setting-on-tvs-research-shows/2006/09/12/1157826926545.html â The Age]
** 20% of the gen Y group (aged 18-26) ranked TVs top compared with the 37% who rated their PCs as the most important. A further 27% preferred their mobile phones, while the remainder nominated other gadgets.
**Among the older gen X age group (27-40) only a quarter of respondents gave their TV set the highest rating against a more substantial 28% who preferred their PCs, with only 19 %  nominating their mobile phone.

*14 July, 2006 85% of respondents listed going online as a favorite leisure activity, with 69% citing television viewing and slightly more (71%) naming movie watching. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002839312 â Hollywood Reporter.com]

* 12 July, 2006 - Meet the Always On Generation [http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/meet-the-alwayson-generation/2006/07/12/1152383751608.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 SMH]
**IGN Entertainment, which has sites such as ign.com, and gamespy.com, says it averages 15 to 20 million unique users a month, 91 per cent of them male, with an average age of 22.

*The predicted growth in Australia of FTA TV from 2003-07 is 3.7% while the internet and interactive games average 10.6% - PricewaterhouseCoopers

*June 21, 2006 PWC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010 for the US region. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002691262 HollywoodReporter.com]
**the Internet sector, set for a five-year compound boost of 8.4%

*16 Feb, 2006 China - The number of internet users in China has surged from 620,000 in 1997 to 110 million. It is estimated that there are between 5 million and 10 million blogs. [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1709435,00.html The Guardian]

*Sept, 2004 - There will be 1.07 billion internet users globally by 2005, 1.21 billion by 2006 and 1.35 billion by 2007 [http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr904.htm eTForecasts]

*Nearly a third of the planet's internet users are already in Australasia yet this is only 7% of the region [http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats6.htm Internet World Stats] 

*The speeds of internet connections has increased by over 400 times in 6 years from 56kbps dial-up to 24Mbps ADSL+2 yet prices have only doubled

*63% of people who don't yet have internet access in Australia say they will subscribe to broadband - source Ericsson 

*Asia-Pacific region is the world's largest geographic internet market, China will be the world's largest single market within 5 years - source eMarketer

==== Broadband  ====
*23 February, 2007 Australia [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21274073%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]
**THE number of broadband services in Australia edged over 3.6 million in the September 2006 quarter, but around 2.75 million users remain on dial-up connections.

*31 December, 2006 China It said the number of Chinese customers with broadband access has grown to 52 million.
[http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/chinas-internet-population-boom/2006/12/29/1166895509752.html The Age]

*15 December, 2006 [http://www.theage.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/broadband-takeup-takes-off/2006/12/15/1165685879522.html The Age]
**Broadband take-up by Australian households is rising rapidly, with the number of connections almost doubling in the year to June 2006, according to the ABS.
**In fact, as at June, just under half of all households with an internet connection had broadband.
**General internet use is also on the rise; the ABS found that 60 per cent of households had some form of access, a rise of 4 per cent on the previous year.
**Of the 3.2 million households that lacked internet access, 24 percent said they had no use for the internet, 23 per cent cited lack of interest in internet and 19 per cent said costs were too high.

*4 December,  2006 Britain/US [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/technology/04adcol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin - NYTimes]
**Broadband access in Britain at first lagged access in the United States, but has since surged. In 2002, 15.7 percent of American households had broadband compared with only 5.1 percent of British homes, according to eMarketer. 
**In 2006, Britain is ahead, with 47.4 percent of homes having broadband, which is more than the 43.9 percent in the United States.

*3 December, 2006 Worldwide - International Telecommunications Union's "Internet Report 2006: Digital.Life".[http://www.theage.com.au/news/phones--pdas/revolution-sweeps-the-globe/2006/12/03/1165080825290.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1- The Age]
**Internet and communications technology markets - consumer electronics, broadcasting, telecoms, computers and services - are worth about $US3.13 trillion ($3.98 trillion) or 7.0 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product.
**High speed broadband networks reached 277 million subscribers at the beginning of 2006, including 61 million mobile ones.

*30 November, 2006 Worldwide Ofcom Report[http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1960228,00.html The Guardian]
**A third of British internet users watch less television once they have broadband, while 27% read fewer national newspapers and almost a fifth switch off their radios
** China's growing army of broadband internet users are more willing to embrace new technologies and services than people in Europe, the US and Japan. Broadband penetration in China is running at just 12% - well below the rest of the world - but the overall market is large. There are almost 43m Chinese households online, nearly twice the size of the entire UK market. 
**Results show Chinese broadband users download more TV shows, music videos and news clips, and listen to more web radio than anyone else. They are also the most frequent users of user-generated content sites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as MySpace, as well as internet phone services. 
**More than a third of British internet users have watched TV, movies or film trailers over broadband. Across all age groups, 34% of British broadband users have looked at user-generated content while 38% have watched the news online. 
**British youth are the most web-savvy in the country - of those aged 18 to 24 with broadband, 77% have downloaded a music video, which is more than in any country except China, and 60% have watched TV over the web, putting them on an equal footing with similarly aged users in Japan, but behind the 82% in China. 
**British web users turn away from TV and national newspapers once they have broadband but although 17% say they listen to less traditional radio, 43% listen to radio on the web at least once a month, similar to the trend on the continent. 
**Only 19% of British web users make phone calls over the internet at least once a month compared with 30% in France and 37% of users in Germany. Brits are also more reticent about using websites to meet, chat and make friends. 

*29 November, 2006 â US - USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project survey [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i830108c1e9cf981fde742b06b9eb14d6 Hollywood Reporter]
**The survey found that for the first time, more women are now going online than men with 78.4% of females reporting that they use the Web, compared with 76.7% of men. Last year, 79% of men were Internet users compared with 73.6% of women.
**Broadband proliferation also has reached a new high with 50% of those surveyed using that technology to get online, up from 48.3% last year.
**The report also found that hours spent online continues to grow. The average user now spends 8.9 hours per week online, one hour more than a year ago.
**Online purchasing also has risen to its highest levels in the past six years, with 51.1% of respondents now buying via the Web. They are spending an average of $50 a month more than in 2001.

*27 November, 2006 â Australia â ACMA Digital media in Australian homes 2006  Report
**52% of Australian households have access to broadband internet. Only 17% still have dial-up internet access.

*20 October 2006 - Two in three UK households on broadband by end of 2008[http://informitv.com/articles/2006/10/20/twointhree/ - Informitv]
**The proportion of households in the UK with broadband is expected to double in three years, with 64% of homes on broadband by the end of 2008. The first geographic forecast suggests that the number of broadband lines in the country will rise to over 18 million.

[[Image:clip_image001.jpg]]


*22 September 2006âCHINA-Broadband users reached 77 million and there are currently 788,000 websites in the country[http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20456839%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html âAustralian IT]

*22 September 2006 - AUSTRALIA - Broadband hits halfway mark[http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20457120%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html â Australian IT]
** There are now almost 6 million active internet subscribers in Australia, with more than half of them using broadband services. Broadband internet subscriber numbers grew by 1.4 million in 15 months. 
**At the end of the June quarter there were almost 5.1 million household subscribers and 867,000 government and business internet subscribers. 
**Non-dial up subscribers increased from almost 1.7 million at the end of March 2005 to over 3.1 million at the end of June this year, fifteen months later. They now make up 53 per cent of total internet subscribers, compared with 31 per cent at the end of March 2005. 
**The ABS data shows 36,230 million megabytes of data was downloaded by subscribers during the three months up to 30 June 2006. 

*14 September, 2006 - Broadband tops 3.5m[http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20411288%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html â Australian IT]
** The number of broadband subscriptions in Australia topped 3.5 million at the end of June, but uptake continues to slow.
** The Snapshot of Broadband Deployment report, published by competition regulator the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), found 3,518,100 broadband subscriptions in Australia at the end of June - an increase of 67 per cent over June 2005's 2,102,800. 
** The ACCC reported growth of 10.9 per cent for the June quarter, down from 13.9 per cent for the three months to March and less than half the 25.7 per cent recorded during the second quarter of 2004.
** In the June quarter, the number of cable service subscriptions grew 5.5 per cent to 594,500, while ADSL-based services grew nearly 11 per cent to 2,549,900.
** Wireless broadband services grew from 75,000 subscribers in March to 99,100.

*29 August, 2006 - EU - European Commission Report[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003054104 Hollywood Reporter]
**Almost one in four EU households is now connected to the Internet via high-speed broadband links, while 32% have cable and 22% have satellite TV. 
**Overall, 40% of households across the EU's 25 member states have access to the Internet, with broadband penetration at 23%, while the narrowband -- mostly dial-up connections -- rate is 16%. 

*24 August, 2006 - UK - [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1857140,00.html The Guardian] 
**A study by the Office for National Statistics shows that almost 10m households in Britain use broadband to access the net, outstripping the number of old-fashioned dial-up connections by three to one. 
** Three years ago 8.5% of households in Britain had high-speed internet access, but by June this year the figure had ballooned to 40%. 

*10 August, 2006 - UK - The Communications Market Report 2006
**The number of homes and small businesses with a broadband connection rose to 11 million.
**Industry revenues from broadband access were up 70% year on year to nearly Â£2 billion. [http://informitv.com/articles/2006/08/10/ukcommunicationsmarket]

*20 July, 2006 AUSTRALIA - Broadband penetration was only 4 per cent in 2002 but has since hit 29 per cent. [http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19845620-7582,00.html - The Australian]

*20 July, 2006 CHINA- [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002875598 - Hollywood Reporter.com]
**China's population of Internet users, already the world's second-biggest after the U.S., has jumped by nearly 20% over the past year to 123 million, with broadband access soaring. 
**The number of Web sites in China rose by more than 110,000 to a total of 788,400, the official China Internet Network Information Center said in an annual survey. 
**The number of Internet users in China with broadband service jumped by 45% over the past year to 77 million, or about two-thirds of the total online population. 
**The average Chinese Internet user now spends 16.5 hours per week online
 
* 23 June, 2006 - AUSTRALIA now has more than 3 million broadband internet services, up 78 per cent on the 1.8 million recorded in March 2005. 
**Of the 3.16 million services recorded at the end of March, 2.3 million were on ADSL services, the latest figures from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Snapshot of Broadband Deployment report show. [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,19562964%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html The Australian] 

*28 Feb, 2006 - UK consumer broadband has grown from zero to 10 million connections in just over seven years, with some 70,000 new connections being added per week [http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=29104 C21 Media]

*Feb, 2006 - Aus. The value of the online advertising sector in Australia last year grew a massive 60% to $620 million - source Audit Bureau of Verification Services

*7 Feb, 2006 - Aus.  Wired For Speed. Broadband connections doubled in the past year to just under 2.6 million - source Australian Competition and Consumer Commision [http://www.smh.com.au/news/money/wired-for-speed/2006/02/06/1139074157457.html?page=2 Sydney Morning Herald]

*30 Jan, 2006 - US. The average online consumer spends 14 hours a week online, which is the same amount of time they watch TV. "TV and newspaper companies risk losing an entire generation of users unless they immediately start promoting their online products" [http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/06.01.30-newjupresearch.html - JupiterMedia]

*2005 - In US broadband homes 58%, in those homes up to 40% less TV viewing - source JupiterMedia

*Oct, 2005 - UK Broadband now at 38%, almost the same as Pay Satellite - source Sky

*Sept, 2005 - In the UK from mid 2005 the number of broadband internet users was higher than dial-up. By mid-2006 Broadband penetration in Australia will also be more than 50% - source Ericsson

*Aug, 2005 - Broadband adoption in Australia is almost 2 million, more than double that from this time last year

*Aug, 2005 - In the UK the BBC predicts broadband to 20 million homes (83%) by 2016 and seven in ten homes will be able to schedule their viewing and listening at a time that suits them best â source PVR & broadband

*July, 2005 - Aus. It is predicted that ADSL+2 will allow speeds of 24Mbps by this time next year, more than enough for true VoD and HD IPTV

*June, 2005 - Penetration of broadband in small businesses in Australia has risen to 52% - AC Nielsen

*Nov, 2004 - Australians spend on average 23 hrs a week using broadband - more time than 13-39 year olds spend watching TV - Ericsson/AFR

*The online music market in Australia will grow 43 TIMES from $1.2mill to $52mill in 2009 - source IDC

==== Peer-to-peer ====

*10 March, 2005 - A More Business-Friendly BitTorrent. BitTorrent protocol traffic accounts for 35% of all internet traffic. [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1775055,00.asp CacheLogic]

==== Online Music, Video Downloads & Subscriptions ====
*21 February, 2007  US [http://www.contentagenda.com/article/CA6418086.html?nid=3038 Reuters]
**Annual consumer spending on Internet downloads of movies and TV shows will top $4 billion in 2011, up from just $111 million last year, according to a study released by Adams Media Research.
**The market researcher forecasts that sales of video downloads will total $472 million in 2007, $1.2 billion in 2008, $2 billion in 2009, $3.1 billion in 2010, then hit $4.1 billion in 2011.
**It also predicts that advertiser spending on Internet video streams to PCs and TVs will approach $1.7 billion by 2011.

*14 February, 2007 â UK - Q Research Study [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2013014,00.html The Guardian]
**About 85% of Britain's young people own MP3 players such as iPods, yet almost half of them pay nothing for music downloads, according to new research. 
**A new study into music downloads by Q Research quizzed 1,500 people aged between 11 and 25 and found that nearly half of those surveyed did not pay for downloads. A further third spent less than Â£5 each month and just 3% spent more than Â£25. 
**The research also found that 81% would like to listen to music on their mobile, and that one in four had already downloaded music straight to their phone.  

*29 January, 2007 [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3icac1ff0b727220d84e878edde8d94f9a Hollywood Reporter]
** European revenue from online creative content will leap fourfold over the next four years to â¬8.3 billion ($10.7 billion), according to a European Commission study. 
**According to the study, online content will represent a significant share of total revenue for some sectors, claiming about 20% of the music market and 33% of that for video games. 
** The film sector could see online revenues swell from â¬18.7 million ($24.2 million) in 2006 to â¬1 billion ($1.29 billion) in 2010, though it would still only 7% of the total. 

*January 29, 2007 
**Figures from the global music industry group IFPI show that the long-mooted wave of legal digital music is now upon us. Last year, $US2 billion ($2.5 billion) was spent on digital music, about 10 per cent of the global market, up from 5.5 per cent in 2005. 
**The number of tracks available in digital format also doubled to 4million, single tracks downloaded jumped 89 per cent to 795 million; music store subscription service users rose 25 per cent to 3.5 million and portable music player sales - a category still dominated by Apple's iPod, rose from 84 million in 2005 to 120 million. 
**IFPI predicts 25 per cent of all purchases will be online by 2010. 
**So far, ringtones have accounted for the majority of mobile music sales, about 72 per cent in 2005 according to technology research group Gartner. This will start to decrease in mature markets and be replaced and bolstered by revenue from realtones - or recorded music tracks. Gartner estimates ringtone revenues will only make up 19 per cent of mobile music sales by 2010. [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21132367%5E15302%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html The Australian]

*January 17, 2007 Global [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957549.html?categoryid=19&cs=1 Variety]
**Downloads of single tracks increased 89% to 795 million globally in 2006 as the digital music marketplace doubled from the year before. 
**Digital music marketplace was worth about $2 billion in 2006, according to the Intl. Federation of the Phonographic Industry, but digital music sales still fall short of compensating for the decline in CD sales. 
**Including online sales and sales to mobile phones, the digital market now accounts for about 10% of global sales. 
**The actual number of songs available for music fans to download doubled to 4 million. 
**There are now 500 legitimate services in more than 40 countries selling digital music, but digital piracy remains a threat to the music biz. 

*14 December Free-to-air copping a download Australia [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20922899%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]
** 53 per cent of respondents regularly download TV shows from the internet, most of them illegally
** One in four people download TV programs twice a week or more, with downloads now the main form of TV viewing for 21 per cent of respondents. 
** Most people know unauthorised downloading is illegal, but 97per cent of downloaders still use peer-to-peer file-sharing sites, commercial websites such as YouTube, and friends as their main sources of content.
** The research shows 19 per cent of downloaders don't want to wait for local networks to screen their favourite overseas programs, a further 18 per cent time-shift their viewing to watch programs on demand, and another 17 per cent are accessing programs not screened here.
**A slight majority (53 per cent) of respondents say they are prepared to pay for content, but one in three will not. 
** According to Free TV Australia, downloading is not affecting viewing levels, which rose 0.7 per cent this year in metropolitan centres.

*29 November, 2006 â US - USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project survey [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i830108c1e9cf981fde742b06b9eb14d6 Hollywood Reporter]
** 41% of experienced Internet users -- those who have been using the Web for nine or more years -- saying that their Web consumption has caused them to watch less television. Only 23% of new Internet users -- those who have been using the Web for one year -- said they watch less television because of the Internet. 
**Slightly less than 60% of new and experienced Internet users reported watching the same amount of television, while 21.5% of the new users said they watched more television compared with 2.3% of very experienced users who said they watched more. Non-Internet users also reported watching 21.4 hours of television per week compared with 12.3 hours for Web users.

*29 November, 2006 - Europe The Mediascope Europe study [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1959546,00.html]
** Downloading a film or TV programme has been done at least once a month this year by 17% of internet users, compared with 13% last year while almost a third of internet users listen to radio once a month over the web, up from 24% last year. 

*27 November, 2006 â Australia â ACMA Digital media in Australian homes 2006  Report
**25% of households download audio-visual material.

*27 November, 2006 â Britain - BBC news website survey[http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1957199,00.html The Guardian]
**Around 43% of UK viewers who watch video on the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less traditional television as a result. 
**Online and mobile viewing is on the increase - with 75% of users saying they now watched more than they did a year ago. 
**Just 9% of the population saying they do it watch online viewing regularly. Another 13% said they watched occasionally, while a further 10% said they expected to start within the coming year. 
**But two-thirds of the population said they did not watch online and did not expect to start doing so over the next 12 months. 
**One in five people who watched online or mobile video at least once a week said they watched a lot less TV as a result. Another 23% said they watched a bit less, while just over half said their TV viewing was unchanged. 
**Some 3% said online video inspired them to watch more TV. 
**Online and mobile video is far more popular among the young, with 28% of those aged 16 to 24 revealing they watched more than once each week. 
**An average of 10% of those surveyed aged 25 to 44 were regular viewers of online videos, with that figure falling to just 4% of over-45s. 
** UK media regulator Ofcom said the number of 16 to 24-year-olds watching TV in an average day had dropped 2.9% between 2003 and 2005.

* 27 June, 2006 Why were flaunting it [http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/why-were-flaunting-it/2006/06/27/1151174194910.html The Age]
**In Australia with 24 per cent of respondents downloaded music in some form over the past six months - most of them falling in the 18- to 29-year-age group. Of these, 68 per cent admitted they had downloaded music for free at some stage in their lives.

*21 June, 2006 PWC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010 for the US region. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002691262 HollywoodReporter.com]
**Online subscription rentals, including DVD-by-mail and broadband delivery services, will grow from virtually nothing in 2002 to $3.62 billion in 2010, compared with the then-estimated $6.18 billion in-store rental market. 
**PwC predicts a 5.2% global compound annual growth rate in the music space due to digital distribution and mobile music, which will offset further declines in spending on physical formats.

*16 Feb, 2006 - China - More than 45% of Chinese internet users download music on a daily basis, and 37% frequently download movies, the vast majority pay nothing - source China Internet Network Information Centre [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1709435,00.html The Guardian]

*20 Jan, 2006 - Music fans worldwide downloaded 420 million songs legally in 2005, a 20-fold increase from two years ago, recording industry research has found.

*19 Jan, 2006 - Global digital music sales triple to $US1.1 billion in 2005 [http://www.pro-music.org/musiconline/news060119.htm IFPI] 
**Record labels reaped a $US1.1 billion ($1.47 billion) harvest from digital downloads, up from $US380 million the previous year, with about 40% of this revenue earned from music for mobile phones
**"In the UK and Germany, two of the biggest digital markets worldwide, legal buyers from sites like iTunes, Musicload and MSN actually exceed illegal file-swappers," - IFPI
**digital music revenue accounts for only 6% of the sales of record companies

=== Mobile Devices ===

==== Mobile Usage ====
*3 December, 2006 International Telecommunications Union's "Internet Report 2006: Digital.Life".[http://www.theage.com.au/news/phones--pdas/revolution-sweeps-the-globe/2006/12/03/1165080825290.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 The Age]
**About two billion people worldwide are now hooked on to a mobile phone as personal digital technology expands at a revolutionary pace and starts to have a pervasive impact on people's lives.
**The growth in the use of devices that link up to global digital networks is far outstripping any other communications medium in 
**One person in two on the planet is expected to be a mobile phone user within two years.
**Around one in three people on the planet own a digital mobile phone today and they're hard pressed to be separated from it.
**The internet and mobile communications are now the prime leisure time medium for under-55 year-olds, outstripping television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and cinema.
**While it took 125 years for fixed line telephone connections to break through the 1.0 billion mark in 2001, the mobile telephone took just 21 years to reach the same level a year later.

*12 November, 2006 - India/China [http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking-news/india-adds-record-66-million-mobile-phone-subscribers-in-october/2006/11/12/1163266411912.html The Age]
**Cellular phone subscribers rose in India by a record 6.6 million in October, keeping the country's place as the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market.
**Subscribers for the GSM network grew by 4.7 million in September, while the number of mobile phone subscribers using CDMA technology increased by 1.9 million.
**India now has about 96 million GSM-based phone connections.
**The total number of mobile phones in the country stands at about 136 million at the end of October.
**China has more than 420 million mobile phones the most in the world.

*19 September, 2006 - Most pupils in survey own mobiles by 12[http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1875865,00.html â The Guardian]
**91% of 12-year-olds now own a mobile phone, according to research published today. The survey also reveals a sharp increase in ownership as youngsters move to secondary school. More than half (51%) of 10-year olds have one of the of gadgets, yet the issue of ownership appears to divide public opinion; just a third of adults feel children should have a mobile phone by the age of 11, while more than half of parents believe ownership at 11 is acceptable. 
** Polling organisation YouGov surveyed more than 1,250 young people aged 11 to 17 who own mobile phones. 
**Mobile phone ownership rises sharply as children prepare to leave primary school - up from 24% of nine-year olds to 51% of 10-year-olds. By the time they are at secondary school at the age of 12, 91% of youngsters have a mobile phone. 
**11 to 17-year-old age group sends or receives an average of 9.6 texts a day and makes or receives 3.5 calls a day. In contrast, adults make or receive 2.8 calls and send 3.6 texts a day. 
**Two-thirds of 15 to 17-year-olds and almost half of 11 of 14-year-olds say they would not allow their parents to look through their text messages and pictures on their mobile phones. 
**42% of 15 to 17-year-old girls admit they would "feel unwanted if a whole day went by when my mobile phone did not ring".
**A quarter of 11 to 17-year-olds have received a text inviting them on a date, while 16 to 17-year-olds are almost twice as likely to have received a text inviting them on a date than adults aged 25 and over. 

*22 August 2006 - The number of mobile phone users in China has grown to more than 431 million the Ministry of Information Industry reported, a 44.9 percent increase over the same time last year.[http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking-news/china-mobile-phone-users-top-431-million/2006/08/22/1156012525695.html - The Age]

*10 August, 2006 [http://informitv.com/articles/2006/08/10/ukcommunicationsmarket/ - UK - The Communications Market Report 2006]
**Mobile revenues grew 10% to Â£13 billion, while landline revenues fell 7.5% to Â£10 billion.

*10 March, 2006 - The Simple Life Producer Goes Mobile [http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3590256 M:Metrics]
**3.2 million of U.S. mobile subscribers, or 1.7%, uploaded a video to the Web
**7% of U.S. mobile subscribers, or 12.3 million, voted in a TV or radio poll in a month during the quarter ended January 2006. That compares with 21.8% of British mobile subscribers, or 8.9 million, who voted in a TV or radio poll in a month during the quarter ended January 2006. 
**Of the 183 million people in the states who have mobile phones, just two percent are consuming video.

*21 Feb, 2006 AIMIA, The Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index [http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=1.32.1491.1492 MCIDG Aimia]
**Participants became aware of new mobile content via the Internet, with TV and close friends being other popular sources. 
**Over 30% had purchased a ringtone in the last 12 months and over 25% had purchased an accessory for their mobile phone. Although only around 15% of people had purchased a logo, wallpaper or screensaver, they made an average of seven purchases. Most respondents had purchased an average of three ringtones and two games.
**Of the 50% who purchased some kind of mobile content, a percentage of the respondents purchased it via the Internet from a PC, using WAP and using an SMS keyword.
**The 13-16 year old age group purchased significantly higher numbers of ringtones, logos, wallpaper, screensavers and accessories compared to other age groups.
**The 22-25 year old age group purchased more games than other age groups.
**Females bought more ringtones, while more males bought more games.
**Respondents on the 3 3G network purchased significantly more content than those with other telecommunications networks.
**News was the most popular content purchased, followed by weather and sports in equal second and astrology in third.
**The 17-18 year old age group used chat and astrology services significantly more than other age groups.
**A higher proportion of respondents from the 17-18 and 13-16 year old age groups used comedy services, compared to other age groups.
**The 36-40 year old age group had significantly higher usage of lotto number information, compared to the other age groups.
**Married participants tended to use the movie reviews more than most, but used the comedy and astrology services less than others.
**Males tended to use news content, comedy, sport and adult content more than females, while females used more astrology content than males.

*20 Jan, 06
**Master ringtones, which are excerpts of original songs, account for the bulk of the $US400 million earned by record companies from mobile music downloads in 2005.  Europe and the US lag behind Japan in the mobile music market, where mobile sales represented 96 per cent of all digital music sales in the first quarter of 2005.- IFPI
**While countries such as Russia, India and Indonesia were among the fastest growing in 2005, African countries such as Nigeria and Algeria could lead the growth in 2006.- Strategy Analytics
**The global wireless service industry is expected to generate $US800 billion in revenue in 2010, with emerging markets accounting for about 42 per cent of the total. - Strategy Analytics

*16 Jan, 2006 - Glu / Tickbox.net [http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15590.php cellularnews.com]
**The youth market is the fastest growing sector of the mobile entertainment industry.
**Just as many women as men play games on their phone
**Almost 16% of phone owners regularly use their mobiles to play games
**This rises to 29% amongst the more gaming and content-savvy 16-24 age group 
**Gaming is the fourth most popular activity people use their phones for, behind voice calls, texting and taking photographs 
**5.8% of all UK adults have purchased a mobile game for their phone at some time
**19% of 16-24 year olds have purchased games for their handset - that's double the number of people who have downloaded a game amongst users aged 25-34 
**The 16-24 age group is the most content-savvy, making more use of a phone.s high end functions and multimedia capabilities than any other age group 
**36% of 16-24 year olds plan to buy the same or more mobile entertainment in 2006, and 23% are hoping to upgrade their handsets this Christmas

*On an average day in Australia nearly two thirds of 18-29s will use SMS compared with only 3% of 60s and over - source McNair

*815 million handsets were shipped worldwide in 2005. 1 billion in 2007. World total already a 3rd of the planet! 

*3G TV video downloads starting but not mature market yet but streaming news and sport looks promising

*The a Â£3 ringtone based on the Axel F theme tune from the film Beverly Hills Cop. The fast-growing UK ringtone market is worth more than Â£300 million a year

*Targeted ad ringtones. Instead of popular music ring-back tones, PromoTel estimates that replacing music content with advertisements would generate close to USD$14 billion in revenue for major telecoms like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

*2 Dec, 2005 - source Juniper 
**2.1 bill worldwide
**Mobile Gaming a $3.1b market in 2004   
**30 million 3G subscribers worldwide in 2004 
**Biggest SMS users: Females
**Biggest MMS users: 15-17 year olds  
**25% phones worldwide MMS enabled early 2004

==== 1G Mobile ====
*13 December, 2006 British Gartner Group Survey [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20920371%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html The Australian]
**Text messages sent to and from mobile phones will more than double over the next five years to 2.3 trillion messages sent by 2010.
**The number of messages transmitted over short message service (SMS) systems in 2005 was estimated at 936 billion.
**Total revenues from text messaging is forecast to grow to $US72.5 billion ($8.92 billion) in 2010 from $US39.5 billion in 2005.
**By far the most messages will continue to be sent in the Asia Pacific region, the level of SMS messages should top 1.8 trillion in 2010.

* 12 July, 2006 - Meet the Always On Generation [http://www.smh.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/meet-the-alwayson-generation/2006/07/12/1152383751608.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 SMH]
**In 2004-05, in Australia there were 16.2 million mobile subscribers, according to Telstra.
*1 March, 2006 - Mobiles sales grow 21pc - source Reuters 
**Worldwide sales of mobile phones rose by 21% last year, with a total of 816.6 million handsets sold
**Six companies shared 79.4% of the market last year: Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Siemens
**Nokia and Motorola increased their share to 50.2%, compared with 46.1% in 2004
**Overall, the industry sold 164.0 million mobiles in Western Europe last year. 
**The East European, Middle East and African market was a combined 153.5 million. 
**In North America sales were 148.4 million
**In Latin America sales were 102 million, a 40.0-per cent increase from the figure in 2004
**In the Asia-Pacific region, sales were 204.0 million.
 
*27 Jan, 2006 - Mobile phone shipments grew 19% to 810 million units in 2005 and were expected to rise by 15% to 930 million units in 2006 with sales set to break through the 1 billion mark in 2007 [http://www.strategyanalytics.net/default.aspx?mod=PressReleaseViewer&a0=2756 Strategy Analytics]

*19 Jan, 2006 - By 2008, Australia is expected to have passed the 100% mobile phone penetration mark, in line with mature mobile phone markets such as Sweden, the United Kingdom and Italy - source CTIA Wireless Association.

*19 Jan, 2006 By the end of 2006 there will be 2.5 billion mobile subscribers, up from 2.1 billion at the end of 2005 [http://www.strategyanalytics.net/default.aspx?mod=PressReleaseViewer&a0=2747 Strategy Analytics]

*6 Jun, 2005 - Mobile subscribers 2004; Australia 18 mill, China 318 mill. Mobile subscribers 2009; Australia 21 mill, China 535 mill [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2005_06_06_102431 iDC]

*2005 - Global sales of mobile phones will reach nearly 800 million this year and 2.6 billion mobile phones would be in use by the end of 2009 - source Gartner 

*Mobile connections in late 2005 accounted for one third of the planet; 2.1 billion! - source Wireless Intelligence

*At the end of 2004 over 84% of Australians owned a mobile phone - source AMTA

*More than 90% of Australian children aged 6-9 have used a mobile phone - source McNair

==== 2.5G GPRS ==== 

*19 Jan, 2006 - Mobile music accounted for a big 40 per cent of the 1.1 billion dollar revenues made from digital music last year [http://www.pro-music.org/musiconline/news060119.htm article]

*Jan, 2006 - In 2005, Australians forked out more than $1.53 billion on non-voice services such as ringtones, music, SMS and MMS (picture messaging), and video calling. This figure is expected to outgrow the rate of the voice call market by a factor of 10 over the next five years - source IDC

*2005 - Targeted ad ringtones. Instead of popular music ring-back tones, PromoTel estimates that replacing music content with advertisements would generate close to USD$14 billion in revenue for major telecoms like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

*At the start of 2004 Australia had nearly twice as many internet phone users than the UK - source eMarketer

*One in five of all mobile phone users now listen to music on their phones - source IFPI

==== 3G Mobile ====
*27 Feb, 2006 - UK - Recent research, commissioned by Netonomy, has found that 73% of those who own a 3G compatible phone do not use its next generation capability.
 
*19 Jan, 2006 - In Australia only 5% or around 950 000 are on 3G networks  [http://smh.com.au/articles/2006/01/17/1137466994587.html Sydney Morning Herald]

*Jan, 2006 - By 2009, one in three mobile phone users will be connected to a 3G network - source IDC

*Subscribers to services on 3G networks should double in 2006. It estimated that by the end of last year, 49 million 3G mobile customers used services based on the W-CDMA standard. - source Strategy Analytics

*In 2004 Australia was 7th in the world in terms of users of camera phones - more than double that in the USA - source eMarketer

==== Podcasting Video and Audio ====

*July 20, 2006 - Australia - ABC Radio will top 2 million podcasts a month by the end of 2006, leading the forecasts of its closest commercial rival, Austereo, in a booming trend which shows little sign of abating. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/home-audio/abc-shows-the-way-in-podcasting-boom/2006/07/20/1153166495137.html?from=rss - SMH]

*Nielsen Analytics report 20/7/6. [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/new_media/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002877167 Hollywood Reporter]
**About one in 20 Americans on the Internet consider themselves regular downloaders of podcasts, and time spent listening to them is cutting into their radio time.
**4%-6% of the nation's Web surfers are regular podcast downloaders, though only 1% have downloaded eight podcasts or more. 
**By way of contrast, 4.8% of the population publish a blog and 3.9% call themselves online daters. 
**Of those who download podcasts, a little more than three-quarters of them actually listen to podcasts they have downloaded. 
**About 11% of the U.S. Internet population has downloaded at least one podcast
**53% have never even heard the term "podcast." 


*You can access the LAMP presentations and seminars podcast by subscribing via the iTunes Store. If you have iTunes installed  [http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=126314230&s=143441 click here]

*1 Mar, 2006 - Since the IPod's introduction in October 2001, Cupertino, California-based Apple has sold more than 42 million of the sleek devices, with about a third of that total coming in the fourth quarter of 2005. iPod sales accounted for 51% of the company's $5.75 billion in revenue in that quarter. [http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006-03-01T002048Z_01_N28296275_RTRUKOC_0_US-APPLE.xml Reuters]

*28 Feb, 2006 - BigPond said its music sales revenue had jumped 30% since Music Store launched in October [http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,18288576%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html article]

*Feb 15, 2006 - Apple has sold 8 million TV shows through iTunes since the Oct. 12 debut of the iPod video. [http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9191 TV Week US]

*ABC will earn $1.20 per download of the $1.99 consumer download fee on iTunes TV shows. Even if 20% of the show's audience shifts its viewing from traditional TV to iPod, ABC would still net $1.8 million more per episode of itâs top shows

*Nov, 2005 - Apple issued a press release early November 2005 boasting 1 million video downloads from its iTunes service within the first 20 days of the video iPod launch

*Oct, 2005 - Podcasts - 5 million regular listeners worldwide (83% podcasters are male)





=== Cinema ===
*2005/06 - National survey of feature film & TV drama production [http://www.afc.gov.au - Australian Film Commission]
**The total 2005/06 slate of feature film and TV drama productions - Australian, co-production and foreign titles that went into production during the 2005/06 financial year - included 32 features and 607 hours of TV drama (46 programs).  This compares to a total of 34 features and 623 hours of TV drama (34 programs) last year.
**The value of production activity, as measure by the portion of budgets allocated to expenditure in Australia, totalled $361 million, 33% down on last year's $542 million and significantly below the five-year average of $533 million.
**The fall in value was largely due to a sharp drop in foreign features which commenced shooting in Australia.  This year's four foreign titles represented just $23 million in Australian expenditure, the lowest since the AFC began tracking this indicator in 1994/95, and well below the five-year average of $172 million.  (The survey does not track expenditure by foreign features when only post-production occurs in Australia.)
**Australian feature production increased.  Twenty-five of this year's feature films were Australian productions, up from 22 last year, and above the five-year average of 21.  The budgets of these films totalled $98 million, similar to the five-year average of $96 million.
**There were also three features made as official co-productions, with the portion of budgets spent in Australia amounting to $13 million.
**Contributions to the Australian/co-production feature slate from goverment agencies, mainly the FFC, accounted for 42% of finance for the the slate compared to a five year average of 31%.  Australian private investors contributed 7%, below the five-year average of 16%, while the Australian film/TV industry contributed 16% and foreign sources 36%.

*28 Jun, 2006 - The vast majority of films screened in Australian cinemas have been from the US, with an average of 64 per cent over the past 22 years. However, 2005 saw a much lower US proportion, at 53 per cent, contributing 175 releases to the total of 329. Despite this, the US box office dominance continues, with US films earning 81 per cent in 2005. The proportion of Australian titles rose from 5 per cent in 2004 to 8 per cent in 2005, just under the 10 per cent average over 22 years. [http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/awhatsnew.html source AFC]

*28 Jun, 2006 - In 2005, attendance dropped slightly on 2004 levels for all age groups, with the largest fall, 6 per cent, recorded among people aged 25â34. Similar falls were seen in the frequency of visits in all age demographics, although the decrease was relatively small for people over 50 years of age. Frequency of attendance among cinema-goers fell in all capital cities except Sydney, where it stayed pretty much the same (an average of 8.1-8.2 visits a year). [http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/awhatsnew.html source AFC]

*28 Jun, 2006 - News from January this year was the drop in cinema box office in Australia to $817.5m in 2005, after reaching a five-year high in 2004; admissions fell to 82.2 million, the lowest since 2000. Locally produced films improved their box office share in 2005, climbing from a 30-year low of 1.3 per cent in 2004 to earn $23.1m in 2005, a 2.8 per cent share. [http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/awhatsnew.html source AFC]

*16 Feb, 2006 - Some 95% of all DVDs sold in China are pirated, costing the film industry $280m - source Motion Picture Association of America [http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1709435,00.html The Guardian]

*14 Feb, 2006 - Figures released today showed that audiences across Europe and the US declined sharply last year. In Germany, there was a 20.6% drop in ticket sales. Spain saw a 15% fall and France a 10% slump. In the US, it is estimated that only 9% of the population, about 178 million people, go to the cinema regularly compared with 60% in the 1940s when Hollywood was in its heyday. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/simultaneous-combustion/2006/01/25/1138066863552.html Sydney Morning Herald]

*26 Jan, 2006 - Simultaneous release considered for films. DVDs now provide 59% of studio's feature film revenues, compared with 48% in 2004. Last year, only 15% of worldwide revenues came from cinema attendance, compared with 55% in the 1980s, when cinemas had to battle against the introduction of videos and pay television. [http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/simultaneous-combustion/2006/01/25/1138066863552.html Sydney Morning Herald]

=== Emerging Platforms ===

==== WiFi ====
*26 February, 2007 US Pew Internet & American Life Project [http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking-news/survey-onethird-of-internet-users-have-used-wireless-connections/2007/02/26/1172338516624.html The Age]
**About one-third of Internet users in the U.S. have used a wireless connection to surf the Web or check e-mail, according to a survey.
**The survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 34 percent of Internet users have gone online through Wi-Fi service or a mobile phone network, including 27 percent who have logged on from somewhere other than their home or workplace.
**Nineteen percent of Internet users now have a wireless network in their home. That number has nearly doubled since January 2005, when 10 percent said they had a home wireless network.
**One in four Internet users said they have a mobile phone that can access the Internet, and 54 percent of those with the capability said they have used it to get online. About 13 percent of Internet users have a personal digital assistant, and 56 percent said they have used it to access the Internet or e-mail away from home or work.

*12 December, 2006 - WiFi demand booms in '06 [http://www.theage.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/wifi-demand-booms-in-06/2006/12/12/1165685653216.html The Age]
**Global shipments of the wireless chips are expected to grow 25 per cent to 200.9 million by the end of the year, compared with 160.9 million in 2005, according to figures from the WiFi Alliance industry association and In-Stat, a research group owned by Reed Elsevier Group PLC.
**Chips for WiFi-enabled laptops and routers continued to make up the bulk of the category, about 75 per cent in 2006.
**Wireless chips for portable consumer electronics, which includes hand-held video games and the Zune, made up about 15 per cent of shipments in 2006, down from 17 percent in 2005, In-Stat data show. Chips for stationary consumer electronics like video game consoles accounted for about 10 per cent of shipments, up from 8 per cent last year.
**Mobile phones that can use a WiFi connection are also expected to take off. Data and projections from In-Stat show shipments of chips bound for dual-mode phones to grow from less than 1 per cent this year to 5 per cent next year, to nearly a quarter of the market in 2010.

*3 November, 2006 - WiFi hotspots mulitply
**Surging demand for wireless internet will translate into a 47% jump in global Wi-Fi hotspots in 2006, a market research firm said.
**An ABI Research forecast concluded that in 2006 the number of commercial Wi-Fi hotspots would increase to 143,700. The report said 74% are in North America and Europe, but the Asia-Pacific region was growing very rapidly. "By 2011 the Asia-Pacific region will surpass both Europe and North America in the number of Wi-Fi hotspots," said vice president and research director Stan Schatt.
**Europe is still the market leader with over 57,000 hotspots, ABI said.
**A major driver of Wi-Fi hot spots is retail establishments such as fast-food chain McDonalds, which has hotspots at 4,000 locations worldwide.  Another major force is the hotel industry, which has been increasing its wireless internet offerings. Mr Schatt said that by 2010 the hospitality industry will offer more than 109,000 Wi-Fi hotspots.[http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20693242%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html - Australian IT]

*26 Jan, 2006 - WiFi Hotspots - source JiWire
**Top 10 countries (number of WiFi hotspots) United States 37,073, United Kingdom 12,668, South Korea 9415, Germany 8614, Japan 5951, France 3886, Italy 1767, Netherlands 1703, Canada 1397, Switzerland 1295
**Top 10 cities (number of WiFi hotspots) Seoul 2056, Tokyo 1802, London 1627, Paris 895, San Francisco 801, Daegu 787, New York 643, Singapore 619, Busan 617, Hong Kong 605
**With more than 37,000 hotspots, the US tops the rankings, followed by the UK at 12,668, then South Korea at 9415. With 1282 hotspots, Australia trails behind Switzerland to take 11th position. 
**Some cities are also looking at city-wide implementations of wireless technology with Philadelphia and San Francisco rolling out free or low-cost wireless access that would transform the city into a WiFi hotspot.

*Australia had 454 WiFi hotspots compared with USA's 12,772 at the start of 2004 - EyeForTravel