The vision of a Digital Britain rears its beautiful head

As part of the Digital Britain programme outlined in a report presented yesterday by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw to the UK Parliament, every British home with a fixed-line phone will be hooked to broadband internet within the next two years. That’s the good news, but the bad news is that a small fixed levy of 50 pence per month to spread the cost of providing the service to the peripheries of the country.

Another example of the “good news, bad news” was presented by the Culture Secretary Bradshaw during the same report, but this time the bad news applies only to the BBC.

Part of Bradshaw’s vision for Digital Britain is that a percentage of the revenue gained from license fees will no longer be for the exclusive use of the BBC. Instead a percentage will also be allocated to the ITV to pay for regional news; with 3.5% of the annual fee looking like it could be going to the ITV as well as other public service broadcasters from the year 2013.

The heavily indebted pub group Punch Taverns announced that they will be to coming to terms with the problem through the launch of a £375 million share placing, with proceeds from the placing to be set aside to meet a critical £215 million bond repayment due early 2010.

With the English Premier League currently on hold, the drama seems to have moved from the football field and into the boardroom. The Premier League’s management has increased the pressure on cash strapped Setanta, who look like being default to meet a £10 million payment on Friday as part of its existing license agreement. The Premier League have passed the ball back to Setanta by emphasizing that if the payment is not met, then the contract will be terminated. To rub a little more salt in the wound, the Premier League have announced that they will be issuing a tender to cover the group’s 46 football matches promised for season 2009/2010, stating that whilst they “would like to provide Setanta with as much time as possible to rearrange its finances” the start of the season was now less two months away and they needed to ensure that these matches would be covered.

The UK’s largest retailer, Tesco pointed out that strong growth in Asia and the US has helped them to offset a steadier rate of growth at home, whilst pointing out some tentative improvement on their UK performance compared with their previous quarter’s results.

Matalan, the discount retail chain have seen sales and profits increase as bargain-hunting British shoppers beat a path to their door.
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A spokesman for the company announced that sales for the financial year to February 28 had risen by two percent to £1.04 billion, while profits had increased to £102 million.
As the global economic downturn, the trend for discount retailers such as Matalan to outperform the high street appears to be gaining momentum.

Yesterday was a better day on the Stock Exchange. The FTSE 100 rose, but just by a smidgeon, 2.56 points to finish on 4,328. 57, a big improvement on Monday’s free fall. The FTSE 250 continued to drop but not as much as in previous days’ trading. The day’s trading closed with the FTSE 250, down just 9.92 points on 7,483.60

Sterling rose slightly against the dollar, Euro and Swiss Franc, while losing ground slightly against the Japanese Yen.

Pound/US dollar 1.6398
Pound/Euro 1.1852
Pound/Japanese Yen 158.1283
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.7856

In the US, the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that industrial production had fallen by 1.1% in May from April, a figure which was considerably higher than had been hoped for.

On Wall Street share prices continued their fall, with signs that profit taking was the cause, rather than lack of confidence. The Dow Jones dropped 107.46 points to close on 8504.67, while the NASDAQ dropped another 20.2 points to close below the 1800 mark on 1796.18

The number of new US house starts in May rose considerably when compared to April’s record low, according to a spokesman from the Commerce Department.
Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000 units in May, up from April’s figure of 454,000, making for an increase of 17.2% on the month, while still down 45.2% from May last year.

Commodities prices were mixed on Tuesday with oil rising above $71 a barrel at one point as a weaker dollar lured investors back into the energy market after a sharp sell-off on Monday.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a warning that Eurozone banks face additional losses of more than $283 billion in 2009 and 2010 as continental Europe’s severe recession continues and even intensifies, placing tremendous strains on the financial sector,.
As part of a report issued by the ECB on Monday proclaimed that the fates of the eurozone economy and its banks have become increasingly interlinked,” with banks losses expected to be focused on their loan exposures.

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Tags: BBC TV’s, Ben Bradshaw, British Economy, Digital Britain, English Premier League, Financial News, ITV, Matalan, Punch Taverns, Setanta, Tesco