The Entertainment Retailers Association said sales of GBP1.93 billion in 2011 made the gaming industry the country's biggest entertainment sector. Sales of DVDs and other video formats totalled GBP1.80 billion, while music pulled in GBP1.07 billion. By comparison, over the whole of last year, games accounted for 40.2% of the entertainment market, video for 37.6% and music for 22.2%. Total sales in 2011 for games, video and music fell year-on-year by 3.3% to GBP4.80 billion.

Smartphone owners are the most responsive to out-of-home advertising (OOH) with 74% interacting with it at least once, according to new research from CBS Outdoor. The Interactive Europe study of 9,000 consumers across six European countries found that 51% of people are more likely to pay attention to OOH than any other form of advertising, rising to 56% among smartphone owners. It also appears to be boosting mobile commerce, with 32% of smartphone owners going online to learn more about a brand after seeing an OOH ad and 20% purchasing a product as a result of an OOH ad.

The iPhone and Android apps will offer live news, financial data, football scores, etc., with picture galleries and video. UK subscribers will gain access to Premier League highlights from ESPN to watch goals as a match is played. Homescreens will be customisable as well. Print and iPad subscribers to the newspaper will enjoy the apps free of charge.

Existing networks like Yahoo, Fourth Screen and AdMob may be threatened by a plan to form a data-driven ad network from Everything Everywhere, O2 UK and Vodafone. It would include the key aspect of providing demographic targeting. The plan is part of a mobile wallet joint venture known as Project Oscar. Industry insiders called the proposal a "land grab" of the UK mobile ad market.

The company's Paul Smernicki on Thursday spoke at the Guardian Changing Media Summit about Universal's concern that Spotify could hurt sales of music on physical media "but we've been unable to find that evidence." Apparently, the growth of digital revenue in European countries with Spotify is about 40% as compared to 10% in countries without. Smernicki says the music industry has found its feet.

Likely the result of a botched relaunch of Mirror.co.uk in February. The company's average daily unique browser numbers plummeted by a quarter to 662,162, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Thursday. However, year-on-year MGD daily and monthly browser numbers were both up 20%. Guardian.co.uk enjoyed another record month, topping 4 million average daily unique browsers for the first time, while Mail Online was down slightly month-on-month.

In the latest installment of Red Bee Media's Tomorrow Calling programme, which aims to build a picture of the media world in 2020, we learn that the UK television industry expects pay and ad revenues from online video services to quadruple by then. Research has found that 78% are positive about the financial outlook for the industry. But incumbent players are facing growing competition, with Internet and tech likely the biggest challengers.

Fifty-two percent of owners say they won't be without one; only 23% disagree. They spend more money online and use them for most types of media consumption, Total Media research finds. The average UK table owner spent GBP97 online in the past three months. That is higher than the national average of GBP79, and also exceeds average online spending by the affluent ABC1 demographic (GBP88) and by people who just own smartphones (GBP89).

Australia and New Zealand hold strong ties to Brits, an examination of global friendship patterns on Facebook shows. "Despite long periods of independence in some instances, the social fabric of once expansive trade empires frequently reveals a lasting impression of their former history," says Facebook's Johan Ugander. "In South America, we see ties with Guyana, the modern sovereign republic that was once the former colony of British Guiana."

Although e-retail sales were up by double digits over February 2011, they were the slowest growth rate since January 2011, reports Interactive Media in Retail Group and consultancy Capgemini. UK shoppers spend GBP5.4 billion. February was the second consecutive month that web-only retailers outpaced those multichannel retailers. By category, Beer, wines and spirits were up 9%; Clothing, footwear and accessories, 9%; Consumer electronics, 3%; Gifts, 22%; Health and beauty, 32%.