News
Our people always like to keep ontop of any developments within the media marketplace, check here for the latest news and opinions.
Independent introduces its succinct spin-off – the tabloid 'i'
Publisher distributes 400,000 copies of Alexander Lebedev's new 20p slimmed-down daily
Living to become Sky Living as part of new entertainment offering
Sky is to rebrand Living, the channel bought as part of Virgin Media Television in July, as Sky...Sky Living will sit on the Sky Electronic Programme Guide on position 107, replacing Sky 2
Channel 4 to take £1bn in TV ad revenue in 2011, says boss
Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham expects Channel 4's ad sales to achieve in excess of £1bn during 2011, as the broadcaster undertakes its first brand campaign in four years.OFT views impact of Sky-VMtv merger as 'relatively limited' The Office of Fair Trading cleared BSkyB's purchase of Virgin Media Television, despite acknowledging it would contribute to a wider consolidation process in the TV ad market, because the contribution to Sky Media's share was "relatively limited".
Sky expects up to 200,000 Sky 3D subscribers by mid-2011
BSkyB expects Sky 3D, the 3D channel which launched today, to attract up to 200,000 subscribers by the end of June 2011How creativity in TV advertising impacts the brain
Thinkbox's first foray into neuroscience research reveals that in terms of ad creative, it's the little things that can make all the difference.
Project Canvas named 'YouView'
Project Canvas, the free on-demand TV service backed by the BBC, ITV, BT, Channel 4, TalkTalk, Arqiva and Five, will be called YouView, it was announced this morning.TV ad market could be up 13 per cent in 2010
Media agencies expect the UK TV ad market to be up around 12 to 13 per cent year on year in 2010, making it worth more than £4.1 billion, with TV the only medium to be up on 2008 levels.Sky to close Bravo and Channel One and around 50 jobs to go
BSkyB is to close free-to-air Channel One and pay-TV channel Bravo as part of the integration of the Living TV Group into the Sky business with the anticipated loss of up to 50 jobs.Sky reaches 3m HD customers as it adds Living HD to line-up
BSkyB has passed three million HD customers and announced today's launch of Living HD on its platform means it will definitely reach its target of 50 high definition channels in time for Christmas.Richard Desmond Buys Five - 23rd July 2010
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1018331/Richard-Desmond-buys-Five-1035m/
Richard Desmond, owner of Northern & Shell has bought the broadcaster Five for £103.5m.
Five HD launches on Sky and Virgin today - 13th July 2010
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/channel/television/article/1015775/Five-HD-launches-Sky-Virgin-today/
Finally we'll all be able to see Harold Bishop in all his high definition glory!
IDS set to close - July 5th 2010
http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1014160/ids-set-close-loss-100-jobs/
The sale of airtime for all Virgin Media channels, previously sold by saleshouse IDS are to be taken on by Sky Media, the nail in the coffin came today as UKTV annouched a new 10 year contract with C4 who will take over the sale of airtime on their channels.
TV Update - June 6th 2010
What a week it’s been on TV and there’s much more to come over the next few weeks, so pray for rain (except for those in the Wimbledon area) so that you’ve got every excuse to sit in and enjoy the delights of what’s to come. But before we peer into the future, let’s look back at what has been happening...
And it’s more a case of what hasn’t been going on, firstly we’ve had the semi-finals and finals of Britain’s (blatantly not) Got Talent, and whilst it’s still performing very well, it’s not as high as Simon Cowell’s waistband. Last year the semi-finals averaged c.12m lovers of car-crash TV and the final over 17m fuelled by the man-boob fest that was Stavros Flatley; the gasping at Diversity to see if they’d drop the kind that looked like Sideshow Bob; and the wonderment that an old bag lady could sing. But this year the semis have averaged c.9.8m and the final 12.4m, peaking at 15m as the acts failed to spark the imagination, although it was still the second biggest programme of the year so far behind Eastender’s live episode.
Personally I think that the magician who regurgitated objects should have got through to the final, then in the final swallowed Piers Morgan and then refused to bring him back up - that would have been TV gold and got him an OBE in the process from the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.
But whilst BGT may not have lived up to expectations ratings-wise, which may also be due to the decision to schedule it earlier up against Eastenders at 7.30pm rather than 8.30pm as last year, it certainly hit the BBC hard (not that the BBC chase ratings being a public service broadcaster). On Friday the ray of light in people’s lives that is Eastenders attracted only 4.4m doom seekers against the normal 7m+, whilst the repeat on BBC3 at 10pm achieved 1.7m viewers and usually it only does 1m. On Monday the Eastenders repeat on BBC3 had beaten the final episode of Five’s big US drama Flashforward which finished with more of a whimper than a bang with only 1.5m.
When the northern soap had to be replaced on ITV1 by Harry Hill due to the unfortunate shootings in Cumbria and the comparable storyline in the programme the viewing in the 9pm slot (when it was going out) dropped from 9.5m to 5.9m. This then reduced the inherited audience of the results show of BGT which fell from 9.5m to 8.1m, showing the benefit of complementary scheduling. But this also brings up the question of why people invest an hour and a half of their lives watching a circus competition to then not bother finding out who won, it’s like watching an England game in the World Cup that will inevitably go to penalties, but not watching the penalties themselves!
There were complaints that ITV1 moved the three Coro programmes to this week - talk about ITV being damned if they do and damned if they don’t, although I agree with one comment I read that said that TV doesn’t necessarily influence violent actions and that the appearance of Piers Morgan’s face on TV is more likely to invoke a violent reaction than a shooting in Weatherfield.
And when Coro was on last week on Monday it made its HD debut and just over 500,000 people saw the cobbles of Weatherfield, Betty’s hotpot and Gail’s jowls in all their glory. Makes you glad for standard definition TV, and even nostalgic for black and white TV.
Last Sunday saw Jack Bauer impose his morality on the world for a final time (on the small screen at least, let’s hope that when they take it to the silver screen that they don’t try to emulate the ‘real time’ narrative otherwise cinemas will have to install beds as well as 3D screens). Viewing figures for the last hour on the day of transmission were 600,000 but this will grow, and probably at least double when 7-day timeshifted viewing is included. Two weeks ago the ‘live’ episode attracted the same amount of gore/morality lovers but over the next seven days this increased to 1m.
By contrast the first showing of 24 on Sky 1 in 2004 added just 82,000 viewers in the following week taking the consolidated figure to 1.05m, which shows the increased usage of timeshifting technology, and the figures for this week’s 24 don’t include the viewing to other airings of the programme or viewing via other platforms such as online, so total viewing could easily go to 2m+. The same pattern of viewing is happening elsewhere, another high profile example is the finale of Lost shown at 5am in the morning, which had only 68,000 viewers at that time but by the end of the day that had grown to 635,000 and by the end of the week to 1.13m, again excluding other showings and online catch up.
The BBC went camping in Norway recently at Eurovision, but the audience was pegged back compared to last year with just over 5.5m campers, 2m less than last year. Maybe it’s just because if people want to watch a load of talentless losers they could do this in a more entertaining way on ITV1 with Britain’s (not) Got Talent?
On top of all this excitement on TV, 13 weeks of Big Brother starts tonight so very soon we’ll find out which bunch of freaks and fame-hungry wannabes will become compulsive viewing for the very last time. And then there’s the small matter of the World Cup and most importantly, not who will win but which side will you watch in the later stages when the BBC and ITV go head to head? Will it be the purveyor of the potato snack, or the man who’s consumed enough of them to do a decent imitation of a hamster? Lineker v Chiles, take your pick, or in the world of kids TV lookalikes it has to be Roland Rat vs his sidekick Erroll the Hamster...
I’m off to find a padded cell for the next few months to Big Brother in peace and quiet as it sends me slowly mad...