Week commencing 2nd June 2008
 Five has put its planned refresh of the core TV channel on
hold following the recent shake-up of its management team. In April,
Five has said that, following the re-branding of Five Life to Fiver,
it would turn its attention to core channel Five to give it a "brighter,
lighter look". Five Life had a more radical overhaul in April,
with an attempt to position Fiver as a younger channel featuring
new acquisitions and commissions including Generation Sex, Celebrity
Rehab, Dirt, Sex and the City and Ocean Force. The refresh of the
core channel and digital channel Five US had been planned for this
summer. Source: Media Week
Five has signed an
exclusive three-year deal with UEFA for the 2009-12 UEFA Cup. Under
the terms of the deal, Five will have the first pick of matches
in each round. Five will also have exclusive rights to the UEFA
Cup Final. In total the deal will guarantee 15 games a year from
2009-10 to 2011-12. Charles Constable, Five's director of strategy,
said: "Football is a key part of Five's programming strategy.
It's great for our viewers that we can now guarantee them so many
games every season, involving some of the best teams in Britain
and Europe." Source: Mediatel
Talent show finales see peak
audience figures. Britain's Got Talent and I'd Do Anything
attracted more than 18 million adult viewers between them on Saturday
night. ITV1's Britain's Got Talent easily won the ratings war, with
a 53% audience share in the second part of the programme's final,
between 9.30 and 10pm. Source: Mediatel
Channel 4 and Honda teamed up to broadcast the first ever
totally live advert on British TV last night, attracting a peak
audience of 2.2 million adult viewers. The ad, featuring 19 skydivers
leaping out of a plane over Madrid and spelling out the word Honda,
had a three minutes and 20 second slot in the first ad break of
Come Dine With Me at 8.10pm. It was inspired by the car manufacturer's
new multi-million pound advertising campaign 'Difficult is worth
doing' Source: Mediatel
 The
Times has introduced a number of editorial and design changes
as part of a full-colour redesign of the paper. The changes include
colour-coded sections and an updating of its daily supplement section,
times2. Source: Media Week
ShortList, the free weekly men's magazine, has released
an ABC figure for the first quarter that is 25,000 below its debut
ABC of 462,731 for the period July to December 2007. ShortList said
it was forced to cut its ABC to comply with new ABC rules that prevent
free titles from claiming for copies that were returned without
being handed out. Previously, free titles could claim for each full
bundle of publications supplied to distributors, even though part
of the bundle may have beenreturned undistributed. ShortList has
registered an ABC of 438,033 average weekly copies for the period
1 January to 31 March 2008. Source: Media Week
River Publishing's Shape magazine is to close after just
three issues. The River managing director, Edward Axon, blamed the
economic downturn and a lack of advertising for the closure. The
title was the first big launch into the women's monthly market since
Psychologies in 2005. Source: Media Week
The Independent's distinctive "viewspaper" front
pages need reinvention because they can be "boring", Simon
Kelner has admitted in an interview as he prepares to hand over
the title's editorship. Kelner also revealed that the Independent
would have full colour and a redesign by September and why he thought
the internet was a secondary priority to print. He made the comments
as he prepares to hand over after a decade in charge of the Independent
to former Observer editor Roger Alton at the end of the month. Kelner
confirmed that the Independent would become full colour in September
and it would redesign before then, "whether we like it or not".
He vowed to maintain the Independent as a campaigning newspaper
and did not indicate that he was in any way retreating from its
viewspaper front pages. But he added that while the Independent's
front page is radical, this does not marry with the rest of the
paper, which is presented in a traditional format inside. Straightforward
information should account for a very small part of newspapers,
Kelner said. Source: Guardian Media
 SMG
has sold Virgin Radio to TIML Golden Square, a subsidiary
of Times of India Group, for £53.2 million. The deal sees
the station lose the Virgin name, although it will continue in its
present form until the autumn. TIML said that it will invest in
excess of £15 million developing and rolling out its new brand.
It added that the new proposition will be faithful to the existing
format and will win new audiences and revenues via multiple platforms
and touch points such as mobile, on-line and digital. The Indian
group also owns the Times of India, the world's largest-circulation
English broadsheet daily newspaper, and India's leading English
news channel, Times NOW. Source: Mediatel
 Associated Newspapers is setting up a specialised digital
sales unit for its flagship online newspaper. Brand, Mail Online.
Currently, one digital sales team handles advertising across Associated
Newspapers' entire digital network, including Mail Online, Metro.co.uk,
property site Findaproperty.com and financial website Thisismoney.co.uk
. Source: Media Week
Over two million more people used the internet
in Q1 2008 than in the same period last year, according to figures
released by BMRB. Growth is up 6.6% across the UK, to 31.6 million
people compared to the same period last year. The figure shows online
usage is slightly down on Q1 2006-2007. The comfort and privacy
of your own home continues to be the most popular location to surf
the net reports the BMRB survey. 30.09 million users now log on
at home, an 8.6% rise from Q107. The steady levelling of the sexes
continues at a very slow pace with only an extra 630,000 men than
women in cyber space. This margin has been slowly narrowing since
2000 when there was a gap of 3 million. This is reflected in the
Q1 year on year rise of 4.6% for men and 8.9% for women. Source:
Mediatel
A new study reveals that more than a quarter of
people check the news on their mobile phone at the old-fashioned
teatime TV news slot. The peak time to watch the news on a mobile
phone in the UK is 6pm, followed by an equally familiar 9pm and
10pm, according to the report by Mediacells. Mobile phones may be
the latest way to watch the news but the time of day seems to be
as traditional as ever. Nearly 30% of people who use their mobile
to access the news are said to be professionals, using their phones
for practical reasons like making calls finding out information.
Source: Mediatel
 UK Box Office Chart
1. Sex and the City (2008)
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
3. What Happens in Vegas... (2008)
4. Iron Man (2008)
5. Nim's Island (2008)
6. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)
7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
8. Speed Racer (2008)
9. Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins (2008)
10. Sukkar banat (2007)
Source: IMDB
New research released this
week by the Cinema Advertising Association (CAA) reveals that a
massive 85% of cinema goers agree they usually watch cinema commercials
as part of the cinema experience. The FAME (Film Audience Measurement
and Evaluation) research, which measures and investigates cinema
audience behaviour, found that the highest penetration in terms
of demographics was with the 35-44 age group, women and ABC1s. The
impact of big screen advertising adds to the experience of commercials,
the research found, with half of cinema goers agreeing they were
likely to talk about an ad they had seen at the cinema. Other cinema
advertising formats proved incredibly effective, with over three
quarters taking note of foyer posters - rising to 80 per cent among
15-24 year olds. Almost every cinema goer (95%) notices all advertising
in foyers - a location where advertisers have an average of eighteen
minutes to engage with consumers. FAME also found that newer cinema
media channels have huge potential to add value for brands. Over
half (55%) of cinema goers would download something for free via
Bluetooth - rising to 72% among the 15-24 age group. Source: Mediatel
Edited by The Direct Team |
