Week commencing 6th August 2007
 Virgin
Media lost 70,300 subscribers across its four cable and mobile
services in the three months to the end of June. The cable operator
added 2,200 new cable TV subscribers during the quarter, saying
that the removal of Sky's basic channels in March resulted in it
losing 40,000 customers across its range of services. Net broadband
additions were 48,500, down from 87,900 in the first three months
of 2007, whilst Virgin Mobile customer numbers rose in the second
quarter by 53,000 to 299,000. The company reported a pre-tax profit
of £315.3 million, whilst operating income was £3 million,
compared with an operating loss of £15.3 million in the first
quarter. The company reported a net loss of £119 million,
which was a slight gain over the £120.3 million loss of the
previous quarter. "The new partnership with Setanta, the planned
launch of sports and entertainment channels and our growing VOD
platform makes us the superior pay TV offering in the country. Along
with our enhanced broadband portal, we have significantly improved
our content offering; while improved product bundling and further
merger benefits mean the cash outlook for the rest of the year and
beyond remains strong." Virgin Media put itself up for sale
in July, although yesterday it announced that it has delayed the
sale of the company to give buyers time to make proposals "in
a more stable debt market". Yesterday, Virgin Media TV announced
that it is launching a +1 service for its free-to-view entertainment
channel Ftn this month, with Ftn to rebrand as Virgin 1 in the Autumn.
Source: Mediatel
ITV's underlying earnings fell to £151 million in
Michael Grade's first six months in charge, although this figure
is £10 million higher than analysts had predicted. Lower earnings
had been expected after ITV said in a trading statement last month
that it had been hit by a decline in revenues at ITV Play, the broadcaster's
quiz channel, following the furore over TV phone-ins. At the start
of the month, Channel 4 announced that it is cutting all profit-making
phone-in competitions, with the exception of Deal or No Deal, where
its share of future profits will go to charity from August 13. ITV1,
the broadcaster's flagship channel, recorded a decline in net advertising
revenues from £654 million a year ago to £595 million.
Revenues from outside ITV1's net advertising income now account
for 41% of total revenues, up from 39% a year ago, said ITV. Michael
Grade, ITV executive chairman, said: "I'm very pleased with
progress in ITV1's schedule performance and the outlook for revenue
in Q3 is encouraging. The launch of the Autumn schedule was well
received with a number of returning hit series and major events
including the Rugby World Cup. "ITV has been affected by the
incidence of editorial and compliance failures which have affected
the television sector. Deloitte are moving towards completion of
their review of our PRTS activity and in October we will publish
the findings of that review and an explanation of remedial actions.
We are co-operating closely with Ofcom and ICSTIS during this process."
Meanwhile, ITV has also appointed two non-executive directors, Agnès
Touraine and Heather Killen. Last month, Greg Dyke, former director
general of the BBC, said that ITV cannot survive as an independent
company, adding that its performance between 2000 and 2006 was "dismal".
Source: Mediatel
London-Irish sports broadcaster Setanta have launched a
new service called Setanta by Broadband. The service allows viewers
to watch sport online at any time and is currently available for
£7.99 a month. Setanta Sports 1, 2 and Setanta Golf will be
on offer through the service. The broadcaster, which is already
available on Freeview, satellite, cable and BT Vision, hopes its
exclusive online footage of football matches from the Barclays Premier
League and the Clydesdale Bank Premier League will attract people
to sign up. Setanta by Broadband also offers an archive of sports
broadcasts, allowing viewers access to a catch-up service. The launch
of the broadcaster's new channel, Setanta Sports News, was exclusively
revealed in Media Week (24 July) and is due to go live on cable
later this year, with no date currently set. The channel is a joint
venture with Virgin Media, but Setanta Sports hopes for it to appear
on broadband and satellite in the future. The channel is said to
be a replacement for Sky Sports News, which Virgin Media lost from
its schedule earlier this year following a dispute with Sky over
carriage costs. The sports broadcaster has recently announced the
launch of a nationwide TV campaign, fronted by former Match of the
Day presenter Des Lynam, who will also be a presenter of its coverage
of 46 live Premier League games. Source: Mediaweek
 ACP-Natmag,
a joint venture between UK and Australian publishers, is attempting
to boost the circulation of women's weekly Reveal, with a £3
million advertising campaign. The push, created by an in-house team
trading under the name You, Me and Victor, coincides with the third
anniversary of the mag and will break on 6 August. Media is being
handled by PHD Rocket. The television ad shows an aspiring psychic
newsagent, called Clair Voyant, who tries to read the mind of a
regular customer. After failing to do so successfully, he tells
her: "You want celebrity gossip, fashion, real-life stories
- you want Reveal magazine." The campaign follows the formation
of a dedicated sales team for Reveal, led by former BBC magazine
executive Jessica Cain. Colin Morrison, chief executive of ACP-Natmag,
said: "It is almost three years since the launch of Reveal
- and of ACP-Natmag Magazines. "During that time, the magazine
has established itself as major celebrity and fashion weekly for
young women throughout the UK. This new promotional campaign is
part of ambitious plans for Reveal which is thriving under the leadership
of editor, Michael Butcher." Source: Mediatel
City AM, the morning business freesheet, has signed a 12
month contract with iCD Research for its online readership tracking
survey, which covers the London and national newspaper markets.
City AM is the first title to join the survey, which is conducted
entirely online and looks at free and paid for titles. The business
freesheet does not currently take part in the National Readership
Survey. The latest ABC figures, for June 2007, show that City AM
had a total of almost 100,500 copies, down by around 600 copies
month on month. The NRS has been intending to release figures for
the two afternoon freesheets, thelondonpaper and the London Lite,
last month, however, this has now been delayed until the June data
release in September. Roger Pratt, managing director of the NRS,
said of the delay: "The decision was taken because on close
inspection of the data it was concluded that the estimates for both
papers for the period December 2006 - May 2007 are at the moment
based on an insufficiently complete sample as they cannot include
responses to the self-completion questionnaire (SCQ)." The
iCD Readership Tracking survey provides customers with quarterly
reports, enabling them to view long-term trends.
According to reports, iCD Research has also approached thelondonpaper
and London Lite about inclusion in the survey. Jens Torpe, CEO of
City AM, said: "The strong audience access and high quality
reporting make the Tracking Survey ideal for monitoring our reader
volume and distribution as we continue to experience consistent
growth. "The survey will help us to ensure City AM's strategy
of remaining the top free business daily for the City is continually
achieved." Source: Mediatel
Esquire, the long-running men's monthly fashion title, has
unveiled a new look and size for its September issue in a bid to
be noticed amidst the largely flailing sea of men's mags. The new
size, more commonly seen in the US, is unique to the UK men's market
and, according to publisher NatMags, differentiates Esquire as a
premium product. The more compact title is supposed to make the
title, now under recently appointed editor Jeremy Langmead (formerly
of style bible Wallpaper*), easier to read on the move and will
"mark the magazine out on the newsstand". Langmead said
that Esquire has "always been a magazine for grown-ups",
that aims to "scintillate and titillate, entertain and inspire".
The September issue features a cover shot of Michelle Pfeiffer photographed
by Rankin; Booker-shortlisted writer Andrew O'Hagan on film; Michael
Winner on gold diggers; and columns from David Baddiel and Adam
Thirlwell. In the period July to December 2005, Esquire recorded
an ABC of 71,401, which dipped to 52,468 for the same period in
2006. Source: Mediatel
 The
outdoor industry is set to hit the £1billion revenue mark
by the end of this year. Last week's results saw another 8.5% rise
year on year for Q2 2007. The Outdoor Advertising Association has
confirmed the industry needs only 6.4% growth in the second half
of this year to meet the £I billion target. These last results
show an increase for the twentieth consecutive quarter. Source:
Media Week
 NME magazine is going to offer one of the biggest music download stores
available when it launches this week its first mobile WAP website.
It is making one million full track digital downloads available
for purchase through deals with music retailers. NME will also sell
wallpapers of its rockstar photography and realtone downloads featuring
tracks. The WAP site will be available to readers by texting a short
code. Source: Media Week
Google is looking to take a huge slice of
the mobile advertising market with the launch of Google phone. The
mobile advertising market is worth approximately £5.4 billion
at present. Source: Mediatel
 GCap
Media's Xfm in Manchester has taken over the commentary rights
for Manchester United FC from GMG Radio in time for the 2007/8 season.
The station will begin commentary on Sunday (August 12) with a match
against Reading, and will then cover every game, home and away.
Xfm is yet to announce its full commentary line up but has confirmed
ex-United player Mickey Thomas will be involved as a pundit. GMG
Radio's 105.4 Century FM chose to give up its rights to broadcast
commentary on the team's games after nine years. GMG sales director
Julian Carter said this week that the station was aiming to become
more female friendly and that owning the commentary rights gave
the station an "unfair Manchester bias", alienating listeners
in Lancashire and Liverpool. Source: MediaWeek
Buyups and increased potential for networking could
give commercial radio the clout to take on the BBC. A union of Emap and GMG Radio would create the country's largest radio group,
with around 16 million listeners. The prospect of a tie-up loomed
today after a Daily Telegraph report that Guardian Media Group,
owner of GMG Radio, was in discussions with private equity firm
Apax Partners about launching a £2bn bid for Emap. Home to
the Kiss and Magic radio networks, Emap's stations have a weekly
reach of 11.6 million listeners, a 10.1% share in the market. It
is currently in second place behind Classic FM and Capital parent
GCap Media, which has 15.2 million listeners and a 13.1% share.
But Emap would leapfrog GCap with the addition of GMG Radio - home
to Smooth, Century and Real Radio - which currently has 4.8 million
listeners, a 4.6% share. The prospect of a merger comes in the middle
of Ofcom's review of radio regulation, including the relaxation
of existing radio ownership rules and allowing for greater networking
of content across radio groups. Source: Media Guardian
Former Chrysalis chief executive Phil Riley
left the company last week to avoid becoming a "fly in the
ointment" after its sale to Global Radio was confirmed. Riley,
who spent 13 years at the helm of the radio company, insisted his
departure was not down to a disagreement over the direction the
new management would take Chrysalis, saying he was not privy to
the plans of his would-be employers. He predicted there would not
be a raft of redundancies and refused to speculate on his replacement.
Former Capital group programme director Richard Park has joined
the board at Global and Riley believes Tabor intends to "play
a full and active role in running it". Source: MediaWeek
GMG Radio has created a consultation service
for agencies and local advertisers to improve the standard of advertising
in radio and bring new advertisers to the medium. Group sales director
Julian Carter and his team have devised umbrella sales brand Pure
Results in a bid to let clients across the Real, Smooth, Century
FM and Rock Radio brands know what they need to do to achieve their
goals, and to assess what those goals are. Pure Results offers flexible
packages encompassing on-air, online and digital media and is specifically
aimed at enticing non-radio advertisers into the market. Source:
MediaWeek
 Poor
financial results have put cinema sales houses Carlton Screen
Advertising and Pearl & Dean under increasing pressure
to renegotiate their contracts with cinema outlets. Both businesses
are currently operating at a loss and no turnarounds have been predicted
for the latter part of the year. The ad commitments that the sales
houses agreed to pay cinemas were negotiated more than two years
ago. Cinema admissions were more than 20 million higher than they
are now, and advertising in general was not on the decline. Source:
Media Week
UK Box Office Chart (3rd - 5th August)
1. The Simpsons Movie
2. Transformers
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
4. Evan Almighty
5. Hairspray
6. Shrek the Third
7. Die Hard
8. The Hoax
9. Happily N'ever After
10. Cash |
