Week commencing 9th April 2007
 ITV and Setanta Sports have won the exclusive broadcast rights to the FA Cup and England football matches. The deal, which moves from the BBC and Sky includes new mobile opportunities, where fans can access clips of their favourite goals via their mobile phone and also online. The contract begins from August 2008 to July 2012.
Source: Media Week
The Hallmark Channel is currently reviewing its sales contract with Sky Media after the sales house prompted negotiations with the aim of slashing the price it pays to broadcast the channel. Hallmark were due to run up until 2008 with Sky, but have been talking to various TV sales houses about the future of the channel. Source: MediaWweek
In the meantime Sky Media is about to lose contracts with Emap channels, such as The Hits and The Box which will now be produced and advertised by Channel 4 in a recent partnership. Source: MediaweekThere are some exciting new TV shows set to hit our screens, including the recently commissioned Bike Squad, written by Drop the Dead Donkey writer Guy Jenkin. The new comedy is being produced by independent production company Tiger Aspect for ITV and follows a group of biking coppers. Although casting has not yet been confirmed, actor Mark Addy, who most recently starred in hit series Bonkers, looks like the favourite to play the leader of the pack. Source: MediaGuardian
The BBC has confirmed they will be commissioning Ashes To Ashes, the sequel to hugely popular BBC1 drama Life On Mars which has been pulling in an audience of 6 million viewers each week. The new eight-part sequel will be set in the 1980's instead of the 1970's and is also named after a David Bowie song, therefore we can expect a superb soundtrack as well as gripping storylines. Source: MediaGuardian
 IPC are redesigning the 75 year old magazine Woman's Own to reverse a fall in sales. The new-look weekly will be re-launched next Tuesday, featuring news, views, celebrity gossip and will be targeting women with a "lust for life". The cover price will increase by 7p but to offset this for the readers the page count will increase by eight pages. Source : Media Guardian
Telegraph Media Group is to launch ST Fashion in September. The new biannual luxury fashion magazine will compliment the existing Sunday magazines Stella and Seven as part of The Sunday Telegraph package. The executive director, Dave King said "When we were in Milan for fashion week, it became apparent that there is a high demand from high end advertisers who can tap into the style and affluence of The Sunday Telegraph. It is commercially driven yet editorially strong. The editor will be Peter Howarth, who is managing director of Show Media and formerly of GQ, Arena and Esquire. Source Media Week
 Yahoo! has signed an exclusive three year deal with Viacom to provide sponsored search and contextual ads to more than 170 websites, including spin-offs from MTV and VH1. The online media company will provide ads to around 33 key Viacom broadband websites and a further 140 sites through its new Panama search marketing system which launched earlier this year. Viacom said that the decision to use Yahoo! Over market leader Google was not influenced by the $1bn lawsuit the company is pursuing against the search engine's subsidiary YouTube. This is the fist time Viacom has signed an exclusive partnership deal across all of its web portfolio globally. Source: MediaGuardian
Maxim is currently the most popular men's lifestyle magazine site, according to latest figures released by Nielsen//NetRatings. The site attracted 479,000 unique visitors in January, 100,000 more than second placed FHM. Whilst those two have an established online presence, it is arguable that the newly launched digital magazine, Monkey, is making its presence felt. It achieved 347,000 visitors in January, and was the most popular site in November and December of last year. Dennis Publishing provided the three fastest growing men's magazines online over the past quarter, with Bizarre, Maxim and Monkey all showing very healthy increases in user numbers. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the sector as a whole appears to be showing clear signs of growth. Nine of the top ten magazines recorded a rise, and the only exception, Men's Health, saw usage drop by just 2%. Source MediaTel
 Channel 4 Radio is launching it first TV ad campaign for its online radio services. The campaign, which has created by Channel 4's in-house ad agency 4 Creative, will be the broadcaster's largest push for radio programming. The TV marketing comes two weeks after the broadcaster submitted its bid for the second national digital radio multiplex licence. Channel 4 is the majority shareholder of a consortium that includes Emap Radio, UTV and Virgin Radio-owner SMG under the banner 4 Digital Group. Source Media Guardian
 BBC Radio 4 is to co-produce its first ever feature film which will premiere at London's 3-D IMAX cinema. The multi-media project called City Speaks, is the first serious attempt at harnessing images to radio content and will be working alongside the Arts Council and film agency Film London. Source: Media Guardian
Edited by Leila Gould
|
