Week commencing 9th June 2008
 UK
ad spend has grown 4.2% year on year to reach £19.4bn,
according to figures released by the Advertising Association. Press
attracted almost 40% of all advertising, £7.7bn, to retain
its position at the top of the rankings, despite losing 1.6% year
on year.
The fastest-growing medium was the internet, up 39.5% year on year,
accounting for 16%, £3.02bn, of total spend. Cinema and outdoor
also performed well, gaining 10.1% and 4.7% respectively. The report,
from the Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2008, said a strong film
line-up and ongoing digitisation had boosted cinema and outdoor's
performance. Source: BrandRepublic
 The Big Brother Launch Show kicked started the ninth series
of the reality TV show with 5.4 million peak adult viewers. In the
biggest ever opening night line-up, 16 housemates entered the new
and improved house, watched by an average 23.5% audience share.
Davina McCall introduced the new contestants, which includes Big
Brother's first ever real-life couple, two single mothers, and a
blind housemate - Mikey. Channel 4's Big Brother Launch Night Project
with Alan Carr and Justin Lee Collins, following on from the main
programme at 10.30pm, attracted more than 3.4 million peak viewers. Source: Mediatel
 Telegraph
Media Group has announced the integration of news operations
across The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and Telegraph.co.uk
in a bid to allow maximum impact for breaking stories. The move
follows the merger of the city desks in November and is aimed at
strengthening the way its news content is produced. Reporters from
both The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph will now contribute
to the Telegraph website to help provide greater breadth and depth
of coverage. Specialist reporters on both titles will sit with each
other and deliver breaking news and analysis for the website. The
Daily and The Sunday Telegraph titles will continue to have separate
identities and distinct reporting teams. Ian MacGregor, editor of
The Sunday Telegraph, said: "We have huge a pool of talented
journalists at TMG. They now have the opportunity to play a part
across all three publications, as we combine the force of our news
desks to deliver first-rate stories, both for our leading website
and distinguished newspaper titles." The news comes as Telegraph.co.uk
reported more global unique users than Guardian.co.uk for the first
time in last month's ABCe report. The Guardian has already announced
plans to fully integrate its news team when it moves offices at
the end of the year. Source: Mad
The Evening Standard saw its circulation grow by almost
7% from April to May, an increase in real terms of over 19,000 copies.
It now has a circulation of more than 300,000. Evening freesheets
thelondonpaper and London Lite saw their circulations remain relatively
static month on month, at more than 500,000 and 401,000 copies respectively.
Morning freesheet Metro was also static month on month, at almost
747,000, while business freesheet City AM was up by 2% in the same
period. Source: Mediatel
 Jamie
Theakston has signed a three-year extension to his current deal
presenting the Heart 106.2 breakfast show, which will see
him remain in place until the start of 2011.
Heart's owner, Global Radio, has also signed a similar deal with
Nick Ferrari, presenter on London speech station LBC 97.3. Theakston
and co-host Harriet Scott saw the weekly reach of their London breakfast
show grow by over 8% year on year according to the latest RAJAR
figures, leaving its total at almost 895,000 in the first three
months of 2008. Global Radio acting chief executive, Richard Park,
said: "Quality talent is the lifeblood of our business, and
we are pleased to have signed long-term contracts with two of the
most consistent and popular presenters in the commercial radio industry."
Global also recently signed ex London mayor Ken Livingstone and
Tre Azam presenting for LBC. Source: Mediatel
 Internet users are spending less time on communication and content
sites and more time on consumer-generated, search and entertainment
sites, according to new research by Nielsen Online. Social network Facebook has caught up with leading UK site MSN messenger
in terms of time spent, with both sites attracting users for 2.4bn
minutes in April 2008. While this figure represented a year-on-year
rise for Facebook of 1.9bn minutes, it was a fall for MSN, which
last year clocked up 3.2bn minutes. Consumer-generated sites, such
as YouTube and Facebook, experienced the biggest increase in online
time, rising 47% year on year, while search engines, such as Google,
increased their time by 13% and their entertainment sites by 8%.
Communication sites (such as MSN messenger) and traditional content
sites (including portals, ISPs and Government sites) suffered the
biggest decrease in time spent, falling by 10%, while traditional
content sites fell by 3%. E-commerce sites, such as ebay (1.7bn
minutes in April 2008), and online e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo
(0.5bn minutes), remained static. Overall, Britons only spend an
average of 4% longer online each month than they did a year ago.
Source: BrandRepublic
Edited by The Digital
Team |
