Week commencing 13th August 2007
 Clear
Channel Outdoor UK has signed a deal to supply and maintain
street furniture sites throughout Glasgow. The deal with the city
council includes more than 300 free standing ad panels, as well
as a series of pedestrian tourist signs that include more than 200
maps, information panels and finger posts. Source: Media Week
Titan has won the
six-year advertising contract for St Pancras International Station,
which is soon to reopen as the new Eurostar hub hosting an estimated
44 million commuters a year. The basic contract is worth more than
£5 million, but the company is set to work with station owner
London & Continental Railways to develop a series of further
digital and sponsorship opportunities, including its Transvision
model, which is already in place at 15 of Network Rail's 17 major
stations. St Pancras will also act as the terminal for High Speed
1, the UK's first high speed railway. Source: Media Week
 Channel
4 could be forced to stop broadcasting live racing if it cannot
find a sponsor to replace the Tote by the end of this month. In
what Channel 4's head of sport Andrew Thompson called a "crucial
moment for the horseracing industry", the broadcaster has given
potential sponsors until the end of the month to register their
interest, so a sponsor can be announced by mid-Seaptember. Source:
Media Week
ITV1 increased its all-adult viewing impacts
by a massive 23% in July year on year, with a 30% share, leading
to hopes that a strong autumn programming line-up could see the
channel end 2007 with a positive contract rights renewal position
for the first time. The July growth is the highest since the contract
rights renewal mechanism was introduced in 2004. In each year under
CRR, ITV1 has lost audience share, allowing advertisers to reduce
their spend on the channel. In a complete turnaround of fortunes,
ITV1 appears to be benefiting at the expense of Channel 4. Over
the seven months to July, ITV1 increased its impacts by 0.6%, while
Channel 4's fell 5.4%. Source: Media Week
Monday saw the first episode of ITV1's new
Robson Green drama Little Devil, and the show easily won
the 9pm ratings battle. Little Devil had a peak of six million adult
viewers (a 30.4% share of the audience) and an average of 5.8 million
adults stuck with the show throughout its hour long running time.
Source MediaTel
Channel 4 is launching a rubbish-themed
ad campaign promoting a new series that highlights the wastefulness
of UK consumers. The broadcaster said that the multimedia push for Dumped is one of the biggest marketing splashes of this year
and consists of on-air promotions and outdoor, print and online
advertising. The on-air promos kick off this week and will run until
6 September. The ads show the word "Dumped" spelled with
letters made up of real pieces of rubbish. At the end of the spots,
a discarded oil drum bears the lines: "Living off the landfill.
Dumped. Starts Tues 4th Sept 9pm". Source Media Week
BT Vision has signed up Xbox as its first
advertiser and is seeking a sponsor for its time-delayed coverage
of the Barclays Premier League, which takes in 242 games over the
season. A sponsor is being sought for the VoD football coverage
in a season-long deal. BT Vision is marketing the games in a monthly
subscription for £4 a month, or £12 a month, including
the live Premier League games broadcast by Setanta on the Freeview
platform, which is also available on BT Vision. Source: Media Week
 The
Audit Bureau of Circulations has begun an investigation into
how magazine circulation figures became available on its website
six days before this Thursday's official release. The ABC figures
for the first six months of 2007 were accidentally released on the
ABC website on Friday for a short period. Meanwhile, this Thursday's
ABC release will be the first time that the total magazine audience
for print, online and events has been listed together. Source: MediaTel
The latest ABCs show the majority of England's national
newspapers once again recorded a drop in circulation, with national
dailies seeing an overall dip of 2.2%. The Times suffered most
within the quality daily market, with a downturn of almost 32,000
copies. Meanwhile, in the popular daily sector, the Daily Mirror
dropped more than 100,200 issues, whilst the Sun fell by 78,600.
Bucking the downward trend, however, were the Financial Times, the
Daily Mail and the Daily Star, which all pushed their final ABC
figures upwards. The Sunday newspaper market was down 3.7%
year on year in July, with only two titles showing noteworthy circulation
increases. The Mail On Sunday and the Daily Star Sunday both recorded
year on year upturns. The Mail On Sunday was up by 4.4% year on
year, following its giveaway of three million copies of Prince's
latest album. Source: MediaTel
IPC's Golf Monthly has launched a new online video series
called Gear Vault. It began on 3 August and is presented by the
magazine's editorial team. They are reviewing the latest golfing
equipment over a trial period of 12 weeks. Gear Vault is sponsored
by Nike Golf and is being promoted both in the magazine and via
email broadcasts. Source: Media Week
The Guardian Media Group's chief executive Carolyn McCall
has ruled out a joint bid with Apax for Emap, saying only preliminary
conversations have taken place. In an interview with The Times she
said her company had "no interest" in a joint bid or the
bulk of Emap's assets, but admitted she would be interested in "some
of its radio stations and business-to-business properties".
Source: Media Week
Weight Watchers Magazine is to go monthly from next January
to cater for year-round dieters in a nation of increasing obesity.
It had previously published nine issues and focused on the belief
that losing weight was concentrated around New Year resolutions.
Source: Media Week
Guardian News & Media has acquired Kable, a market intelligence,
events and publishing business, for an undisclosed sum. The business
will join the Guardian Professional division, which was established
last year to focus on B2B revenues, extending GNM's reach into public
sector IT procurement. Source: Media Week
BBC Customer Publishing is launching the UK's first mainstream
Bollywood magazine next week for the Cineworld cinema chain. The
A5 quarterly, 'Cineworld Unlimited Bollywood' will be distributed
free in 17 of its 72 cinemas across the UK from 15 August, where
Bollywood films are shown. It will have an initial circulation of
50,000. Although the first issue has no paid-for ads, it is in talks
with a major sponsor for the next edition. Source: Media Week
 SMG is set to sell outdoor contractor Primesight within six weeks and
will press ahead with the sale before disposing of another of its
companies, Virgin Radio. A handful of interested parties have been
invited to make second- round offers, with a mix of trade and private
equity bidders at the table. Source: Media Week
 Channel
4's download service 4oD is set to become the first major internet
TV service to introduce interactive ads on a wider scale. The broadcaster
is planning to roll out the web's version of "red button"
ads, typically employed in interactive TV advertising campaigns.
In June, 4oD signed its first third-party content deal, allowing
viewers to download National Geographic shows from 4oD. Channel
4 also said it will shortly make its download service available
on Microsoft's new operating system, Vista. 4oD launched into the
internet TV market six months ago, and has since seen the BBC and
ITV roll out rival internet TV offerings. Source: Media Week
 UK
Top Ten (Friday 10th - Sunday 12th August 2007)
1 Rush Hour
2 The Simpsons Movie
3 Transformers
4 Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix
5 Evan Almighty
6 Hairspray
7 Surf's Up
8 License to Wed
9 Shrek the Third
10 Chak de India
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