Week commencing 15th September 2008
 Turner
Broadcasting is launching an interactive loyalty card enabling
Nuts TV viewers with a Sky set-top box to accrue and redeem points
against third-party offers and take part in viewer competitions.
The broadcaster's Media Innovations arm has signed a deal with loyalty
card specialist MiCard, which has provided Turner with the infrastructure
to create a Nuts TV-branded environment called Nuts Loyalty. This
week, Turner will promote the card to viewers through a 30-second
TV ad and sponsorship bumpers positioned around Nuts TV show Cops
& Dangers. The campaign will invite viewers to phone a dedicated
number to claim their card. Once inserted into the second slot of
their Sky set-top box, customers will accumulate points while they
watch the lads' TV channel. Source: Brandrepublic.co.uk
John Cleese, Johnny Vaughan
and John Sergeant will front original programmes for the repeats-heavy
UKTV channel Dave, while the original cast will reform for
new episodes of Red Dwarf. At a launch event for its suite of rebranded
channels today, UKTV also announced that Richard Madeley and Judy
Finnigan's forthcoming show on new channel Watch will be called
Richard and Judy's New Position. It also confirmed the original
cast of comedy Red Dwarf would reunite for new episodes. The shows
are part of a move away from Dave's image of being a repeats-only
channel and are part of UKTV's commitment to screen 800 hours of
original content a year across its channels. Source: Guardian.co.uk
BBC1's veteran school
drama Grange Hill bowed out with 500,000 viewers yesterday, Monday,
September 15. the final episode of the 30-year-old drama was watched
by an average audience share of 5% between 4.35pm and 5pm, according
to unofficial overnight figures. The episode featured a cameo by
Todd Carty, who played Tucker Jenkins in Grange Hill in the 1980s.
The episode came equal last in its timeslot with Channel Five's
movie The Wrong Girl. The timeslot was won by Deal Or No Deal, with
1.8 million. Source: Guardian.co.uk
 The
Daily Mail has hired chief football correspondent Martin Samuel
from the Times. A spokesman for the Daily Mail confirmed to MediaGuardian.co.uk
that the award-winning sports journalist would take up a post with
the newspaper. One of the most garlanded sports journalists of recent
times, Samuel was named sports journalist of the year at the 2008
British Press Awards and voted best sports writer for the third
successive time at this year's Sports Journalists' Association of
Great Britain annual awards. Source: Guardian.co.uk
The Independent, which this week upped
its cover price from 80p to £1, will follow its rivals and
move to full colour next week, with a host of new features as it
looks to arrest its declining circulation The move follows similar
full-colour relaunches by rivals The Times and The Telegraph. The
new-look paper will be unveiled next Tuesday (23 September). Source:
Brandrepublic.co.uk
 Only
weeks after it was announced he would be leaving BBC Radio 1, veteran
dance DJ Dave Pearce has been signed by Lesley Douglas's BBC
6Music. Pearce's Dance Anthems show will return on Sunday nights
on the digital radio station as part of a new schedule that sees
the arrival of Fun Lovin' Criminals frontman Huey Morgan and the
departure of weekend breakfast presenter Natasha Desborough. Morgan
will present a 90-minute Sunday afternoon show at 2pm, featuring
rock, rap, disco, soul and latino music, with Pearce's Dance Anthems
between 8pm and 10pm. Source: Guardian.co.uk
Global Radio is to axe the names of
29 local radio stations as part of the biggest rebrand in commercial
radio history. The current three-strong Heart radio stable is to
be transformed into a national network of 32 stations, spelling
the end for familiar station names such as Invicta, Fox and GWR.
The new Heart network of stations will retain their own breakfast
and drivetime shows, but much of the rest of the content will be
syndicated across the entire network as owner Global Radio, the
UK's biggest commercial radio group, attempts to take on the BBC.
Global Radio will retain the local identities of just seven of the
42 stations currently known as the One Network, part of the GCap
Media group which it bought for £375m earlier this year. Source:
Guardian.co.uk
 JCDecaux,
the French advertising group, is in talks to acquire News Outdoor
Group, the $1 billion (£571 million) News Corporation-owned
outdoor advertising business which revealed this week that its Moscow
headquarters had been raided by Russian authorities. JCDecaux said
that it had entered exclusive discussions with News Corp, the parent
company of The Times and majority owner of News Outdoor Group. The
deal would make JCDecaux the biggest outdoor advertising company,
overtaking Clear Channel Outdoor. Source: Timesonline.co.uk
Ocean Outdoor has secured the first
advertising site at Trafalgar Square. The site is located on the
listed St Martin-in-the-Fields building, which is undergoing renovation.
Ocean estimates that the billboard will have a weekly footfall of
2.5 million. Source: Oceanoutdoor.com
JCDecaux Airport has signed a cross-platform
deal, thought to be worth about £2m, with a major Nigerian
bank, which is designed to reach all travellers coming through Heathrow's
terminal five and more than 90% of passengers using terminals one,
two and three. The campaign has been launched by Intercontinental
Bank to highlight the opening of its first UK branch in Leadenhall
Street in London last week and to target high-end travellers. Source:
Brand Republic
 Times
Online will erect a paywall in front of its fledgling online
archive service from Thursday. When it was launched in June, Times
Online editor-in-chief Anne Spackman said no decision would be taken
about whether to keep access free or introduce a charge until a
solid user base had developed. An email to users described the first
three months of the archive as the "free introductory period"
and explained that although featured articles on the archive homepage
would remain free, access will be charged at £4.95 for one
day, £14.95 for one month and £74.95 for one year. Source:
Guardian.co.uk
Social network myspace has boosted its tv service with its direct video record facility
that enables usesrs to record and upload videos directly to the
site. It has also increased its video upload limit from 25mb to
512mb. Separately, myspace has unveiled a new mobile application
that improves blackberry users access to rich conten and dataon
the move. Source: Mediaweek
US electronics retailer Best
Buy has agreed to acquire digital music company Napster for
$121m (£67.5m). The purchase price of $2.65 per share in cash
represents an almost 100% premium on Napster's closing price of
$1.36 on Friday.Best Buy, which is one of the largest retailers
of CDs, also offers digital subscription services similar to Napster.
Source: Brandrepublic.co.uk
 UK
Box Office Chart
1. Pineapple Express
2. Mamma Mia
3. Rocknrolla
4. The Women
5. The Duchess
6. Step Brothers
7. Disaster Movie
8. The Boy in the Striped pyjamas
9. The Strangers
10. The Dark Knight
Source: Pearl and Dean
Newsletter edited by Sam Olive & Jess Smith |
