Week commencing 25th February 2008
 The planned video-on-demand joint venture service from BBC Worldwide,
ITV and Channel 4, codenamed Kangaroo, is set for a June
launch. It is understood that ITV or Channel 4 would sell ads around
the BBC content on behalf of the public broadcaster. The service
which is yet to be named, but is operating under the project name
Kangaroo, will act as a single destination for more the 10,000 hours
of content from the three broadcasters. Source: Media Week
Thinkbox, the television marketing body for the UK's main
commercial broadcasters, has commissioned a major new independent
study to examine how TV programme sponsorship works. The study will
include detailed examination of the implicit and associative effects
of sponsorship and how it can best be evaluated and measured. Source:
Media Tel
Worldwide sales of digital TV set-top boxes broke through
the 100 million barrier for the first time in 2007, according to
the latest research from the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices
service. The report, Digital TV Set-Top Boxes: Global Market Forecast,
found that sales reached 102.4 million units last year, an annual
increase of 12%. IPTV's market share rose to almost 6%, compared
to 3.6% in 2006, and cable's share also rose, to 36.2%. For 2008
the report predicts a surge in demand for digital terrestrial set-top
boxes, driven by the impending switch-off of analogue broadcasting
in the US. By 2012, annual global sales of all digital TV set-top
boxes will reach nearly 200 million units. Source: Media Tel
There are still 26 million television sets which need to be converted
to digital or replaced before switchover, according to a new report
from The National Audit Office. Although the report found that 85%
of households have already switched from analogue to digital
TV for their main set, 31% of people do not understand that
they will need some form of digital equipment in order to continue
to receive broadcast television after switchover. Source: Media
Tel
ITV's online TV service has failed to increase its visitor
numbers since November, while the BBC's iPlayer has been recording
strong growth. ITV's simulcast and catch-up TV service had a peak
of around two million views of full length TV shows and clips in
January, down by 200,000 views from its peak in November. Full length
TV shows accounted for only around 40% of the total number of video
views in January. ITV, which launched its video service last August,
is aiming to reach £150 million in annual revenues from the
online service by 2010. This is in contrast to recent figures released
by the BBC, which show that more than 2.2 million people watched
a programme on the iPlayer during January, with approximately 11
million TV programmes streamed or downloaded on-demand. Source:
Media Tel
 The Daily Sport is undergoing a relaunch from Monday which
will give it a lads' mag outlook. The relaunch will eventually see
the paper get a new cover and a fresh news layout as well as extended
football coverage, which are intended to give it the feel of magazines
such as Nuts and Zoo. The first phase of the revamp begins on Monday
when adult advertising will appear in a separate supplement or at
the back of the paper, leaving the first 19 news pages for mainstream
advertisers. A major redesign of the newspapers will follow in April.
Source: Media Tel
Interactive Publishing, the publisher of a stable of titles formerly
owned by Richard Desmond, is launching a monthly football magazine
as it looks to diversify its portfolio. The launch of The League,
which will have an initial circulation of about 33,000, occurs as
the company becomes the first adult magazine publisher to float
on the stock market. Interactive's move comes as competition in
the football magazine sector is picking up. Last week, BBC magazines
announced plans to relaunch Match of the Day following a seven-year
absence. Meanwhile IPC is turning monthly title Shoot into a weekly.
Source: Media Week
 Advertisers
who have deserted radio in favour of the internet in recent years
will eventually "swing back" to the medium, claims research
commissioned by commercial radio trade body the RadioCentre.
The report by media strategy firm Human Capital, to be published
next week, found media buyers were "far more optimistic"
about radio than they were a year ago. It questioned the internet's
ability to continue attracting a significantly greater share of
as spend than radio, highlighting Ofcom research that shows radio
listening hours outnumber consumers' time spent online by five to
one. Source: Media Week
 Outdoor
as spend fell in Q4 2007 for the first time since 2002, but the
sector posted strong growth across 2007 and is tipped to hit the
£1bn mark this year. Revenues slipped by 0.9% in the fourth
quarter of 2007 to £254.5m, according to Outdoor Advertising
Association figures, ending a run of growth that spanned 21
consecutive quarters. Across the year, however, outdoor revenues
were up by 4.6% to £975.7m, marking six consecutive years
of growth. This surpasses the 4% annual growth in 2006, when OOA
revenues reached £932.5m. Source Media Week
CBS Outdoor has extended its digital escalator panel coverage
to two more tube stations as part of a £72 million investment
in its London Underground advertising sites. Waterloo became the
12th station to feature DEPs this week with advertisers including
BBC iPlayer, Air New Zealand, Match.com and Honda amongst the first
to utilise the sites. On Monday, DEPs will also be switched on at
Liverpool Street station, in a move by CBS to reach affluent consumers
in both the west and east of London. Once the investment programme
is complete, 30 tube stations will feature large format LCD screens
on main exit routes and DEPs will be rolled out across 20 stations.
Investment in cross track projection (XTP) will also increase with
150 screens being installed across 24 stations. XTP is currently
being trialled on southbound routes at Euston The new technology,
which is part of CBS's multi-million pound makeover of advertising
in the Tube, allows moving messages to be digitally projected onto
the wall opposite the platforms in HD. Source: Media Tel
 Google has topped a list of the UK's top 500 business brands, beating Microsoft
and BBC Worldwide, according to the latest Superbrands annual report.
Google, along with fellow internet giant eBay, is the only brand
in the top 50 to have emerged after 1990. The list shows that media
brands are having a greater impact than classical commercial sectors
such as manufacturing. Source: Media Tel
The Financial Times is to launch a social networking service
for media and technology executives. The FT Media and Technology
Executive Membership Forum is being launched with the aim of enabling
senior executives to "maintain contact with peers and luminaries
operating within the digital, new media, mobile and telecoms sectors".
Forum members will receive complimentary passes for any conference
from the FT's Global Conferences and Events portfolio, access all
FT conferences' speaker presentations and podcasts, access to face-to-face
members' networking events and a subscription to FT.com. Source:
Media Tel
Microsoft is embarking on a search marketing initiative
aimed at promoting itself as a search engine on a par with rivals
Google and Yahoo. The promotion is designed around card game Snap,
with users' search words that match pre-chosen winning words flashing
up on users' computer screens. Prizes, which will be provided by
Virgin, will be given away hourly every day for eight weeks. The
campaign, which went live on Monday, launched via a dedicated microsite,
www.bigsnapsearch.com, as well as on the existing Live search site,
www.live.com. Source: Media Week
Virgin Media is to merge its female-focused Siren portal
with its LivingTV website as part of a plan to create one of the
country's top five women's websites. The combined site, where content
from Siren will be folded into the LivingTV.co.uk portal, will be
accessible via the main Virginmedia.com website. The relaunched
Living TV site will launch in April and include additional video
content. Current content includes short, exclusive web films, called
webisodes around the hit US show Ghost Whisperer. Source: Media
Week
GCap Media is to deepen its online presence with the relaunch
of xfm.co.uk and Capitalradio.co.uk, plus the launch of social networking
services around its online properties. The company is relaunching
xfm.co.uk next month offering new features including downloads.
Within the next six to eight weeks, the company will add further
services to its site, including social networking facilities. GCap
also plans to gradually enhance Capital's online presence, with
the launch of a new interactive travel map. In addition, clit-to-buy
services will be rolled out across its websites. Source: Media Week
Britain's National Newspaper websites have seen a sharp
rise in usage in January, according to the latest data released
by ABCe. The figures not only see the nationals regain users after
the traditional December slump but actually put most ahead of where
they were in November, in terms of both unique users and page impressions.
Guardian Unlimited once again remains the most visited website with
an increase of over three million users over the January period,
resulting in an all time high of over 19.7 million unique users.
Page impressions are also up over 40 million to more than 181.6
million. In fact four out of the five nationals audited by ABCe
have had huge increases at the beginning of the year. Source: Media
Tel
 Carlton Screen Advertising is the market leader in UK and
Republic of Ireland cinema advertising, providing over 2,900 screens
and 500 sites for advertisers. Source: Carlton Screen
1. Jumper (12A)
2. Be Kind Rewind (12A)
3. Rambo (18)
4. Juno (12A)
5. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (PG)
6. The Water Horse: Legend Of the Deep (PG)
7. There Will Be Blood (15)
8. The Bucket List (12A)
9. Cloverfield (15)
10. Alvin And The Chipmunks (U)
Source: Pearl and Dean
Edited by Sarah Halliday |
