Wireless Group Launches New Sports Title

The Wireless Group is launching a new weekly football magazine to tie in with its talkSPORT radio station.

SoccerBet will launch in mid August to coincide with the start of the new football season and will be devoted to football betting. The 68-page colour title will have an initial print run of 70,000 copies and will be rolled out across the UK.

The A5-sized publication will contain previews of Premiership games, interviews, features and betting tips. It will be suppported by a £500,000 marketing campaign running across talkSPORT and a range of local radio stations.

SoccerBet will be edited by James Eastham, former editor of Sport First, who is aiming the title at “people who love football and who love betting for the fun of it. It’s the first of its kind in this country or abroad.”

He added: “Football betting is the fastest growing sector in the industry. Already it is more popular than horse-racing online and we expect it to dominate the High Street franchises in a few years’ time.”

TalkSPORT recently extended its agreement with Fiat Light Commercial Vehicles to sponsor SportsWatch, a twice daily sports news bulletin on the station (see TalkSPORT Extends Fiat Sponsorship Deal).

According to the latest RAJAR figures for the first quarter of 2003, talkSPORT has seen its weekly reach decline by 7.4% year on year to 2,249,000, down from 2,428,000 in the same period in 2002.

talkSPORT: 020 7959 7800 www.talksport.co.uk

Recent Press Stories from NewsLine Company Introduces New Dedicated Shopping Supplement Dennis Launches New Computer Title IPC Secures McDonald’s For Cross Title Ad Campaign

Subscribers can access ten years of NewsLine articles by clicking the Search button to the left