Times Secures Talksport For Football Partnership
The Times has secured a deal with Kelvin MacKenzie’s talkSPORT that will see the speech-based radio station’s flagship drivetime programme rebranded as The Game to promote the newspaper’s sport supplement of the same name.
The deal will see the rebranded programme, hosted by Patrick Kinghorn and Tony Cascarino, run from Monday to Friday between 4pm and 7pm. The drivetime programme currently draws the second largest audience on talkSport and will provide valuable coverage for the Times, which was recently named as the best newspaper for sports coverage at the sport industry awards.
Commenting on the deal, Andrew Mullins, marketing director at Times Newspapers Limited, said: “Like TalkSport listeners, Times readers are passionate about sport, and in particular passionate about football. The team at talkSport has worked with our media agency Carat to put together an extremely creative sponsorship.”
Ashley MacKenzie, sales director at talkSport, added: “We are looking forward to having the Times as our sponsor and what better way to kick off the partnership than with Euro 2004 only weeks away.”
Talksport recently secured a deal with skin care brand Nivea to become the exclusive on-air sponsor of its Euro 2004 coverage in a deal worth around £500,000. The station will also be creating sports news bulletins throughout the tournament that will be syndicated to over 80 radio stations nation-wide (see Tindle Radio Signs For Eurolink Sport Bulletins).
The latest RAJAR listening figures for the three months to March 2004 reveal a less than impressive news for talkSport, which saw its weekly reach decline by 4.8% year on year to 2,141,000, down from 2,249 in the same period the previous year.
talkSPORT: 020 7959 7800 www.talksport.co.uk The Times: 020 7782 5000 www.timesonline.co.uk
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