Sacha Baron Cohen’s much-publicised Brüno has taken the box office by storm, banking £5 million in its opening weekend.Brüno’s box office success makes it the second highest opening weekend for an 18 certificate film behind Hannibal in 2001, which pulled in £5.6 million excluding previews.The majority of top grossing box office films tend to be… Continue reading Brüno proves to be a box office hit

Mobile Instant Messaging (MiM), an application that allows mobile phone users to message one another via the internet, has grown by over 190% in the last 12 months, according to new research by Aegis Media.The marketing communications group forecasts that MiM will continue growing as more service providers enter the market and consumers become more… Continue reading Aegis: Mobile Instant Messaging up 190%

Jimmy McGovern’s drama The Street returned to BBC One with an impressive 5.4 million peak viewers last night.The first episode in the six-part drama, starring Bob Hoskins as pub landlord Paddy, attracted over 5 million average viewers and a 22.3% audience share when it came head-to-head with ITV1’s new drama during the all-important 9pm to… Continue reading Overnights: BBC One wins the battle of the new dramas

Shortlist Media is set to launch a free weekly magazine aimed at affluent 20 to 40 year-old female commuters with content “written with a zip and style that will make it stand out in the market”.Shortlist plans to launch Stylist, which will be headed up by former More! editor Lisa Smosarski, by early autumn with… Continue reading Shortlist to launch free women’s weekly

McGraw-Hill has put its weekly New York-based publication BusinessWeek up for sale.The magazine, which claims to have around 4.8 million readers in 140 countries, lost 30% of its advertising revenue in Q2 this year, according to reports.McGraw-Hill has appointed investment bank Evercore Partners to sell the title, which has almost 190 editorial staff under editor-in-chief… Continue reading BusinessWeek is on the market

BBC One’s five-part Torchwood – Children of the Earth sci-fi series secured the top spot on Friday evening with a high of 5.8 million viewers and a 26.7% average share.However, the final part of the Doctor Who spin-off, which aired every evening last week, pulled in less than the first and penultimate episodes.Thursday night’s Torchwood… Continue reading Overnights: Final Torchwood attracts 5.8m viewers

Virgin Media has confirmed that it is still reviewing a number of interest-based advertising options, including Phorm’s targeted ad service Webwise.Virgin is the third and only remaining potential UK ISP partner, which could trial or launch Phorm’s controversial behavioural targeting service, following BT and TalkTalk’s decision to pull out of their agreements last week (see… Continue reading Virgin is still reviewing Phorm

ITV hopes to boost revenue streams by charging viewers to access online clips from popular programmes such as Britain’s Got Talent.Speaking in a radio interview, ITV’s chief Michael Grade said the broadcaster is likely to implement a micropayment scheme as early as next year.He confirmed that ITV wants to charge between 10p and 50p per… Continue reading Grade: ITV will charge for online clips

Virgin Media has increased its high definition offering by adding four new channels to its line-up.Living, FX, MTV Networks and National Geographic will be available in HD to Virgin’s 3.6 million customers from the end of July.The new channels will offer programmes such as Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter and The Wire in HD, as well as… Continue reading Virgin Media boosts its HD offering

The London Evening Standard has pulled out from ABC’s monthly national newspaper audit, repositioning itself as a regional title for future circulation reports.The Audit Bureau of Circulations confirmed today that the Evening Standard has decided to withdraw from it national listings, instead reporting regional figures.However, the Evening Standard plans to continue reporting monthly circulation figures,… Continue reading Evening Standard pulls out of ABC audit