RTL Group and Vivendi Universal have reached an agreement to acquire the sports marketing group ISMM, which would give them the broadcasting rights for the next two World Cup competitions, according to a report in Financial Times Deutschland. ISMM owns the broadcasting rights to non-European sporting events and is close to bankruptcy. FIFA’s Emergency Committee… Continue reading Vivendi And RTL Acquire World Cup Rights Through ISMM Deal, Says FT

UBC Media Group and RadioScape have agreed to work together exclusively to develop an electronic programme guide (EPG) service for digital radio, the companies announced this morning. The alliance will offer EPG services to existing multiplex owners, before then expanding the service to European multiplex groups as they go to air. An active trial of… Continue reading UBC Media And RadioScape To Develop Digital Radio Programme Guides

Advertising revenues at ITV are expected to show even sharper year on year declines in the second quarter than the first, according to estimates from media buyers compiled by ABN Amro. The broker says that a 15% fall in Q2 is now on the cards – a deterioration on the 8% drop that was experienced… Continue reading ITV Ad Revenue Shows Further Decline In Q2

ONdigital is expected to announce a growth of 70,000 customers when it unveils its Q1 2001 subscriber figures next week. This is down on the 121,000 new customers it signed up in the first quarter last year. The slowing growth is mainly the result of churn – the number of customers leaving the ONdigital service.… Continue reading ONdigital Subs Growth Hampered By High Churn

A further blow was struck for those impatient for digital switchover today as research revealed that in some cases you can’t even give digital TV away. CIA MediaLab has just completed a survey into the public’s attitude to multi-channel TV, and discovered that 35% of those surveyed who do not currently watch multi-channel TV would… Continue reading Public Still Not Convinced By Digital TV, Says Survey

The majority of senior media executives in the US believe that advertising expenditure will begin to recover in the third quarter of this year, according to a survey conducted by AdMedia Partners in December and released this month. Forty-seven percent of the 1,000 media and financial executives questioned believe that ad recovery will come in… Continue reading Majority Of Media Executives Expect Ad Recovery In Q3 2002

Cinema admissions in Britain boomed in 2001, rising by more than 9% on 2000 with 155.9 million tickets sold. This represents a 30 year high for the cinema industry and comes alongside box office revenues of £645 million, up 12.6% year on year, according to the Cinema Advertising Association (CAA). This growth is perhaps in… Continue reading Insight Analysis: British Cinema – Admissions Strong, Profits Weak

In its April edition of the top 10 global ad markets, AdAge Global concludes that the order is likely to stay the same for 2002, with some shifts in market value. According to a report from FIPP, the US ad market is forecast to drop 1.6% to £133.6 billion in 2002, whilst Japan is expected… Continue reading UK Ad Market Value To Remain Flat In 2002, US To Show Slight Decline

The much-vaunted union of old and new media, highlighted by the merger of AOL and Time Warner in January last year, appears to be paying off as the company has turned in financials ahead of Wall Street expectations, despite a downturn in the US economy and slowing ad revenue streams. AOL Time Warner yesterday said… Continue reading AOL Time Warner Looks Positive In Bleak Climate

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that cuts to mortgage rates helped to drive the headline rate of inflation down to a thirteen month low of 2.3% in March, compared to 2.7% in February. The underlying inflation rate remained unchanged at 1.9%. This means the underlying rate has now remained below the… Continue reading Mortgage Rate Cuts Bring Headline Inflation To Thirteen Month Low