The Christmas period significantly boosted a number of retail websites, with the top 10 sites seeing an average 37% year on year increase, according to new data by Nielsen Online. Online retailers in the UK witnessed an impressive rise in unique users during Q4 compared with the Christmas shopping period in 2007, with Amazon averaging… Continue reading Christmas boosts retail websites

The IPA’s latest Bellwether survey published today has found that in Q4 2008 annual marketing budgets were revised down to the greatest extent ever recorded in the report’s nine-year history. The cut was the fifth successive quarterly reduction in spend, and 2009 is set to see further cuts, with a number of companies setting their… Continue reading Q4 2008 Bellwether Report: Record Marketing Budget Cuts

Freesat, the joint free satellite service from ITV and the BBC, has achieved more than 200,000 sales since its launch in May last year.According to company figures, the not-for-profit service saw total sales double in the final quarter of 2008.Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat, said: “We saw consumers increasingly drawn to Freesat at the… Continue reading Freesat sales top 200,000

CHI & Partners has launched a new full-service agency called MCHI, a joint venture with WPP’s Group M.Offering creative and media buying, MCHI is an extension of the agency’s previous media offering CHI & Partners Media.MCHI is headed by managing partners Tim Allnutt and Enyi Nwosu and has a staff of 45 and clients including… Continue reading CHI & Partners launches full-service agency MCHI

Big stories in radio in 2008 included the uncertain future of DAB, Global Radio’s takeover of GCap Media and the birth of Absolute Radio.The year began with GCap rejecting a bid from Global Radio, thought to be worth about £310 million (see GCap Turns Down Global Radio Takeover Bid DAB Dealt A Blow As Gcap… Continue reading 2008 round-up: Radio

British consumers pay more attention to print ads rather than online ads, according to Deloitte’s new Media Democracy survey into the media consumption habits of Brits aged between 16 and 74. The study found that 59% of consumers pay the greatest attention to print ads in magazines, while 56% pay more attention to ads in… Continue reading Consumers pay more attention to print ads than online ads

Daily Sport publisher Sport Media Group has posted a pre-tax loss of £18.2 million for the year to the end of July, after stripping £20.7 million off the value of its assets, due to the current market conditions. SPMG was forced to write down the value of Sport Newspapers, which it bought for £50 million… Continue reading Sport Media Group records £18.2m pre-tax loss

Cross-media audience measurement is a better indicator of newspaper reach than just print circulation, according to a gathering of media measurement organisations from around the world.At a meeting in New York of the Media Measurement Integration Task Force participants acknowledged that advertisers and agencies continue to rely on print circulation as a measure of a… Continue reading Newspaper task force examines cross-media audience measurement

Samsung has signed a landmark deal with Yahoo! which will see the companies launch a series of flat screen HD TVs this spring allowing users to access the internet while watching TV.Thanks to the Yahoo Widget Engine, UK users will be able to surf the internet and access services such as Flickr, YouTube and eBay… Continue reading Samsung and Yahoo! to launch internet enabled TVs

US internet users viewed 12.7 billion online videos during November, representing a year on year increase of 34%, according to a new report from comScore. Google sites again ranked as the top US video property, with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed (representing a 40% share of all videos viewed) in November, with YouTube.com accounting for… Continue reading American online video viewing rises