John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, is expected to announce tomorrow that Sky should sell some of its 17.9% stake in ITV.Since Sky bought the shares in November 2006, ITV’s share price has almost halved, meaning the satellite broadcaster could be facing a loss of around £250 million.Reports at the weekend said that… Continue reading Sky Prepares For ITV Ruling

Secretary of state for business John Hutton is expected to announce tomorrow that Sky should sell at least some of its 17.9% stake in ITV. However, it has been reported that Sky, which bought the stake for £940 million (see ITV Share Price Falls After BSkyB Acquires Stake), is preparing to appeal against the expected… Continue reading Sky Prepares For ITV Ruling

Five has appointed creative business consultancy Dave to help refresh its network portfolio of brands.The refresh project will cover Five, Five US, Five Life, five.tv and fivedownload and will be rolled out across 2008.In a statement, Five said that it selected Dave based on a combination of their TV and branding experience together with the… Continue reading Five Appoints Dave To Refresh Portfolio Of Brands

Trial and Retribution triumphed in the 9pm slot last night, beating BBC One’s Fairytales and documentary A Boy Called Alex on Channel 4.The hard hitting ITV1 crime drama had a peak audience of 5.4 million adult viewers (a 24.9% share of the audience), while 5.3 million (a 24.6% share) stuck with the show for its… Continue reading 9pm Triumph For Trial And Retribution

Adam Freeman, commercial director at Guardian News and Media, is to join the panel at MediaTel Group’s forthcoming ‘Future of Online’ seminar, to be held in London in February.Freeman’s experience of the commercial development for the highly successful Guardian Unlimited website should stand him in good stead for the debate, which will be chaired by… Continue reading Adam Freeman Joins ‘Future Of Online’ Line-Up

GCap Media group programme director Dirk Anthony is the latest executive to leave the group.Anthony will leave at the end of March, with GCap saying that he is leaving by mutual consent in order to explore other career opportunities.His departure follows the announcement that operations director Steve Orchard will also be leaving the company (see… Continue reading GCap Programme Director To Leave

The BBC and ITV have confirmed plans for shared coverage of the UEFA Euro 2008 Championships in Austria and Switzerland, with BBC One broadcasting the final.Live coverage of the group stage begins on Saturday 7 June with the BBC broadcasting the opening match between Switzerland and the Czech Republic at 5pm and ITV broadcasting the… Continue reading BBC One To Broadcast Euro 2008 Final

Emap shareholders have approved the sale of the group’s consumer magazine and radio operation to H Bauer for £1.14 billion. Today’s general meeting saw separate votes held on the consumer magazine and radio deals, with 97.75% of the votes cast in each case in favour of agreeing the terms of sale. Shareholders have yet to… Continue reading Emap Shareholders Approve Bauer Deal

Global advertising spending in measured media is expected to show almost a 7% gain to $479 billion in 2008 compared to the previous year, when spending was up 6%, according to a new study from GroupM. Adam Smith, GroupM Futures director, said: “Encircling economic gloom has not affected GroupM’s view of marketing investment in 2008,… Continue reading Global Ad Spending To Increase 6.8% In 2008

Mobile instant messaging (IM) adoption in Europe will grow from 8% (26.7 million subscribers) in 2007 to 24% (80 million subscribers) by 2013, according to a new study by Forrester Research. Forrester’s mobile IM forecast is based on a survey of 22,000 consumers across France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Three… Continue reading Mobile IM Adoption To Reach 80m Subscribers By 2013