BSkyB is to be given more time by the Competition Commission to appeal against a government decision on whether it has to dispose of its 17.9% stake in ITV. The ruling will be published by the Department for Business and Enterprise on January 29. In December, the Competition Commission recommended that Sky reduce its stake… Continue reading Sky Given More Time To Appeal Against ITV Share Sale

The sale of Emap’s Republic of Ireland radio business to Communicorp Group has been approved. It was announced last July that Emap had made a conditional sale of its Irish stations to the Irish and European radio group Communicorp for £135 million, subject to regulatory clearances. However, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland did not approve… Continue reading Sale Of Emap’s Irish Stations Approved

Havas has announced a further expansion of its UK operations with the acquisition of one of the country’s leading independent media agencies, BLM, for a reported £20 million. Havas said that the acquisition forms part of its strategy to consolidate growth in core mature markets and build on the success of its UK brands, which… Continue reading Havas Acquires BLM For £20m

Carl Ratcliff, currently head of planning at Lowe London, is joining Five as head of brand strategy and marketing.Ratcliff will report to Five’s managing director, content, Lisa Opie, who assumed responsibility for the broadcaster’s on and off-air marketing in October last year.Opie said: “I’m delighted that we’ve been able to attract someone as talented as… Continue reading Ratcliff To Rejoin Five

Last night’s TV saw the launch of ITV1’s postmodern double-act, Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach, the first a comedy about the making of a new soap opera, the second the soap itself.Moving Wallpaper, despite getting some dodgy reviews in the press, managed to pick up a peak of 4.9 million adults (a 22.3% share of… Continue reading Strong Start For New ITV1 Shows

GCap Media’s Capital 95.8 has confirmed that Denise Van Outen will be joining The Capital Breakfast Show with Johnny Vaughan from Monday February 4.Capital 95.8 managing director, Paul Jackson said: “Johnny and I have been talking about this for a while.“Everyone knows they have great chemistry together and they will undoubtedly create the best breakfast… Continue reading Johnny And Denise Together Again

December saw thelondonpaper‘s circulation remain ahead of the London Lite‘s, despite a month on month fall of 5%.The London Lite was also down, with a month on month decline of almost 3%.thelondonpaper now has a total circulation of almost 471,200, whilst the London Lite‘s rests at around 389,300.The Evening Standard was down by around 2.5%… Continue reading thelondonpaper And London Lite See Circulations Fall In December

The digital channel UKTV is understood to be considering rebranding its entire portfolio of channels following the success of renaming UKTV G2 as Dave.A report in Broadcast magazine said that sources claim that the BBC Worldwide-Virgin Media TV joint venture is thinking of dropping the “UKTV” part of some channels’ names and renaming some altogether.The… Continue reading UKTV Could Rebrand More Channels

Two national digital radio stations, Oneword and Core, are shutting down this weekend.Core will cease broadcasting today, while speech station Oneword, whose future has been in doubt for some time, will close on Saturday.Both stations were broadcast via digital audio broadcasting (DAB) on Digital One, the national digital radio multiplex majority-owned by GCap.In a scaling… Continue reading Two Digital Radio Stations To Close

JupiterResearch has forecast that e-mail marketing spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012. Spending on retention e-mail will more than double during that period and account for over half of total e-mail marketing spending in 2012. Acquisition e-mail marketing will grow more somewhat more slowly, with most spending in… Continue reading E-Mail Marketing Spend To Top $2 Billion by 2012