Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant will make a welcome return to Xfm’s Saturday schedule later this month, as the pair return from filming new BBC comedy, Extras, to boost the station’s weekend profile alongside their producer turned sidekick Karl ‘The K Man’ Pilkington.Gervais and Merchant will host their weekend show for six weeks from 28… Continue reading Gervais Rejoins Xfm To Boost Saturday Schedules

Five has appointed Vanessa Brookman, Channel 4 and E4’s deputy editor of US series, as its new deputy director of acquisitions, paving the way for more high-profile American imports to bolster the broadcaster’s schedule.Brookman is to join Five next month, reporting directly to Jay Kandola, the broadcaster’s recently appointed director of acquisitions.Commenting on the appointment,… Continue reading Five Raids Channel 4 For New Acquisitions Boss

In an interesting development State-side, the Boston Globe has started auctioning off the prime front half-page advertisement space in its Sunday recruitment section.Bids for the space start at $15,000 and rise in increments of $500. The ratecard cost is $39,500. Clearly the paper believes it can bring in more revenue by this means. Agencies or… Continue reading Newspaper To Auction Prime Space Online

Guardian Media Group (GMG) has announced a positive end of year trading update, enjoying revenue growth of 17% year on year for all its stations, signalling a move to profit for the first time. The radio division of GMG has shown remarkable growth, outperforming the industry as a whole, with revenues from Jazz FM and… Continue reading GMG Reveals 17% Revenue Growth Across All Stations

NTL Broadcast and O2 will be testing the televisual capabilities of the next generation of mobile phones, with BSkyB, Chart TV Show, Discovery Networks Europe, Shorts International and Turner Broadcasting among the first broadcasters to provide 16 television channels to customers with Nokia’s new 7710 handset. The six month trial will take part in the… Continue reading NTL And O2 Start First Mobile TV Trials

Satellite broadcaster, BSkyB, has appointed i-level to help drive continued growth in sales of Sky Digital and Sky+ via its sky.com website. Over 7.7 million customers in the UK and Ireland now receive Sky Digital, with the number of Sky+ customers more than doubling to 770,000 in the 12 months to 31 March 2005. Around… Continue reading BSkyB Continues To Drive Sky Digital And Sky+ Growth

Carat, the world’s largest independent media agency network, has forecast global advertising expenditure growth to be 4.9% in 2005, approximately in line with its previous estimation in September of 5.0% (see US Online Ad and Marketing Spend To Reach $14.7 Billion in 2005). The media agency attributes its slight revision to the price of oil,… Continue reading Carat Predicts Global Adpsend Growth Of 4.9% In 2005

Less than a third of UK consumers have heard of the term “digital switchover” with a significant proportion not knowing where to turn to for advice, according to media watchdog Ofcom’s new Consumer Panel Study. The research showed that out of more than 2,500 consumers surveyed, just 10% said they were aware of the digital… Continue reading UK Public Unaware Of Impending Digital Switchover

Media super-regulator, Ofcom, has awarded the FM commercial radio licence for Banbury to CN Radio, selecting the company’s bid from three applications received by the closing date in February.Ofcom’s licensing committee selected CN for approval following its application for “a locally focused, adult contemporary radio station with news information and features of particular interest to… Continue reading CN Radio Scoops Banbury FM Licence

Viacom’s digital poster sites will go live for the first time this week, with Tottenham Court Road tube station the first underground site to feature the digital billboards.The 66 digital sites, either side of the escalators at the station, will enable advertisers to create animated posters that move or feature changing text and images. All… Continue reading Viacom Breaks New Ground With Digital Tube Posters