The reality showdown between ITV and the BBC on Saturday night ended in the Corporation’s Strictly Come Dancing final romping home with victory, attracting nearly one million more viewers than the final show of ITV1’s X Factor.Direct comparisons between the two shows are difficult as they were both split into two halves, and screened at… Continue reading ITV Loses Saturday Night Reality Showdown With BBC

A multi million dollar merger between US wireless operators Sprint and Nextel is still undecided despite unnamed sources saying the companies are close to the deal. If the merger were to successfully progress, the combined company would be worth about $70 billion and have around 39 million subscribers, making it the third largest player in… Continue reading Sprint And Nextel Deny Merger

CVC Capital Partners, the private equity group is reported to be in the early stages of plotting a possible take over bid for UK Newspaper publishing group Trinity Mirror PLC. CVC is said to be analysing the company to see how much it would be worth paying for. Recently Trinity Mirror has seen its share… Continue reading Rumours Of Trinity Mirror Takeover By CVC Capital Partners

Merrill Lynch has revised its 2005 US advertising spend forecast downwards to 4.8%, compared to its November prediction of 5.2%. While political spending in 2004 will have certainly created difficult comparisons for 2005, Merrill Lynch believes the slower growth anticipated for next year is only in part due to this. The research group estimates that… Continue reading Merrill Lynch Conservative In US Ad Forecasts

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising council has nominated David Pattison, worldwide chief executive of PHD Network to succeed Stephen Woodford of WCRS as president of the IPA.Pattison is the first media agency chief to be nominated for the position, expected to undertake the two year tenure from April 2005 if elected. The announcement comes… Continue reading Pattison Nominated As New IPA President

The recent restructuring of the BBC’s magazine operations has already seen women’s glossy Eve put up for sale, but the next titles to face the auctioneers gavel are likely to come from the Origin Publishing stable, a BBC spokesman has confirmed.Director general Mark Thompson’s plans for BBC magazines, set out last week, stated that those… Continue reading Origin Titles Next On List For BBC Magazine Sale

ZenithOptimedia’s commercial director, Greg Grimmer, has been appointed as managing director of Zed Media, the group’s digital and direct agency, filling the shoes of Jeff Hyams and predicting strong growth over the next year.The move will see Grimmer head Zed’s operations as it moves to become more powerful with an increased client focus and increased… Continue reading New Zed Media Boss Aims For Double Digit Growth Next Year

Consumer magazine publisher IPC Media has announced a dramatic restructuring of its advertising department, gearing up towards a more unique advertising programme and greater use of tailored ad packages.While IPC Advertising will remain a unified brand entity, four main changes will be made within its management team. These will see IPC SouthBank group ad director… Continue reading IPC Restructures Ad Management For Greater Creativity

The latest analysis of the worldwide digital subscriber line (DSL) market by broadband market research company Point Topic indicates that digital subscriber DSL subscriptions have risen by 85.3 million by September 2004, and are forecasted to reach 100 million lines by early 2005. This is a 56% increase from the 54.6 million lines in the… Continue reading Digital Subscriber Lines Continue Upward Trend

The summer Olympics and presidential election has resulted in a significant expansion in ad demand in the US in 2004 and the upward trend is expected to continue in 2005, says global advertising agency Universal McCann. Bob Coen, director of forecasting says he now can predict that US and overseas companies will experience a slightly… Continue reading Universal McCann Predicts Positive Outlook For 2005