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Having gained approval for their much anticipated merger (see ITV Cleared To Merge With Sales Houses Intact) SMG has called on Carlton and Granada to sell their controlling stake in GMTV. The Scottish media company, which owns Grampian and Scottish TV, has a 25% stake in GMTV and has expressed a desire to increase its… Continue reading ITV Giants Urged To Sell GMTV Stake

Despite the admission that “predicting media inflation is not unlike forecasting the weather a year ahead”, David Fletcher, head of Mediaedge:cia‘s MediaLab, has decided to have a go at calling the next couple of years in MediaLab’s latest Adstats report. Taking ‘life in one hand and a cup of tea leaves in the other’, Fletcher… Continue reading UK Media Inflation Forecasts From Mediaedge:cia

The US private equity firm Hellman & Friedman has bought a 19.5% stake in Axel Springer from Deutsche Bank in a deal worth €350 million. Axel Springer is the largest newspaper group in Europe and publishes the German dailies, Bild and Die Welt. Deutsche Bank acquired a 40% stake in the company last year after… Continue reading Deutsche Bank Finds Buyer For Springer Stake

There will not be a revival in worldwide advertising until the fourth quarter of 2004 at the earliest, according to the head of advertising group Havas. In an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos, Alain de Pouzilhac said that the market will continue to lack visibility in the coming months. He forecasts 3% to… Continue reading Market Must Wait For Ad Recovery, Says Havas Chief

ITV’s largest commercial rivals are understood to be launching discussions to consider consolidating their advertising sales houses to counteract the threat of a combined Carlton and Granada. Channel 4, Five, BSkyB, Interactive Digital Sales and a number of other broadcasters are pondering whether to combine their advertising sales houses operations to compete more effectively with… Continue reading ITV Rivals Pushed Towards Sales House Consolidation

The Competition Commission has called for a wide ranging review of the television advertising sales market after expressing ‘disquiet’ at the way the industry currently operates. The regulator said that Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading should launch an investigation into the way television companies sell advertising following the Government’s decision to allow Carlton… Continue reading Television Advertising Market Set For Wide Ranging Review

Vivendi Universal has completed a deal that will see NBC acquire its US entertainment arm and cut debt at the Paris-based media group. As predicted, General Electric, which owns NBC, has agreed to pay $3.8 billion in cash for the assets which include film studios, cable channels and theme parks (see Vivendi-NBC Merger In The… Continue reading Vivendi And NBC Tie Up Entertainment Deal

Aegis Group, the media communications and market research company, is to acquire international healthcare research business, ISIS Research, for an initial sum of £15.5 million. Aegis says that ISIS will become a key part of Synovate Healthcare, the group’s healthcare research division. The deal carries a deferred payment of up to £8.3 million over the… Continue reading Aegis Buys Healthcare Research Firm For £24m

There was a slight increase in ad demand during September, according to a significant proportion of US media planners and buyers interviewed for a survey by MediaPost and InsightExpress. Mediapost’s Ad Demand Index shows that 44% of those questioned said that demand for ad inventory was higher last month than in September 2002. By comparison,… Continue reading US Ad Demand Grows In September

The Government’s decision to allow Carlton and Granada to merge without selling off their sales houses has received a mixed reaction from advertisers, who are concerned that a single ITV will exercise too much power in the television advertising market. The Institute Of Practitioners in Advertising has expressed its disappointment at the Department of Trade… Continue reading Advertisers Give Mixed Reaction To ITV Merger