The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has decided not to conduct a formal competition inquiry into the practices of ITV sales houses. The possibility of an inquiry was raised following concerns that ITV may have been acting anti-competitively (see OFT Seeks Industry Response To ITV Sales Practice).Concern had been expressed within the industry, and particularly… Continue reading OFT Clears ITV Sales Houses Of Unfair Practice
http://www.rapture.co.uk/Rapture TV, the newly-launched cable-only teenage lifestyle channel, has produced a website which is frustrating to use mainly because it does not fulfil its potential.The site looks good and, although I have never watched Rapture, I would imagine the design and “feel” of the web pages accurately reflects the Rapture “brand”. It is also easy… Continue reading Website Of The Week – Rapture
Sky’s digital satellite service is to slowly unroll this month in preparation for a larger promotions push this summer. Initially the service will be available to a small number of Sky subscribers and then, when more set-top box hardware becomes available, it will be offered to all the subscribers to Sky’s analogue service.A spokesperson for… Continue reading Sky Rolls Out Digital Service Anticipating Increased Summer Customer Demand
IPC will be launching 17 special one-off titles before the end of the year as part of an aggressive expansion plan.New publications will include: Family Health, 40+ Health, Celebrity Cooking Now, Beautiful People, Best Entertaining, 150 Summer Recipes, Jets and Digital Photography and Country Life Gardens. Summer specials for Woman’s Realm , Woman’s Weekly ,… Continue reading IPC To Launch Magazine One-Shot Offensive
The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) group today announced first-half profits before tax of £81.1 million, a 24% increase year on year from £65.6 million in 1997.The company, which publishes the Daily Mail, also reported earnings per share up from 27.8p last time to 46.2p for the half year ended 29 March 1998.The group… Continue reading Pre-Tax Profits At DMGT Reach £80m
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has said that it believes the Government’s plans to set a switch-off date for analogue television signals are premature. The Government outlined these plans in The Multi-Media Revolution report by recommending the announcement of a switch-off date this year.The IPA indicates that “new digital channels have not yet… Continue reading Too Early To Set Analogue Switch-Off Date, Says IPA
Chronos Publishing’s Velocity magazine has been closed only three months after its launch due to insufficient interest from advertisers.The free title had a distribution of around 70,000 copies to bars and clubs within London but according to a spokesperson for Chronos other pubs and clubs were not interested in advertising in the title as they… Continue reading Velocity Closes After 3 Months
The City was shocked today when the Bank of England increased interest rates by a quarter-point to 7.5% because wage inflation was too high and the pound had fallen too quickly.Shares lost value rapidly and the FT-SE 100 index was down more than 50 points at one stage before recovering.
The Institute of Economic Affairs will be holding a conference on 29 and 30 June 1998 to discuss the future of broadcasting in the digital media market.Speakers will include Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of the BBC, Nigel Walmsley, director of BDB, Graham Duff, chief executive of Zenith and Richard Dunn, adviser to the Premier League.Topics… Continue reading Conference To Debate Future Of Broadcasting
Viewing shares stand at more or less the same levels this week. ITV continues to hold a commanding 33%. BBC1 follows with 28%, BBC2 has 10.7%, Channel 4 10.8%, and despite an overall improvement in some of its audience figures over recent weeks Channel 5 still sees no improvement and clings on to its 3.9%… Continue reading TV Viewing Summary W/E 24/05/98
