The Restrictive Practices Court will today pass judgement on the legality of the Premier League’s £743 million football broadcasting rights contract with BSkyB and the BBC. The Court is acting on evidence given by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which claimed that the League’s 20 clubs are effectively acting as a cartel in the… Continue reading Premier League’s BSkyB Contract To Receive Court Judgement
The ITV Network took an average viewing share of 31.4% for the twelve months ending June 1999, according to the Independent Television Commission’s (ITC) quarterly viewing report. This includes viewing to breakfast television franchise, GMTV. BBC1’s share came in at 28.7%, slightly down on the previous quarter’s figures (see ITV Wins Majority Viewing Share For… Continue reading ITV Takes Majority Viewing For Year Ended June
The Advertising Association (AA) today told a London conference that a pan-European ban on children’s television advertising would be unworkable. The evidence is drawn from an interpretation of legislation in Sweden which currently prohibits TV advertising to children.The AA believes that the guidelines interpreting the Swedish model show the legislation to be ‘knotted with detail’;… Continue reading Advertising Association Claims Ban On Children’s TV Ads Is Unworkable
Despite closing the sale of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) to NTL yesterday (see NTL Spends £8.2bn On Cable & Wireless Communications), parent company Cable & Wireless dropped back 20p to 745˝p by the end of trading. Investors did not favour the deal for CWC either, which also finished down 8˝p at 690˝p. Conversely, Telewest,… Continue reading Sharewatch
The Guardian Unlimited network of websites has received its first official ABC //electronic audit figure for June 1999 which shows the sites received 9,746,873 page impressions. The network, which includes Jobs Unlimited and News Unlimited, was launched by Guardian Newspapers in January this year and has been expanding its portfolio since (see Website Of The… Continue reading Guardian Unlimited Nets Almost 10m Page Impressions
Trinity is understood to have received six offers for its Irish title Belfast Telegraph, which it is required to sell in order to complete the £1.3 billion merger with the Mirror Group (see DTI Approves Mirror Group Takeover Bids). Bids have come in from Independent News & Media and Daily Mail & General Trust as… Continue reading Trinity Receives Offers For Belfast Telegraph
Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, has acquired a 50% stake in Zoom.co.uk, the ecommerce and internet service provider launched by the Arcadia group last month (see Arcadia And Associated New Media Zoom Online). Associated is to pay £15 million to become a joint owner of the company.At Zoom’s launch, Associated’s internet division, Associated… Continue reading Associated Newspapers Takes 50% Stake In Zoom.co.uk
Like the cable and television industries, the UK’s regional newspaper industry is currently undergoing a period of ownership concentration. A series of takeovers and mergers in the last few years has seen the creation of a number of very large regional publishing groups.According to figures recently released by the Newspaper Society (NS), Trinity is currently… Continue reading Mirror Takeover Would Further Consolidation In Regional Press Industry
Talk Radio has today announced that it has acquired The Radio Partnership Limited (TRP). The takeover will mean that the new radio company will become the fifth biggest in the UK and will give Talk control of: 96.4FM The Wave, Swansea Sound and Valleys Radio in South Wales; The Wave 96.5 FM in Blackpool; Pulse… Continue reading Talk Radio Buys The Radio Partnership
Impacts ITV’s impacts were down for all audience categories year on year in June. This was due to the especially high number of impacts last year caused by the Network’s coverage of the World Cup. Men dropped back by 19.1% to 8,714 and ABC1 Adults were down 12.9% to 8,209. Conversely, Channel 4 enjoyed increases… Continue reading TV Round-Up – June 1999
