Merrill Lynch has adjusted its 1998 forecast for United News & Media due to ‘lower underlying performance’. The brokers has also adjusted its 1999 forecast to reflect a more conservative assumption regarding the reduction in ITV license payments that United is likely to obtain starting in 1999. The previously assumed reduction of £44m has been… Continue reading Tougher Year Ahead For United News & Media
The sale of IPC Magazines took a further development during the festive period as some of the bidders were named. IPC’s owners, Dutch firm Reed Elsevier, has named three of the four bidders so far: Emap, Cinven and German firm H Bauer. It is reported that the venture capital group Cinven is in ‘exlusive talks’… Continue reading Christmas Developments
It has just emerged that Reed will be selling its IPC Magazines group to Cinven for £860 million.More details will appear as soon as they are available.
ITV today announced the appointment of Howell Henry Chaldicott Lury and Partners to manage the ITV Network Centre account from the New Year onwards.HHCL were in the short list along with incumbent M&C Saatchi, Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters and TBWA Simons Palmer in the recently contested pitch.Commenting on the appointment, John Hardie, marketing and commercial… Continue reading ITV Announces Agency Choice
A new project combining two speech radio stations – LBC 1152 AM and News Direct 97.3FM – could be brought to the north-east of England under a new licence application by London News Radio.North East News Radio is being officially launched with a series of public meetings this month. Interested parties can hear about the… Continue reading London News Radio Looks North-East
Channel 5 is to launch The Pepsi Chart, a weekly music show, early this year. Drawing on the weekly music chart compiled by Pepsi, The Pepsi Chart will feature live acts, celebrities, gossip and ‘stunning graphics’. It will be broadcast “as live” every week from The Hanover Grand, and presented by Rhona Mitra, better known… Continue reading 5 Enters The World Of Music
Total terrestrial TV revenue for November, excluding GMTV, came in at £228.9m. Of this, ITV brought in £164.5m , C4 £53.3m and C5 £11m. GMTV’s estimated revenue was £8.7m.ITV/C4 impacts were down by quite small margins across the board in November. Women dropped the most year on year, with a fall of 5.2% while Housewives/Children… Continue reading TV Round-Up – November
The Independent Television Commission has said that BSkyB’s cross-promotion of its pay-per-view services to all viewers of Sky channels, including cable subscribers who cannot access the Sky Box Office, is not anti-competitive and will be allowed to continue.The ITC however made the provision that cable operators must be permitted to opt-out of BSkyB “call to… Continue reading ITC Decides In BSkyB’s Favour
Merrill Lynch has reduced its pre-tax profit forecast for BSkyB in 1998/99 from £375 million to £360m, due to the likelihood of a major marketing blitz after the World Cup in June/July. The City firm believes that some of this will be one-off promotions to “piggy back” on the interest generated by the tournament. A… Continue reading Football Marketing Could Hit Sky
The management buyout of Leeds agency Poulters is still in negotiation at the moment. Graham Poulter, the agency’s chairman, told Newsline that the deal is being “actively discussed” at the moment. He went on to say that an announcement is expected in early February.Poulters: 0113 285 6500
