ITV Secures Monster Sponsor For New Saturday Show

Carlton has secured Walkers Snacks as the broadcast sponsor of ITV1’s new Saturday morning children’s entertainment programme, Ministry Of Mayhem, which aired for the first time last weekend.

The two-hour weekly show, which claims to offer viewers a crazy cocktail of live music, competitions and celebrity guests, replaces the long-running SM:TV Live, which was axed last October following a run of poor ratings (see ITV Axes SM:TV Live After Five Years On Air).

The Ministry Of Mayhem sponsorship, which was brokered by OMD Affinity’s Terry Gorst and Carlton’s Andy Thompson, will see Walkers promote its popular Monster Munch brand using the break bumpers developed last year.

Commenting on the deal, Ian Hepburn, senior brand manager at Walkers, said: “Over the last year we have enjoyed working with ITV and we are now looking forward to continuing our Saturday morning broadcast sponsorship with this excellent new show. We have decided to use Monster Munch as the key brand for this sponsorship, which will continue to build on the idea we developed last year.”

Ministry Of Mayhem, which airs from 9.25am to 11.30am, has been in development for a number of years. It is aimed at 4 to 12 year-olds and includes a broad range of games, sketches, and music with increased interactive elements. The programme sits alongside ITV’s Saturday morning chart show, CD:UK, which was recently recommissioned until the end of 2004.

Viewing figures from BARB show that Ministry Of Mayhem could inherit more than one million viewers in the Saturday morning slot. At its peak SM:TV attracted ratings in excess of two million, but audiences floundered when Ant and Dec left in December 2001.

It is understood that Granada Enterprises is currently in negotiations with Cadbury Trebor Bassett to prevent the confectionery giant ending its £10 million sponsorship of Coronation Street after almost a decade. The deal brings in a huge amount of money for ITV and accounts for almost 20% of the network’s overall sponsorship revenue (see ITV Negotiates To Keep Coronation Street Sponsor).

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com

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