In the week that I hit the age of 40, I have become a little bit more sensitive about numbers. Is it about age or attitude nowadays?
I don’t know. I therefore have sympathy with the BBC who are reminded by both the BBC Trust and commercial radio competitors that Radio 1 has an average audience age of 32 while its target market is 15-29 year olds.
Before their careers took off, both Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn were told they were simply not sexy enough to make it in Hollywood. Being sexy is obviously in the eye of the beholder, which is just as well for TV. Read more on TV LOSES SEX APPEAL – OFFICIAL!…
As media reporters remain glued to their screens awaiting Twitter’s next fart, one significant story has fallen under the radar this week – the exit of Mail Newspapers ad director John Teal.
Teal has been with Mail Newspapers 25 years, nigh on man and boy, a stretch that has no doubt encompassed much graft and determination, but undoubtedly ennobled him into the top tier of media tradesman.
If you praised him in this manner, he would probably look at you blankly and then issue you with an expletive; probably the same expletive he has fired off to Aegis, WPP and anyone else who tried to get one over on Mail Newspapers over the years. Read more on John Teal- a loss to the newspaper industry…
One of my favourite songs by The Jam……And also where you can find the new Virgin Media WiFi service, on selected tube platforms.
The tube is a journey recently transformed by digital devices, such as the iPod and Kindle, which make our daily squeeze, push and shove a little more bearable. We can escape into our own world, listening to our favourite tunes, or reading “Fifty Shades of Grey” anonymously on the Kindle (everyone on my train journey seems to be reading this at the moment).
So what impact will WiFi on Underground platforms have for consumers and advertisers? Read more on “Going Underground” WiFi comes to the Tube!…
Dual language creative execution targeting wealthy Chinese market
Farhad Koodoruth’s ‘Think BR’ piece (http://bit.ly/Ps9oWW) ‘Where is the market for luxury brands?’ yesterday tapped into a subject that’s dear to our hearts at JCDecaux Airport. He asks, ‘Where are these big spenders? And how do you reach them?’. We believe that we can give a very good account of ourselves in answer to both these questions. Read more on Providing the full luxury brand experience…
The is the first in a series of blogs around the highs and lows of setting up my own Digital Out of Home media sales business
I recently launched my own Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) media sales business [plug: done] and was lucky enough to be able to get it off the ground without having to enter the Dragons Den! I’ve worked in the DOOH arena for a while now, so it was the natural place for me to launch my new business. Stick to what you know, as they say. But, what would those scary dragons have thought of my idea had I entered the Den. Well, a quick look at the astonishing growth in the DOOH sector would’ve provided a strong opening gambit, but would it have been enough to get their money (in exchange for 49% of my business!)? Read more on Launch Pad…
Sports such as gymnastics, athletics and swimming will be hoping that the London 2012 Olympics will provide a shop window to potential sponsors wanting to cash in on the expected success of English sport.
If the likes of UK Athletics can’t convince sponsors of the virtue of sponsoring domestic athletics during the Olympics, then it never will.
That is why it is little surprise that UK Athletics is poised to introduce a new multi-sponsor strategy and end its long-term sponsorship deal with Aviva, up for renewal at the end of the year. Read more on UK Athletic’s divorce from Aviva is no surprise…
Do you think footballers wages are too high? If you disagree, you are in a small minority (or a pro-footballer; in which case, what the hell are you doing reading MediaWeek?!). The bottom line is that those wages are set to rise – and whether you agree with this or not – there are good reasons for it.
BT and Sky have just bought the Premier League rights for the next block of three years, at a whopping 71% price increase. That is a massive raise, but importantly it is significant because it represents 1) the increasing value of great (and live) content, and 2) the massive disruption that our industry faces in terms of how we ‘purchase’ entertainment through subscriptions and advertising (or both). Read more on “Footballers aren’t overpaid, it’s just their market rate.”…
Last week BT pulled off one of the more audacious sporting rights coups of recent years. Its successful premiership rights bid blindsided the marketing and media community who had largely assumed that the rights would go to the usual suspects.
But… and there’s always a but, securing the rights is just the first step in an incredibly expensive sporting adventure.
BT has agreed to pay £246m per season for 38 live matches. Excluding injury time, that boils down to nearly £72,000 per minute of live football.
Now, in addition to this chunky payment, they have to find the budget to establish a channel and all the cash-heavy infrastructure that accompanies such an endeavor.
This includes meeting all the legal and regulatory requirements to get a channel on air. Then they need cameras and camera operators, outside broadcast facilities, production and editing, high-profile hosts for their programme and super slick advertising sales teams.
Even assuming that BT can lease or piggy-back existing Sky/BBC resources, they’re still looking at multiple millions of additional pounds per year just to get the matches on-air.
With just 720,000 BT Vision subscribers, this is a confident power-play for BT – a bet that the broadcast landscape is on the cusp of transformation and a bet that BT can afford to wage on the back of a 42% increase of year-on-year profit to £2.4bn.
Grayson Perry in less 'formal' dress
Grayson Perry’s examination of British taste and class concludes tonight with…The Upper Classes
I don’t imagine C4 are expecting it to rival the football (and its programmes like this that 4OD was made for) but alongside 56 Up, this is turning into a vintage year for bold documentary television.
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