10th February
Xfm loses 74,000 listeners since OConnells departure
MediaCom View: I think everyone expected Christian to take some of his breakfast listeners over to Virgin with him but whether Virgin can hold on to them in their other dayparts remains to be seen. Lauren Laverne is getting good feedback anecdotally so the jury is currently out on both Virgin and Xfm at breakfast as its still very early days.
Argus Lite for Brighton this month
MediaCom View: Newsquest will launch Brighton Lite on 20th Feb. This free daily title has been designed as a Metro style publication to target Brightons many commuters into London , with a mixture of both national and local news stories. Launching with a print run of 10,000, it will be handed out by hand at Brighton train station as well as four other stations in the area. We have some reservations that the additional stations do not serve the real commuter belt into London, thus reducing the impact on its key audience.
Ofcom warms to branding of TV and radio channels
MediaCom View: Ofcom has been working on a consultancy paper covering this and many other sponsorship issues for many months. If this goes through it has the potential to make large changes to the way advertisers money is spent. Whereas a brand can currently appear to sponsor a channel by running adverts or idents with high frequency, this will allow a formal channel sponsorship. As with any sponsorship this will only really work if there is a strong match between the brand and the channel. Restrictions will of course apply, so tobacco advertisers will still be banned, and channels covering news and current affairs would not be able to seek channel sponsorship.
ITV, Sky and BBC back new satellite talent channel
MediaCom View : Propeller launches this week and will position itself as an entertainment channel, the premise being to show films and TV shows which will act as a showcase for new presenters, actors and producers. In theory this is something that should help develop new talent in the British TV industry, but as with any channel the output will have to be good enough to engage the audience. If the product is strong then potentially it could work to bring in young audiences and attract advertising revenues. The channel says that it will be not-for-profit and that advertising revenue (which they plan to start taking from April) will be ploughed back into programming and funding.
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