MediaCommunications

MediaCom View: Virgin Radio is claiming Christian O'Connell's new breakfast show as a huge success after receiving more than 20,000 text messages during the first two hours of yesterday's debut show - more than the station normally receives in a day. With over 42,000 people watching on various portals, and even more watching the live streaming on the Virgin site, the show certainly generated lots of excitement, lets hope it lives up to expectations.

MediaCom View: Triple play - the bundling of phone, broadband internet and TV services from the same provider - is gaining momentum in Europe, with multiple providers now offering the service. The consumer benefits from a cheaper, faster and more reliable service. Booz Allen Hamilton are predicting that half of European homes will have adopted this style of service by 2010, but, as 57% of UK homes already have digital TV, compared with 20% across Europe, the figure in the UK is likely to be much higher than this. The market is likely to see further consolidation with only a handful of providers surviving the long-run.

MediaCom View: Magazine publisher Media 10, are set to launch 4homes magazine for Channel 4 in early March. It will be the first TV channel related magazine not to be directly linked to one specific programme, but to a genre of TV programming. Channel 4 have had a string of successes under the 4homes umbrella with the likes of Property Ladder, Grand Designs, You are What You Eat and Location, Location, Location, all of which currently have magazines dedicated to them. In what is already perceived to be an overcrowded market 4homes are launching with a print run of 250,000. If only a third of this were to convert to an official ABC it would still tower over the lesser figures of Grand Designs (a Media 10 publication), You are What You Eat and Location, Location, Location (both published by Brooklands). As the new title is set to be built around the four pillars of Interiors, Gardens, Furniture and Healthy Living there will be questions marks over the future success of the current crop of titles if consumers can now pick up editorial from all programmes rolled in to one magazine. We would expect the launch to have heavy TV backing across the whole 4homes portfolio but also face stiff above the line competition from the Sunday Times branded Inside Out which will be the first monthly launch from the magazines division of News International.

MediaCom View : Associated Newspapers are teaming up with Trinity Mirror to extend their circulation of the Metro into two major cities, Liverpool and Cardiff. As with the national title these will run Monday-Friday and are launching with a small circulation of 25,000 in each city. Distribution is expected to be via the main transport stations as is the norm with the other Metro editions, although the regional editions are not as commuter lead as the flagship London title. Editorial will be handled by the London team, and as with the other editions of the Metro, there will be set sizes only available to local advertisers. With the current planned circulations we wouldnt see these editions as key for stand alone support of these cities, but welcome the addition to the Metro portfolio.