4th May
Furture Publishing deal is back on to buy Highbury House.
MediaCom View: Following the OFTs ruling, the deal will proceed, but will not
include the gaming titles and Front. As a result, Future will now not become the third biggest publishing house.
easyJet forced into climbdown for The Flynancial Times.
MediaCom View: The distribution of easyJets spoof paper, targeting business flyers,
was cut short after an angry reaction from the FT. They had planned to hand out the paper over two days, but did not go
ahead with the second day. The words blatant and rip-off spring to mind.
ITV pays 134m for Freeview multiplex.
MediaCom View: ITVs acquisition has thrust them back into the Digital marketplace.
Whilst a significant amount of money, it shows that ITV are taking Digital TV seriously, and see the growth of Freeview as a
threat to the original terrestrial broadcast model. It means ITV own the bandwidth which covers up to ten channels on
Freeview, although at present these are all contracted out to rival stations. Our view is that ITV are clearly concerned
about the uptake of Digital TV, and so are getting involved early, this can only be a good thing in terms of the digital
switchover in 2012 and future competition in the marketplace.
BSkyB has added almost 100,000 subscribers in its third quarter (Jan Mar).
MediaCom View: Sky managed to beat the city analysts and grow its subscriber base to
7.7m in Q3, although this was down on their own forecasts. They continue to perform well in growing their subscriber
performance with both multi-room Sky and Sky+ achieving good growth, and although their churn rate rose to 11.1% they
maintain they are still on target to hit 8 million subscribers by the end of the year.
Daily TV Marketplace - Chelsea semi-final disaster draws 8.2m viewers.
MediaCom View: The second leg of the Champions League game between Chelsea and
Liverpool proved a big draw amongst all audiences on Tuesday night. Drawing an average adult audience above 8m, at its peak
it pulled in 10.9 million individuals, as Liverpool held out to secure the win against their London rivals.
RAJAR increases electronic testing budget.
MediaCom View: Despite Kelvin MacKenzies protestations that the move to electronic
measurement is six months behind schedule, it is the most important thing to happen in commercial radio since it began in the
70s, and therefore RAJAR has to get it absolutely right. If that takes more investment, then we should all be encouraged that
the industry is taking electronic measurement as seriously as it should.
