The Independent Television Commission met on Thursday this week to
decide whether the ITV companies will be able to reduce their annual
licence payments to the Treasury. Observers expect the current payments
- about pounds 420 million a year - to be reduced by about pounds 100
million. The biggest reduction is likely to be for GMTV.
IPC Magazines is launching its first masthead programme in conjunction
with Practical Parenting magazine on the cable and satellite channel,
Living, from 23 November. Twelve five-minute programmes will run as
inserts for Tiny Living. Nick Ryle, IPC’s head of masthead programming,
said: ’The identity of Practical Parenting can only be broadened in this
way and we will ensure that the quality in the magazine makes the smooth
transition to television.’
Lever Brother’s Persil has renewed its sponsorship of ER on Sky One for
a further year. The deal includes the new fifth series of the hospital
drama and runs until December 1999. The sponsorship was originally
negotiated and re-signed by the sponsorship specialist, MGA.
Dena McCallum has been appointed to the new position of director of
planning and strategy for Conde Nast International. She will take on
specific operational assignments and develop new business opportunities.
McCallum joins from McKinsey & Company where she was a consultant.
The National Magazine company has poached Sam Baker, editor of Emap
Elan’s Minx, to edit Company. Baker joins Company next week and fills
the gap left by Fiona McIntosh, who recently departed NatMags to edit
Emap Elan’s fashion glossy, Elle.
Kelvin MacKenzie, the new owner of Talk Radio, has unveiled a series of
changes for the station in his first week at the helm. A new nightly
sports show will be hosted by Alan Parry and Gary Newbon; Geoff Boycott
has been signed as its chief cricket correspondent and the Royal Mail is
sponsoring a weekly, hour-long feature - Millennium Tales with Royal
Mail.
GWR Group has announced a rise in pre-tax profits from pounds 6.1
million to pounds 8.3 million in its half-year results, on a turnover
which has increased by 17 per cent from pounds 35.2 million to pounds
41.2 million.
Scotland Yard has confirmed that both Janet Lee, the deputy head of
programming and advertising at the Radio Authority, and Avtar Lit, the
chief executive of London’s Sunrise Radio, have been arrested by the
Fraud Squad on suspicion of corruption. The focus of the investigation
is a two-week holiday to India on which Lee accompanied Lit.
The Chartered Institute of Bankers has relaunched its monthly magazine,
Chartered Banker, as Financial World with the aim of introducing a more
contemporary feel and more readable style to the 35,000-circulation
publication. The contract publisher, Dennis & Beyond, has been appointed
to oversee the magazine’s long-term development.
The Radio Authority has announced the outcome of its public interest
test into the proposed acquisition of Choice FM in Birmingham by
Chrysalis Radio, ruling it would not be against the public interest,
conditional on the radio group introducing rebranding on a gradual basis
only and maintaining the character of the service. The station is
expected to rebrand in phases to become a Galaxy station, Chrysalis’s
dance music brand.
Xfm’s sale to Capital Radio was the subject of 280 of the 364 complaints
submitted to the Radio Authority, according to its quarterly bulletin
for the third quarter of 1998. Of the other complaints, 90 were about
advertising and sponsorship issues, of which 14 were upheld.
