The second fusion of the Quality of Reading Survey and the National
Readership Survey’s data is now available to advertisers and agencies
and, for the first time, it combines information on newspaper sections
and supplements. The expanded data was made possible following the
agreement of newspaper publishers to allow data for newspaper sections
to be included on the NRS. The NRS, which used to include only nine
supplements, now covers 21.
At a seminar held by the Radio Authority and the Royal Society of Arts
last week, Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
Sport, spoke about the possible deregulation of the radio industry. ’It
is questionable whether the free market can fairly determine radio
output as the demand for different outputs will vastly exceed the
supply. Complete deregulation runs the risk - I put it no higher than a
risk - that too much effort will be spent on mainstream audiences rather
than broadcasters seeking different niches.’
GT Interactive Software, the publisher of computer games such as Duke
Nukem - Time to Kill, will be spending pounds 1 million on TV and press
in a pre-Christmas campaign planned and bought by Total Media. Top
converting programmes against a young male target audience will be used,
along with hand-picked coverage builders. The campaign breaks this
week.
Following an eight-way pitch, Brass Tacks Publishing has won the
contract to produce a customer magazine for Lloyd’s Pharmacy. The
contract publisher will produce a bi-monthly magazine called Vitality,
which will be distributed in-store through Lloyd’s Pharmacy’s 1,400
outlets from March next year.
Mellow 1557, the commercial radio station serving North-east Sussex and
South Suffolk, is set to become an FM station. It will relaunch as Dream
100 FM on 19 November. The station’s owner, Tindle Radio, has invested
pounds 250,000 in the launch. Dream 100 will play a mixture of
contemporary hits and old favourites.
BBC World has appointed a new regional manager, advertising sales,
Middle East and Pakistan, who will report to Jonathan Howlett, the
director of airtime sales for BBC World. Shailesh Kulkarni has worked in
international sales for more than 20 years and was most recently a sales
manager with Star TV in Dubai.
MTV Europe has increased its coverage in Central Europe by broadcasting
its service via the Astra satellite to viewers in Germany, Austria and
Switzerland. From January next year, this will extend MTV’s reach to 77
million households in Europe and increase its coverage in Germany to 87
per cent of TV homes.
The International Herald Tribune and the Lebanese newspaper, the Daily
Star, have signed a joint venture to print a newspaper for daily
distribution in Lebanon and the Middle East. The publication will
incorporate the International Herald Tribune plus two sections of the
Daily Star which will cover news from Lebanon and the Middle East.
The Radio Authority, as part of its new policy of transparency, has
published an appraisal of Chrysalis Radio’s successful bid for the
North-east regional licence. The authority decided to award the licence
to Galaxy, Chrysalis’s dance brand, due to the coherence of the proposal
and the track record of Chrysalis. Additionally, it was felt that its
target audience of 15- to 24-year-olds was under-represented in the
region.
The sports newspaper, Sport First, claims its sales have more than
doubled in the North of England following a TV advertising campaign in
the Granada region. Sales rose by 20,000 copies following a four-week
advertising campaign handled through CDP Media. The campaign is being
extended to Premiership fanzine magazines with a reach of around 250,000
football fans.
