Virgin Media to back Big Brother
Mark Sweney
Wednesday March 21, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Virgin Media has been confirmed as the sponsor of Big Brother 8 with the company's mobile arm to be the main service promoted.
Virgin Media has signed on for the main summer series - as revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk - but not next year's Celebrity Big Brother version.
Channel 4 has not yet announced if there will be a Celebrity Big Brother in 2008. However, it is understood that Virgin Media will be given first refusal on extending the sponsorship if the trouble-laden show runs without a hitch this summer.
"Of course we had worries [about this year's Celebrity Big Brother], we would have been foolhardy if we didn't," said James Kydd, the managing director of marketing at Virgin Media.
"We spent a lot of time talking to Channel 4 about how they were sorting out their internal processes to make sure there wouldn't be any sort of escalation again. But Big Brother is always controversial, it is the nature of the beast. We just wanted to be reassured that there wouldn't be a situation that got out of control again."
Carphone Warehouse pulled out of its £2.5m a year sponsorship of Big Brother following the Shilpa Shetty racism row in January.
The Big Brother sponsorship package includes branding and advertising opportunities across TV, video-on-demand, online, radio and mobile.
"The sponsorship will be split between our mobile and media services," added Mr Kydd. "What Big Brother does is give a fantastic opportunity to bring to life quadplay in action and the core 16-34 demographic BB reaches is a bullseye for mobile. Virgin Mobile will be the lead sponsor
but we will absolutely push Virgin Media messaging."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2039130,00.html
My Opinion:
As you can see, the media conglomerate, Virgin, owned by Ricahrd Branson, is now challenging Murdoch's BSkyB and FOX Telvision networks. By placing a bid into the near enough dead, Big Borther, trying to revive it and find some profit margin within it. I think it should have ended there and then; there was too much conflict as a result and that in order to prevent anything else like that to follow, refrain from producing the show. I do think though that its good to see some potential competition now for Murdoch, and it will be interesting how he challenges Branson. The other day I saw a billboard for the t.v. series Lost, with a caption saying, "Virgin Media has dropped it but you can still catch the hit series Lost on Sky One", so it can be said that the competition has already begun.
Mark Sweney
Wednesday March 21, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Virgin Media has been confirmed as the sponsor of Big Brother 8 with the company's mobile arm to be the main service promoted.
Virgin Media has signed on for the main summer series - as revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk - but not next year's Celebrity Big Brother version.
Channel 4 has not yet announced if there will be a Celebrity Big Brother in 2008. However, it is understood that Virgin Media will be given first refusal on extending the sponsorship if the trouble-laden show runs without a hitch this summer.
"Of course we had worries [about this year's Celebrity Big Brother], we would have been foolhardy if we didn't," said James Kydd, the managing director of marketing at Virgin Media.
"We spent a lot of time talking to Channel 4 about how they were sorting out their internal processes to make sure there wouldn't be any sort of escalation again. But Big Brother is always controversial, it is the nature of the beast. We just wanted to be reassured that there wouldn't be a situation that got out of control again."
Carphone Warehouse pulled out of its £2.5m a year sponsorship of Big Brother following the Shilpa Shetty racism row in January.
The Big Brother sponsorship package includes branding and advertising opportunities across TV, video-on-demand, online, radio and mobile.
"The sponsorship will be split between our mobile and media services," added Mr Kydd. "What Big Brother does is give a fantastic opportunity to bring to life quadplay in action and the core 16-34 demographic BB reaches is a bullseye for mobile. Virgin Mobile will be the lead sponsor
but we will absolutely push Virgin Media messaging."
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2039130,00.html
My Opinion:
As you can see, the media conglomerate, Virgin, owned by Ricahrd Branson, is now challenging Murdoch's BSkyB and FOX Telvision networks. By placing a bid into the near enough dead, Big Borther, trying to revive it and find some profit margin within it. I think it should have ended there and then; there was too much conflict as a result and that in order to prevent anything else like that to follow, refrain from producing the show. I do think though that its good to see some potential competition now for Murdoch, and it will be interesting how he challenges Branson. The other day I saw a billboard for the t.v. series Lost, with a caption saying, "Virgin Media has dropped it but you can still catch the hit series Lost on Sky One", so it can be said that the competition has already begun.
posted by Gurveer at 4:04 PM
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