There’s quite a lot in Channel 4′s annual report, released today, about what the organisation exists for.
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There are many reasons why Y&R’s spot for the Argentine Government, filmed in the Falkland Islands, is wrong. Aside from being completely the opposite to the spirit of the Olympic ideal (and one that is being expensively espoused at the moment by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R in the UK), it is also hugely disrespectful to the 255 members of the British armed forces and three Islanders who died in the bloody conflict.
The scene where the Argentine athlete exercises on a memorial to British soldiers of an earlier war is particularly gut-wrenching.
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Well annoyingly the old goat put up quite a good performance didn’t he?
Aside from appearing to get mixed up about the name of Campaign‘s beloved leader, the owner of Haymarket Publishing and former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine, with that of the warm milky drink favoured by octogenarians Ovaltine, Rupert Murdoch was today at least mainly lucid and frank.
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I can’t say I shared the emotions of London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone when I first saw his his three-minute campaign film.
While Livingstone wept openly, only to be given a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder by Ed Miliband, I just thought it wasn’t very good.
Aside from questions about the veracity of some of the claims, to me it’s mawkish and full of cheap sentiment – but you can make up your own mind by watching it. Read More »
Two years into his transformation plan. ITV’s chief executive Adam Crozier has just announced pretty solid preliminary results for 2011.
While ad revenue is flatlining (giving analysts the opportunity to do that annoying hand gesture that Ed Balls does at PMQs) broadly in line with the market, money from other sources, primarily format sales, has grown.
Online revenue is up by 21 per cent but still accounts for a miniscule £34 million. This is some distance from the £150 million that was originally envisaged by Michael Grade would be hit by 2010 (a target that was then pushed back to 2012 before being abandoned altogether).
The company’s production arm, ITV Studios, seems to be where the real growth has come from. It accounted for £320 million in revenue, up 9 per cent
According to Crozier, it has delivered double-digit growth and a 28 per cent in commissions to 111, of which 45 are international.
This looks impressive but when you look at some of the formats that were produced by ITV Studios it’s difficult to identift a real hit.
Red Or Black looks like the biggest dog of all and ironically it was probably one of the most expensive – sources close to ITV claim that it could have cost as much as £7 million.
While ITV has been active at commissioning more formats from itself (and therefore paying itself for them), it looks like it has some way to go before producing a hit format that can be re-commissioned and also sold overseas. Crozier’s own gamble has therefore yet to fully pay off.
Jonathan Allan has swept his new broom through the sales department, leading to the departure of several wise old heads.
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If you went down to the woods recently you’d have been more than a bit surprised. News reaches Campaign of a very peculiar ‘team-bonding’ exercise that the ITV sales team apparently recently enjoyed.
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That’s if today’s Daily Mail is to be believed. 
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The Independent has seized on the opportunity of its 25th anniversary (and the temporary suspension of disgraced columnist Johann Hari) to undergo a redesign.
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While Matthew Crawley so far seems to have miraculously managed to avoid the full horror of the Western Front (other than getting sprayed with dirt a couple of times) in favour of frequently popping up back at Downton Abbey, a rather bigger battle has been going on surrounding Aviva’s sponsorship idents.
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