Manchester

Blog

11

Nov

2011

Sky+ reaches its 10th birthday

Written by Alex Heywood

Ten years ago, Sky decided it was about time to introduce a new bit of kit to its satellite offering – and what followed could arguably have been one of the pivotal moments in the company’s history.

Sky had established itself as a major force in television through its football and film coverage, but it was keen to find a way into more and more homes, so the decision was made to introduce an all knew personal video recorder (PVR) to the UK market.

Read more: Sky+ reaches its 10th birthday

   

11

Nov

2011

Women’s Health To Launch In The Uk

Written by Kerry Thomas & Kim Nolan

Women’s Health, the sister publication to the highest circulation men’s consumer magazine in the UK, is set to launch on 8th February 2012. Currently published in 12 countries, the magazine is planning a further nine launches worldwide next year, bringing lifestyle, fashion, celebrity, fitness and health content to female readers everywhere.

With an initial print run of 200,000 planned, the venture will be a 50/50 split between Hearst Magazines UK and US publishers Rodale. There will be an online offering launched in December 2011 to build brand awareness in preparation for the launch.

Read more: Women’s Health To Launch In The Uk

   

11

Nov

2011

Independent sister paper ‘i’ celebrates 1st birthday

Written by Kim Nolan & Kerry Thomas

The Independent’s compact sister paper ‘i’ celebrated its 1st birthday on 26th October, sporting an “i am one” badge on its front cover.

It could be said the newspaper has had a year to be proud of, with a winning formula of concise news coverage, sport, opinion, features and arts – all within 56 easily accessible pages. The title has proved to be something of a success with readers too, having overtaken both The Independent and closing in on The Guardian.

Read more: Independent sister paper ‘i’ celebrates 1st birthday

   

11

Nov

2011

Flash No Longer Forward: Adobe Changes Direction

Written by Matt Barr

The late Steve Jobs once called Adobe’s Flash system "a spaghetti-ball piece of technology" and his disdain fuelled Apple's decision to ignore Flash compatibility across all of its mobile devices from iPhones to iPads. 

While this was no doubt one of the last nails in the coffin of Flash, Adobe has now announced that there would be no further development of the framework for any mobile browsers. Instead the group will focus Flash on the development of native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores.

Read more: Flash No Longer Forward: Adobe Changes Direction

   

11

Nov

2011

Google Gets Fresh - New Content More Crucial Than Ever

Written by Matt Barr

As the world's number one search engine, it's no surprise Google is constantly undergoing upgrades and improvements. It has been estimated that the number of tweaks the site performs per year is now around 500 and one of their biggest was last year's Caffeine update.

Caffeine revolutionised the way the search index was updated. Rather than analyse the whole web before including updated content, the system made it possible to review the internet in smaller portions, allowing it to more quickly add fresh content. At the time, Google Research head Peter Norvig referred to it as a change from indexing "batches of billions" to "billions of batches".

Read more: Google Gets Fresh - New Content More Crucial Than Ever

   

18

Oct

2011

The Indy Celebrates 25 Years with Commemorative Edition

Written by Louise Wallbank

The Independent celebrated its 25th anniversary with a commemorative edition last Friday, featuring a personal account of how the newspaper began from founding editor, Andreas Whittam Smith.

Read more: The Indy Celebrates 25 Years with Commemorative Edition

   

18

Oct

2011

JCDecaux Upgrades Rail Advertising Portfolio

Written by Louise Wallbank

JC Decaux has launched a nine-screen digital ad format named ‘e-motion’ at Euston Station, as part of wider investment in its rail portfolio. The site comprises of nine full-motion 9m x 1.6m landscape LCD screens on three sides of the main station concourse.

Read more: JCDecaux Upgrades Rail Advertising Portfolio

   

18

Oct

2011

Advertisers use the X Factor live shows to launch new campaigns

Written by Lucy Brown

This weekend saw the start of the live X Factor shows in which contestants who survived boot camp got the chance to prove themselves in front of a live audience. The same can be said for a few advertisers too as they took advantage of large audiences to launch brand new TV campaigns. Whether you are a fan of the show or not, the commercial breaks proved to be a hot bed of entertainment in themselves.

Read more: Advertisers use the X Factor live shows to launch new campaigns

   

18

Oct

2011

Half Year TV Report: January - June 2011

Written by Natalie Grundy

The amount of time spent watching linear commercial TV channels in the UK during January to June 2011 increased to a new record for the period, according to a Thinkbox.

The average TV viewer in the UK watched 18 hours, 9 minutes of commercial linear TV a week (2 hours, 35 minutes a day) during the first six months of 2011, according to new figures from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB). This is an increase of 48 minutes a week (7 minutes a day) on the same period in 2010, and an increase of 1 hour, 47 minutes a week (15 minutes a day) on the five-year average for the period.

Read more: Half Year TV Report: January - June 2011

   

18

Oct

2011

Does Yoghurt have The X Factor?

Written by Lisa Thompson

After weeks of tears, embarrassing auditions and several groups being formed ditched and then reformed - winter finally arrived on Saturday night with the first of the X Factor live shows. There was much to discuss about this weekend’s extravaganza, but perhaps one of the most interesting things is that for the second year running, dairy Brand Yeo Valley has decided to launch a new advert for its yoghurt that runs only during the show’s ad breaks. Last year, Yeo Valley focused on rapping famers, this year they debuted a new dairy themed boy band “The Churned”. Whilst the genre has changed, the premise remains similar, as the ad plays out like a music video with songs that are downloadable online.

Read more: Does Yoghurt have The X Factor?

   

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