UKTV & Channel 4 in Ad Sales Tie Up

LONDON: Under the terms of a new ten-year agreement, Channel 4 Sales becomes the exclusive advertising representative for UKTV across its full portfolio of services, including ten channels, VOD services and online destinations.

The deal takes effect January 2011. ids remains UKTV’s incumbent ad sales agency in 2010.

The ten linear services operated by UKTV include Good Food, Dave and Eden. Channel 4 Sales will also sell advertising across all UKTV websites, including goodfoodchannel.co.uk and joindave.co.uk. Channel 4 will further represent UKTV’s VOD offerings as they evolve.

UKTV’s executive director of business and operations, Julia Jordan, said, “UKTV with ids has enjoyed a long history of delivering high quality, innovative and creative solutions to the advertising market.”

She continued, “Cementing a long term relationship with Channel 4, is a fabulous marriage of complementary brands and cultures representing the highest quality product, leadership and innovation to the market and we look forward to building on ids’ stellar performance.

“Channel 4 also understands how to deliver innovative and creative campaigns to mass and niche audiences; this will ensure UKTV continues its track record in building market share in both the linear and non-linear advertising markets.”

Andy Barnes, Channel 4’s director of advertising, commented: “The UKTV portfolio of channels, with its emphasis on high quality U.K. content, is the perfect complement to the existing Channel 4 network which continues to perform strongly. Incorporating UKTV into our existing portfolio will allow Channel 4 to bolster its investment in quality British content and its distinctive public service contribution.”

Barnes added, “As TV audiences get more and more fragmented, we believe that consolidation in TV advertising sales is inevitable and will unlock benefits which will be of real value to the whole industry. Incorporating UKTV into Channel 4 Sales’ existing offering will ensure that we continue to deliver to advertisers our distinctive and valuable audiences and share in the opportunities that arise from our combined offering.”