Some broadcasting insiders are asking if Channel 4 is airing Formula One on a not-for-profit basis as part of a wider, strategic move because it might aid its efforts to ward off privatisation, by providing a service that a for-profit operator probably could not afford.
ITV would certainly appear to think a Formula One deal without ads is uneconomic, after losing out to Channel 4 in the bidding.
The Channel 4 chief executive, David Abraham, is thought to have paid upwards of £20 million a year for about ten live races a season, plus highlights, in a three-year deal, after the BBC pulled out because of austerity cuts.
Morning Update: Incisive Media bans ad blocker users; Christoph Waltz and James Corden glorify gamer stories; Top Gear EP departs
AdAge: Christoph Waltz and James Corden Glorify Gamer Stories for ‘Clash of Clans’
Video games and celebrities can make for a killer combination — that’s what we learned when Supercell slipped Liam Neeson into its Super Bowl spot this year, to powerful, hilarious effect.
The advertiser and its agency Barton F. Graf are hoping to capture audiences’ hearts again with a new campaign that enlists Christoph Waltz, a star of “Spectre” and “Django Unchained,” and James Corden, host of “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on CBS, to illustrate real-life “Clash of Clan” gamer stories.
Digiday: Incisive Media becomes second UK publisher to ban ad blocker users
ncisive Media, home to titles including The Inquirer and Risk, could become the second British publisher to ban ad blocker users on some of its websites in the new year.
The publisher, which has a mix of subscription-based and ad-funded magazines, is seeing 40 percent of its traffic affected by visitors with ad blockers enabled, across the titles with more technology-savvy audiences, with other titles such as subscription-based financial brand Risk, seeing 10-15 percent of traffic affected.
Incisive Media’s managing director and former AOP chairman, John Barnes, said publishers must step up and take responsibility for their own part in the ad-blocking debacle, rather than “feel sorry for themselves” and continue to shift blame around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QElh81jdEo
AdWeek: Ad of the Day: Geico’s New Mom Character Is So Good, They Couldn’t Do Just One Spot
In The Martin Agency’s latest “It’s What You Do” ad for Geico, a James Bond-style super-spy takes an unexpected phone call that severely cramps his style just as the bad guys and helicopter close in.
Check out the spot here to find out who’s on the other end of the line.
Campaign: TV world wonders if Channel 4’s ad-free Formula One races can be commercially viable
Channel 4’s bold plan to broadcast live Formula One races without ads has stunned the TV world, and left some wondering how it can be commercially viable.
The Verge: Rear Window at Christmas: behind Google’s new interactive animated short
The scene is a snowy apartment building out of the 1950s, rendered in a bright, slightly retro palette. A janitor trudges across the courtyard, then stops, wary. Someone is out there. Someone large, nimble, and wearing a floppy red hat. Then you turn your phone. The janitor slides away, and instead you’re looking into the third-floor window of a snoring tenant. Move over a little more, and there’s a cat eyeing a tiny bird on the rooftop. As you focus, the cat tries to pounce. Another bird — this one giant and angry — plops down in front of it, and the cat scoots back across a line of Christmas lights, chastened. And then we’re back to the janitor, who starts a wild chase with a mysterious intruder who is, obviously, Santa Claus.
The Guardian: BBC’s Top Gear relaunch struck a blow as executive producer departs
Chris Evans’s Top Gear has been struck a blow with the departure of executive producer Lisa Clark less than five months after being brought in to lead the relaunch of the hit BBC motoring show.
Evans personally brought in Clark, who worked with him as a producer on The Big Breakfast, to help reinvent Top Gear following the departure of co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
Her arrival was much hyped by Evans but only a few months in – and with just five months until the first show is due to air on 8 May – Clark has left the BBC to pursue “new projects”.
