MTV and Full Circle merge sales operations to create new force in pay TV sales
Sales house Full Circle is to merge its operations with the MTV advertising force from Monday in a deal which sees the creation of a bigger competitor in the pay TV market for Foxtel’s MCN.
The new combined sales house will represent on air and online MTV Networks Australia brands including MTV, MTV Classic, TMF, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr, mtv.com.au, neopets.com and shockwave.com – all currently represented internally by MTV.
Added to the list will be Full Circle Media’s clients TV1, SCI FI Channel, Movie One and Two, Movie Extra, Movie Greats, Family Movie Channel, World Movies, Stvdio, CNBC, Starpics 1, Starpics 2, Starpics HD and Aurora.
Brian Gallagher
Full Circle, which is based in Chippendale in Sydney, was founded five years ago by former Ten strategy and development manager Brian Gallagher.
Gallagher will head up the as yet unnamed new operation, which will be located at MTV’s offices in East Sydney.
A MTV spokeswoman said it will have over 50 staff, with “single figure redundancies across the two teams where there is a clear duplication of roles”.
Sharb Farjami, formerly VP of ad sales, MTV Networks Australia and New Zealand, will become national sales director, reporting directly to Gallagher.
Gallagher said: “This gives us an even more competitive position against free-to-air networks. It’s an era of evolving media and with our new structure we are uniquely positioned to make a real impact in the new world of marketing.”
The JV’s shareholders include Viacom, CBS Studios International, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures Television.
The new sales house will be operational from Monday.
Based on channels and audience reach, MCN – Multi Channel Network – will still be the dominant player in the pay TV sales market. MCN is a JV between Foxtel, Austar, Premier Media Group and XYZ Networks. It represents more than 50 national pay TV channels and 200 channel and independent websites.
The pay TV channels it represents includes Arena, Channel V, The Lifestyle Channel, Discovery Channel, UKTV, Fox8, Fox Sports and ESPN.
MCN chief executive, Anthony Fitzgerald, said: “It’s good to see a couple of major global companies have shown they are willing to get together to invest in the growth of STV and demonstrates once again the STV business is in good shape.
“This simplifies the STV market offering for agencies and clients and that’s good for STV and for Television advertising overall.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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well done Brian!
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well don webbo!
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nice work Gags!
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