UKTV ploughs £6m into radio ads

UKTV is shifting the bulk of its &£6m advertising spend into radio to help it target multimedia consumers more effectively.

The TV broadcaster, whose channels include UKTV Style, UKTV Gold and UKTV Food, will continue to use its own airtime to promote its portfolio of channels and the network.

But to reach beyond existing viewers it will predominantly use radio, including stations such as Capital and Heart.

It is understood that in the past, 60 per cent of UKTV’s budget had been devoted to radio; this will now rise to about 95 per cent. The primary attraction of radio for UKTV is the medium’s short lead times, which enable the broadcaster to promote the details of its programmes and not merely its channels.

Radio listening is generally on the increase, but it is also a medium that appeals to younger people, who are notoriously difficult to target because they do not use traditional media as much as they used to.

The broadcaster has rebranded all its channels so that the name UKTV acts as an umbrella brand and appears before the channel name – for example, UK Style becomes UKTV Style.

The company hopes that this will unite the channels in the mind of the viewer and lead to positive brand values being spread across the portfolio from one channel to another.