Channel 4 signs up Microsoft to sponsor Codex

Microsoft is to sponsor a new Channel 4 series starting this weekend.

The software giant is to back Codex, a new show hosted by Tony Robinson which first airs on Sunday. It is part of the launch campaign for its new online search service, Live Search.

The programme is a combination of game show and historical mystery tour and is a major collaboration between Channel 4 and the British Museum. A team of contestants will be locked in the British Museum overnight and act as historical detectives to crack a code based on treasures including the Rosetta Stone and the Flood Tablet.

Each episode will be based on a different period of history, including ancient Egypt, imperial Rome and the Anglo-Saxons.

Microsoft chose the programme as it links in with the notion of people using its search engine to find answers to their own questions.

The idents around the programme have been developed by McCann Erickson London. They centre around a misguided archaeologist who keeps digging in the wrong places, using the tag line that it’s only with Live Search that you can ‘Make greater discoveries’.