Virgin Media creates first in-house digital sales team

Virgin Media is to establish its first in-house digital ad sales team, covering its online, mobile and TV platforms.

It expects the team, to be called Virgin Media Digital Sales, to include between 15 and 25 roles.

Virgin Media announced the closure of its external ads sales house IDS following last month’s news that UKTV had handed its sales account to Channel 4 Sales (nma.co.uk 5 July 2010).

Channel 4 will take over ad sales for UKTV in January, while Sky Media will handle sales for the Living TV Group, recently rebranded from Virgin Media TV, following Sky’s acquisition of Virgin Media TV (nma.co.uk 4 June 2010).

The Virgin Media team will sell ads for the company’s new online TV catch-up service Virgin Media Player and its forthcoming next-generation digital entertainment service, in partnership with TiVo, due to launch later this year.

Virgin Media is speaking to IDS staff about opportunities with Virgin Media Digital Sales and is expecting to engage with ad and media buying agencies in the coming weeks.

This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk