New IPC TV magazine sponsors Soap Awards
IPC Media’s new handbag-sized television listings magazine TV easy is to sponsor The British Soap Awards 2005 on ITV1 and ITV2.
It forms part of a £10m launch for the paid-for weekly magazine, which is due to hit the newsstands on May 3. The package will include broadcast sponsorship credits on ITV1, sponsorship of brand extension programming on ITV2 and branded trailers. The deal was negotiated by ITV Sales senior sponsorship and branded content executive Leigh Alexander, and Lucas Cridland of Walker Media, on behalf of IPC’s TV listings division tx. Entertainer Paul O’Grady will host the awards, televised by Granada Productions next month.
There will also be a TV campaign through Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO and Walker Media, and 1.5 million copies of the title will be given away with IPC women’s magazines, including Now, Pick Me Up and Woman.
The publisher is hoping TV easy will help it to further dominate the cut-price end of the listings market. IPC instigated a price war in the sector after cutting the cover price of its market-leading What’s On TV title by 10p to 35p. H Bauer’s rival title TV Choice followed suit, slashing its price by 10p to 30p earlier this year, but was delisted by supermarket chain Waitrose, which decided it did not need two similar products on the shelves.
