The UK is set to post the strongest advertising expenditure growth of any major European market at 18.2 per cent in 2021 to reach a total of £27.7 billion, according to an Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report. Based on advertising revenue data from across the entire media landscape, the report is a significant upward revision from […]

ITV has called on the UK government to exempt some television workers from self-isolation. Carolyn McCall, chief executive, said ITV had been talking to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about an exemption for “certain aspects” of television on the grounds that broadcasters have a public service remit, including to provide news coverage. […]

Global advertising expenditure will grow 11.2 per cent in 2021, driven by exceptional demand for performance-led ecommerce advertising and brand advertising on online video, according to Zenith’s latest Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report. Advertising expenditure will total $669 billion (€569bn) this year, $40 billion more than was spent before the pandemic in 2019. Growth in advertising […]

Cinemas throughout most of Europe had to close in response to Covid restrictions in March 2020. While most theatres were allowed to reopen from mid-May / June onwards, they could only operate under strict restrictions including capacity limits and had to close again during the second wave in late autumn. On top of this, most […]

YouTube has partnered with the NHS to launch a multi-million-pound advertising campaign to encourage young people in the UK to get vaccinated against Covid-19. The Google-owned video sharing site says the partnership will involve ads on billboards, buses, bus stops etc as well as on the YouTube platform – with YouTube themselves footing the bill. […]

The UK’s digital divide narrowed during the coronavirus pandemic, as people have gone online to escape the lockdown, according to research from comms regulator Ofcom. The proportion of homes without Internet access appears to have fallen from 11 per cent in March 2020, as the UK entered lockdown, to 6 per cent of homes – […]

An investigation by UK broadcast regulator Ofcom has found that coronavirus coverage on the religious satellite television channel Loveworld breached broadcasting rules for a third time. During two episodes of a current affairs programme, Full Disclosure, presenters made a number of materially misleading and potentially harmful statements about the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines, which were […]

UK broadcast regulator Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £125,000 (€147,000) on religious satellite channel Loveworld, after an investigation found it broke broadcasting rules for the second time in a year. During the course of a 29-hour programme – The Global Day of Prayer – Ofcom found that news content and sermons presented potentially […]

YouTube has removed more than 30,000 misleading Covid-19 vaccination videos in the past five months. A YouTube spokesperson told the BBC that the videos contradicted vaccine information from the World Health Organization (WHO) or health authorities such as the NHS. In October 2020, YouTube banned vaccine misinformation in a bid to clamp down on attempts […]

Comparison site Compare Fibre reports that 57.4 per cent of lower-income households in the UK (some 7.1 million people) have not taken up, and are unaware of the help on offer to assist with maintaining connectivity under the lockdown. This includes: Free Wi-Fi vouchers to 5 million hotspots are available through the BT website. You […]