News in Brief

Play.com, the shopping site for movies, games and music, is to make its TV sponsorship debut by sponsoring The Sci Fi Channel's prime-time schedule every week day between 8pm and 10pm. The autumn line-up includes John Doe, The Dead Zone and The Visitor.

C4 is to broadcast the International Ski Federation Snowboard World Cup this winter. The broadcaster already shows the FIS Audi Alpine Ski World Cup and the FIS Nordic World Cup. The coverage, which will be created by production company Hothouse, begins on Saturday November 29 and runs until March 2004.

Ski specialist Scott Dunn is to sponsor the Snow Reports on the ITV News channel from the beginning of December.

It will be broadcast every hour throughout the ski season from all the major European resorts. The deal was negotiated by James Gibson at Granada Enterprises and Andrew Dunn at Scott Dunn.

GMTV has joined forces with O2 and Screen Network to launch a multi-media campaign to promote Missing Persons Awareness Week, which starts on November 24.

The broadcaster will encourage viewers to subscribe to a multi-media messaging service, which will send them pictures of people separated from their families.

Opus has unveiled the trophy to be presented at its radio planning awards early next year. The awards, presented in association with Media Week, are to recognise effectiveness and creativity in planning radio advertising.

Details on how to enter can be found on mediaweek.co.uk.

This article was first published on Media Week