MEDIA: Briefs

Emap Digital, the new media division of Emap, has recruited former

Procter & Gamble brand marketer Dharmash Mistry to be its new strategy

director. Mistry will manage Emap’s portal initiatives as well as group

strategy for the division. The company has also appointed First Call

director of marketing Bob Willmott to be its director of customer

relationship management.

Quantum Publishing, publisher of Media Week and Press Gazette, has been

the focus of a pounds 20.5m management buyout led by co-founders Richard

Flaye and John Bednall. The company will now be known as Quantum

Business Media following its buyout from P&O. The purchase was funded by

venture capital firm ABN AMRO.

News Group Newspapers has appointed Ian Clark, media director of Booth

Lockett Makin, to be the advertisement director for The Sun and News of

the World. Clark will report to News Group general manager Richard

Webb.

Blue Square, the internet betting site, has launched a betting service

on the Open interactive platform to enable users to bet through their TV

remote controls. Since going live last week, the service has taken

registrations from 12,000 customers. Blue Square.com has over 65,000

account holders.

The Media Edge, the media communications consultancy, is launching a

total communications division to operate across the Europe

Middle-Eastern Africa region. TME 360 will be headed up by Martin

Thomas, who joined the company last year from PR agency Cohn Wolfe. The

company said the division was created in response to demand for a media

model that embraced all communications channels and marketing

disciplines.

Fotango, the online photo service, has appointed WWAV Rapp Collins Media

to handle its pounds 1m media planning and buying account, including on

and offline activity. The site launched in the UK last month and is

planning a roll-out into Germany and France with a view to be a

pan-European service. Fotango offers customers the chance to order and

edit their photos online, including enlarged versions, re-prints, high

quality prints and photo gifts.

Perception Digital Media has designed a new site for Mattel, the toys

and games company, that allows customers to try out its Othello game

online. The aim is to encourage 25- to 40-year-olds to buy the game

after they have experienced it on the site. Users partner a cartoon wolf

against a sheep, and can play at beginner, intermediate or advanced

levels. An e-mail version allows friends to play over the web by

notifying them when it is their turn.

The BBC is launching a BBC Sport Online site to offer up-to-the-minute

results, commentary and background on major events. Features will

include a daily round-up of results from around the world, sports

coverage supported by a statistics database, selected live commentaries

streamed from BBC Radio 5 Live and discussion forums linked to events

such as Wimbledon.

Sky Sports Extra is to show exclusive live coverage of Chelsea’s home

matches in the 2000-2001 UEFA Cup tournament from September. The digital

channel will also feature live exclusives of The Amsterdam Tournament’s

four matches between Arsenal, Lazio of Italy’s Serie A, Barcelona of

Spain’s La Liga and Ajax of Amsterdam. On August 16 it will exclusively

show Manchester United facing Manchester City at Old Trafford.

John Eatwell, chairman of the Commercial Radio Companies Association,

presented the industry’s proposal for the shape of future regulation at

Glasgow’s Radio Festival. Drawing on the CRCA’s Communications Reform

White Paper, he stated that all radio should be regulated by a single

radio regulator; ownership regulation should be left to the competition

authorities to regulate on a local and national level, and radio

advertising should be self-regulated with complaints being handled by a

successor body to the Advertising Standards Authority.

This article was first published on Marketing