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Johnston Press signs deal with Sky to sell targeted TV adverts

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Regional publisher Johnston Press has struck a three-year deal with Sky to sell targeted TV adverts via the satellite broadcaster.

The move will see the regional publisher sell TV ad slots to clients using Sky’s AdSmart system, which allows tailored adverts to be shown to households based on their location and profile.

The deal follows a successful trial of the system by JP which was announced in May last year at the same time the publisher unveiled a refinancing package, which saw Sky invest in £5m of new shares being issued.

AdSmart was was initially trialled by the regional publisher in two markets – Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield, and Milton Keynes, Northampton and Peterborough.

The new three-year deal will see this rolled out across all the publisher’s newspaper titles in the UK.

JP chief executive Ashley Highfield, pictured above, said: “That Sky has cemented this partnership by agreeing to a new three-year deal is testament to the strength of the relationships we have with small and medium-sized businesses across our regions and the powerful product Sky AdSmart is.

“Being able to now offer customers across our portfolio the chance to advertise on television to a local, relevant Sky audience is a hugely attractive proposition and further enhances our attractive multimedia advertising offering.”

The deal will see the publisher’s advertising staff work with Sky’s AdSmart team to identify businesses which may wish to run TV advertising campaigns within local markets.

Sky says more than 500 advertisers have run more than 2,000 campaigns since it launched AdSmart last January and many of these are new to Sky or to TV advertising.

Jamie West, deputy managing director of Sky Media, said: “Sky AdSmart has been a phenomenal success since its launch with hundreds of local businesses benefiting from the unrivalled power of TV advertising.

“Together with Johnston Press we’re pleased to be able to open up this opportunity to more and more small and medium-sized businesses.”

19 comments

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  • September 10, 2015 at 11:54 am
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    Can anyone tell me what an AdSmart advert looks like – is it like a conventional ‘moving’ ad or a static/slideshow?
    And presumably it is available only to Sky customers within the ad breaks on certain channels in their tv package?

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  • September 10, 2015 at 12:48 pm
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    Three years? That’s an optimistic view of Johnson’s longevity

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  • September 10, 2015 at 1:02 pm
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    I haven’t got a Scooby Doo what this is about and how it relates to selling newspapers.

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  • September 10, 2015 at 2:34 pm
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    I have Sky and a PE postcode (Peterborough). Never seen a local ad. I am sure that elbowing-in to digital TV is really going to help the local newspaper business for JP. Keep it up Ash – gives us independents even more reason to smile.

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  • September 10, 2015 at 2:52 pm
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    Confused: The Sky Adsmart basically knows roughly your location and hence sends adverts to you based on that info – you can block it by using a couple of browser plugins – an adblocker such as Adblock Plus, combined with Ghostery. Hope that helps.

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  • September 10, 2015 at 4:01 pm
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    I fear you may be confused too Bob Fields. It’s not an internet ad that you can hide with an ad blocker. Adsmart is the product Sky TV use to send local TV advertisements to your sky box as part of your normal TV viewing. They know exactly where you are due to your registration/subscription data held by Sky, so they are able to be quite specific in reaching a geo-targeted audience. This then has lifestyle or interest data layered over the top making the ads even more relevant. Personally I consider this to be a threat to publishers, print and digital so I’ll watch the JP roll-out with interest. It’s certainly clever technology nevertheless.

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  • September 10, 2015 at 9:12 pm
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    Someone tell Archant about this please as the few ads they have on that awful Mustard TV channel are one step up from giving a child PowerPoint to play with.
    It will also make a nice change for the commercial people to have telly ads to sell as they sure as heck can’t sell in paper ones without giving them away.

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  • September 10, 2015 at 9:56 pm
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    It could be like those old ads they used to show at the cinema after Pearl & Dean – the cringe-making ones for Chinese restaurants or carpet warehouses. Probably be funnier than a lot of stuff on Sky anyhow :)

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  • September 11, 2015 at 12:19 am
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    I bet he is worried with the new Ad blocking from iPhones soon.

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  • September 11, 2015 at 7:34 am
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    ………..and there lies the problem Oor Wullie’s pail, you and the rest of the haters think this industry is still about ‘selling newspapers’. Even the most richly resourced ‘newspapers’, like the Daily Mail and Sun are seeing circulation declines – it’s a trend you can’t stop. Wake up and smell the coffee and if you’re lucky enough to have the time to comment on this site, do so with a more progressive mindset – for all our sakes.

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  • September 11, 2015 at 8:38 am
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    Hard to know how this is going to help arrest advertising revenue decline. Another thing for overloaded sales teams to focus on thus removing emphasis from core print product where over 75% of the revenue is. JP is slowly transforming into another digital sales agency and there are thousand of these in the UK. Share price dropped almost 5p on the announcement of this news.

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  • September 11, 2015 at 9:13 am
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    Like being on the titanic and finding out the toilet roll is quilted.

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  • September 11, 2015 at 9:46 am
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    Optimistic Owen – yes you are right, IF this deal brings in a decent commission cross selling ads to Sky AND keeps local print advertisers happy that they can now reach another audience by another medium then few people could argue against it.
    It also gives JP another tool in its box without going down the Mustard TV route.
    IF that extra revenue is used to support good print and digital journalism serving their local area then I will be doubly pleased.

    I and many others are sometimes critical of some of what gets reported on HTFP but I think the label ‘haters’ is a bit strong.
    I have since been on the AdSmart website where all is explained.

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  • September 11, 2015 at 10:38 am
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    Optimistic Owen. the haters actually agree with you. Papers are dying. (a mix of changing tastes and mostly witless management) The issue is whether the digital income will be enough to save what few jobs are left on “newspapers”. If this new move helps keep people in work then God bless Ashers!

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  • September 12, 2015 at 12:40 pm
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    The judgement of Johnston Press nowadays is no better now than the period when they snapped up local newspapers with abandon, squandered countless millions on the ‘cash cows’ and ran itself into impossible debt. Now, they are destroying those papers, ruining the quality, and throwing away circulation and local advertising. Not to mention the lives and careers of former dedicated staff. If only they’d listen to people who know. By the way, did Ashley ever actually work or report on a local newspaper?

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  • September 12, 2015 at 10:06 pm
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    In my experience @confused business advertisers don’t package up , they choose one or the other and in All likelihood it will be the other. It’s an old cliche that if something new is brought out then advertisers wil buy that as well, they won’t . All this is likely to do is encourage them to drop display advertising and go with the ‘sexy’ appeal of an ad on sky ,
    The regional group won’t care if it does as it will mean ad money coming in and in these times they couldn’t care less where from,it’s almost certain to affect paper advertising even more as the reps will be fired up to sell telly ads while Iin The background press advertising sudden as a result

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  • September 14, 2015 at 9:52 am
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    Is this yet another Ashley idea to create an excuse for JP adverts costing so much more than local rivals’? We had a town council that wanted to advertise a part-time admin job only in the town and was quoted three times the price of an ad in the Archant in-town only give away. Ad reps are not allowed to strip away all the national web-based offerings that extremely local advertisers don’t want, so one presumes the same will apply to Sky. Ashley and his board simply don’t understand what the word ‘local’ means in the phrase ‘local newspapers’.

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  • September 14, 2015 at 1:38 pm
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    Mr angrier
    That’s not the basis of Adsmart but it must be flippin dear if it’s more than Archants as their ploy of bundling up job ads via mandatory multi title packaging is known through the region and is why so mushy businesses advertise their vacancies elsewhere,primarily via on line cv sites.
    Knowing they had the monopoly on recruitment they decided to whack the rates up believing people would be forced to pay the price, they didn’t and employment ad revenues have been hit as a result .

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