IPC launches NME TV channel

LONDON - IPC is to launch another of its magazines as a TV channel with the debut of NME TV this Friday in a strategic partnership with CSC Media Group.

IPC launches NME TV channel

The 24-hour channel, based on NME magazine, will debut sometime between 6am and 11am on Sky Digital 377, available to 8.6 million households. Content will be heavily based on charts and the latest offerings from the UK's indie and alternative music scenes.

While the station will be used to show exclusive NME footage from gigs and events, Channel 4 will retain the rights to screen the NME Awards.

The television channel is the latest offering from IPC after it launched Nuts TV on Freeview in September.

There are no immediate plans to move NME TV onto Freeview yet. However, IPC has not ruled it out if more space on the platform becomes available. Last month, more than one million people watched NME footage posted on YouTube.

Advertising sales on the channel will be handled by specialist TV airtime sales and sponsorship house, Dolphin TV. The channel will aim to have between five and six minutes of ads every hour.

Magazine and online advertisers will be able to extend their campaigns onto the channel. Proctor & Gamble and several mobile companies are believed to have bought slots.

The channel will be comprehensively cross-promoted with NME.com and NME magazine, and the magazine’s journalists will be able to put breaking music news on the channel's scroll bar. In future, the channel could set up its own music news programme.

Up-and-coming bands will also be able to contribute content directly to the channel, by participating in "taking over the air" specials and exclusive gigs.

Publishing director Paul Cheal said the channel would help expand the NME brand.

"Our target audience is promiscuous in the way they consume media, so we want to be able to deliver the brand in whatever format they prefer," he said.

"Ideally, an NME reader can flick through the magazine during the day, visit the site in the afternoon, come home and watch NME TV, before going to an NME club to see an NME gig."

Cheal added: "We are in this for the long haul and I can only see us getting bigger and better in the future."

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