Phil Townend, associate director of IDS, who heads online ad sales for Virgin Media, said he planned to target third-party content providers to roll out cross-platform ad deals.
IDS handles broadcast ad sales for Virgin Media TV channels, such as Living TV, the UKTV channels and Setanta Sports. Online inventory for UKTV's websites is sold separately by sales house Ad2One and by Monetise for Setanta.
Going forward, the IDS sales team will look to offer online deals via partners' websites as part of any related broadcast sponsorship deal.
Townend said expanding third-party online business, along with ad sales for Virginmedia.com and Virgin Media TV's channel websites, would be "part of a new, bigger IDS".
James Wildman, managing director of IDS, said there was no hit-list of sites to work with, but noted that a stronger online sales relationship with both UKTV and Setanta would be a natural step.
The business aims to offer advertisers cross-platform ad deals around categories such as female lifestyle, encompassing TV channels Living TV and UKTV Style, and their respective websites. Another category likely to be offered would be a sports package encompassing Virginmedia.com and Setanta.
Townend said: "Agencies are set up to work with us like this (on cross-platform broadcast deals) now. Sponsorship across all platforms is greater than the sum of the parts."
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