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Just been announced

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Channel 5 has struck a deal to broadcast Big Brother for the next three years.

Under the deal, which is worth as much as £60m, Channel 5 has secured the rights to broadcast Big Brother until the end of 2018.

The deal will see Channel 5 continue to air two series of Celebrity Big Brother and one series of the traditional format each year, as well as various associated spin-off themed shows.

“Big Brother in all its guises brings a huge and varied cross section of viewers to Channel 5 and typifies the appointment-to-view programming we want on the channel,” said Channel 5 chief operating officer Paul Dunthorne.

Big Brother is one of the most important shows in the Channel 5 schedule, with an average of about 3 million viewers tuning in to watch Katie Price beat Katie Hopkins in the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother.

Viacom, which bought Channel 5 from Richard Desmond for £463m last year, has extended the reach of Big Brother to its MTV UK channel to run repeats.

Channel 5 struck the deal with Initial, a production subsidiary of Endemol Shine UK.

“Channel 5 is a fantastic home for Big Brother,” said Initial managing director Nick Samwell-Smith. “Over the past four years we’ve worked closely together to keep this extraordinary format feeling fresh, noisy, and creatively vibrant. I’m thrilled that this landmark deal means we can look forward to three more years of big characters and juicy storylines from inside our favourite house.”

Channel 5’s last deal to air Big Brother was struck for two years in 2012. The financial details of the latest deal has not been released.

Viacom has also named Kerry Taylor, senior vice president of youth and music and MTV UK general manager, as the company’s first chief marketing officer.
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Taylor will lead a rebrand of Channel 5 later this year alongside Jo Bacon, MTV UK’s vice president of marketing and communications, a former business director at ad agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R.

“Their task will be to capture changing perceptions about the brand amongst lighter viewers as Channel 5 continues to improve programme range and quality and its ratings performance,” said David Lynn, president of Viacom UK, Australia and central and eastern Europe.

The ad agency Joint has been appointed as the strategic agency for the rebrand of Channel 5.

Taylor will, for now, also continue to run MTV and have responsibility for youth and music.

In her new role she will be responsible for the marketing of Viacom’s pan-regional brands that are managed out of the UK, such as Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Paramount, across dozens of countries including Ireland, Russia, Hungary and Australia.


http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ther-celebrity

[Josy]

Already been posted twice and has a front page article.