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Virgin Mobile sponsors Big Brother 9

Mark Sweney

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 7 2008


Virgin Mobile: its idents in 2007 featured Big Brother contestants and carried spoof subtitles promoting Virgin Media products

Virgin Mobile has signed up to sponsor Channel 4's flagship summer series Big Brother 9, continuing its relationship with the reality show.

The Big Brother sponsorship will primarily be used to promote Virgin Mobile, although parent company Virgin Media will also push some other of its services such as broadband around this summer's show.

This year's Big Brother is thought likely to launch slightly later than the 2007 series, in late May or even June, although Channel 4 has not revealed its scheduling plans.

James Kydd, the managing director of marketing and brand for Virgin Media, said the deal was a no-brainer because the Big Brother franchise is a "ratings powerhouse" that makes for a "perfect fit with the Virgin Mobile brand" demographic.

"Big Brother is still the biggest reality TV phenomenon on the box," Kydd added. "When it's not being broadcast on Channel 4, we look forward to keeping fans up to date via our mobile, TV and web portal platforms."

Virgin Mobile also sponsored January's Big Brother Celebrity Hijack, which ran on digital channel E4 instead of taking its usual primetime slot on the flagship Channel 4 network.

Parent company Virgin Media signed up to sponsor last summer's series, Big Brother 8, after Carphone Warehouse pulled its £2.5m-per-year deal with Channel 4 following the Shilpa Shetty racism row that engulfed last January's Celebrity Big Brother.

Channel 4 said that Big Brother accounted for nine of the top 20 rating TV shows it aired last summer and targeted 16 to 34 years.

"Big Brother is still immensely popular and resonates with the youth and popular culture in general today," said Kydd.

After dropping its Big Brother sponsorship deal Carphone Warehouse moved on to sponsor the X Factor on ITV1 last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...dia.television