From: Farid El-Husseini, Attentional Ltd.

Many of the key players in British media are asking themselves about the impact of Sky’s purchase of the Virgin channels. Two key issues seem to be provoking most interest:

(1) While Sky's channels dominate Film and Sports, Sky has not been a dominant player among the Entertainment channels. Acquiring Virgin's Entertainment channel portfolio could radically change Sky's Entertainment profile.

(2) The move gives Sky access to some prime EPG slots in the Entertainment sections of the Sky, Virgin and Freeview EPGs. If used properly to create strongly branded and coherent channel blocks, this could further help boost Sky's Entertainment portfolio's performance.

From time to time Attentional identifies opportunities for studies that may be of interest to a number of our clients, allowing the cost to be spread and all to benefit from research that might otherwise be too large a project to commission individually. This is one such opportunity.

Studies will be led by Dr. Farid el-Husseini, who has extensive expertise in modelling the impact of, for instance, EPG positioning.

For those who are interested in participating in this work a Briefing Document is available (to BARB subscribers only). This will be helpful in defining your precise angle of interest.

Please contact Farid el-Husseini at farid.el-husseini@attentional.com or
on +44 (0) 77655256815 or +44 (0) 1823 322829 (in UK office hours).