Discovery Communications Europe has announced a new four-year sales agreement with Sky Media bringing to an end the ongoing court action with the BSkyB-owned advertising sales house over bonus payments linked to viewing targets.
The move was one of the first actions for Discovery’s recently appointed SVP commercial development UK and EMEA Chris Shaw. “Sky Media has been our ad sales partner since 2002. We look forward to growing the UK business with their support under the new contract and continuing our long and productive relationship,” Shaw said in a statement, which made no mention of the payments dispute. It had been suggested that Discovery would take its sales business to the RTL-owned Five, reports that appear to have been wide of the mark.
Richard Hawking, Operations Director at Sky Media, added, “Discovery has played an important part in the growth of Pay-TV in the UK and of Sky Media as a TV sales house. We are delighted to be able to continue working together and look forward to building upon an already strong relationship”
The new agreement will cover 13 channels within the Discovery portfolio including the recent launch Quest.
In addition to the Sky channel portfolio, Sky Media also represents National Geographic, History, Chello Zone, Sci fi and Bauer.
