VCT News
Beringea Portfolio Company Subtv Boosts Audience Share to 75 Per Cent
25 April 2005 - Beringea portfolio company SUBtv, the national youth TV channel which targets university students, announced today that it has significantly increased its audience share. It is now fully established as the premier student medium, reaching 1.5 million students each week, 75 per cent of the total student population in the UK.
With exclusive ten-year contracts with all its university partners, the channel is signing up a further 20 universities to the network, taking its total to 115 installations in 85 universities across the UK. It is subsequently moving to the next stage of the major expansion of its network and services to universities and advertisers, with three key initiatives.
The SUBtv network utilises several plasma screens at each installation, most of which are currently in student unions. This puts the channel firmly at the heart of campus life, since unions are the social and commercial hubs of day-to day activity. The screens are programmed to provide either SUBtv (bespoke programming) or third party television broadcasts. In addition the broadcast includes local information of direct relevance to each specific site.
The channel has also launched a new state-of-the-art AIRtime system, which allows the screens to be split into different zones, enabling several messages to be displayed at the same time and so providing for local information to sit alongside national broadcasts.
In a further development SUBtv is launching an integrated communications channel in the universities, which will provide cross-campus reach and enable simultaneous real-time programming and advertising events. This follows a highly successful real-time gaming tournament piloted with Ubisoft several months ago.
Peter Miles, chief executive of SUBtv, comments: "Our dominance of this medium means that we are now the main gateway for any company aiming to reach students. Our investment in editorial programming, events and all types of facilities for students has built a substantial brand loyalty to the channel."
Trevor Hope, Investment Director at Beringea comments: "The advertising industry continues to shift advertising spend to media which allow for targeting specific audiences. Subtv is proving to be an attractive and efficient channel for advertisers getting their messages to the student population. We're very pleased with the progress that SUBtv has made since our investment. The growing national platform is allowing the SUBtv offering to take a strong place in national brand campaigns."
Beringea's ProVen VCT and ProVen Media VCTs invested in SUBtv in May 2004. Beringea recently raised £2.2m in "top-up" funding for ProVen VCT, taking total funds raised to just over £25m. ProVen VCT will remain open for investment until 30th June 2005.
About Beringea
Beringea is an international venture capital firm with offices in London and Detroit. In the UK Beringea manages ProVen VCT, ProVen Health VCT, ProVen Growth & Income VCT and Global Rights Fund II. Beringea launched its first VCT in 1996, making it one of the most experienced VCT managers in the UK. ProVen Growth & Income and ProVen VCT are highest performing VCTs of their launch years, respectively, according to www.taxefficientreview.com. For more information please visit www.provenvcts.co.uk.