Audi Launches British TV Channel to Drive Its Brand

Last week, Audi launched its own television channel in Britain, which, if successful, could be rolled out in other countries too.

The Audi Channel will run 24 hours, seven days a week and is aimed at a mass-market audience: British car owners and car enthusiasts. The launch schedule is split between product-related "infotainment" during the day and more general entertainment-driven material in the evenings and on weekends.

The channel is being broadcast to 7.6 million British homes over the Sky Digital satellite television platform. More viewers will get the service in coming months when Audi UK completes negotiations on terrestrial digital platforms operated by Freeview and cable television operators. The channel also is being made available for broadband Internet users via Audi UK's website.

The channel has cost 2 million pounds (about $3.5 million) to set up, and Audi is committing 1 million to 2 million pounds more a year to cover running costs -- equivalent to annual expenditure on the Audi UK website.

The decision to extend from advertiser to broadcaster was born of growing frustration with a fragmenting media marketplace and concern that British viewers were spending less time engaging with the brand's TV advertising, said Gary Savage, Audi UK's marketing director.

"The marketing budgets we have are considerable. We are enjoying tangible sales success in the UK. And we have much to be proud of. But in terms of advertising and marketing we have been very much following the conventional route," he said. "So we took a decision to take control of our own destiny. It was just a nice idea at first, but when we looked into it we realized that under a new type of broadcast license from Ofcom [the British media regulator] we really could become a media owner."

The Audi Channel is the first in a new generation of Ofcom-regulated channels under a newly created license allowing advertisers to become broadcasters and use their own channel to promote their brand values and products.

The licenses require a fine distinction to be made between promotion and sales (with the latter allowed only under "shopping channel" licenses), but it is a distinction that Audi was keen to exploit.