Chris Evans Breakfast Show announces groundbreaking partnership with Sky

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio will launch on 21 January 2019 and instantly redefine commercial radio at breakfast with a show completely free of ad breaks, in partnership with Sky.

In a ground-breaking partnership between Virgin Radio UK and Sky, Chris Evans will broadcast his Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio without any traditional ad breaks. Sky’s sponsorship will provide investment to create branded content, competitions and events which will take the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio to a whole new level.

Chris Evans said: “So much has changed in broadcasting since I was last at Virgin Radio that now, thanks to Sky, we can do the show without ad breaks. I’m even more excited about starting in the New Year!”

Stephen van Rooyen, CEO UK & Ireland, Sky, said: “The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio will bring audiences something completely new, bold and fresh – everything we love at Sky. We’re excited to create an innovative radio first with Chris and Virgin Radio, and bring Sky customers even more of the entertainment they love when Virgin Radio launches across Sky from 7 January.”

The partnership between Virgin Radio UK and Sky means listeners will have the same uninterrupted audio experience they’ve come to expect from Chris Evans’s award-winning BBC Radio 2 show. Boosted by Sky’s investment in creativity, Chris and the team, including Vassos and Rachel, will have more license than ever before to let their creative juices flow.

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio will be available online, on mobile via the Virgin Radio app and on DAB digital radio. Virgin Radio will launch on Sky+ and Sky Q on 7 January 2019.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

ABOUT VIRGIN RADIO

Virgin Radio returned to the UK airwaves in March 2016 and boasts 414,000 listeners a week, listening for a total of 1,347,000 hours, according to the latest RAJAR figures.

Presenters include Eddy Temple-Morris, Kate Lawler, stand-up comedian Matt Richardson and Tim Cocker, all playing the very best music of the 80s, 90s, 00s and today.

Alongside the regular music programmes, Virgin Radio recently signed Pete Mitchell to present the monthly Revolutions in Music documentary series and has a monthly Classic Album series fronted by Jamie East.

Virgin Radio is available nationally on DAB digital radio, online and on mobile via the Virgin Radio app. Website: www.virginradio.co.uk. Twitter: @VirginRadioUK.

Virgin Radio UK is 100% owned by Wireless, which was acquired by News UK in 2016.

ABOUT SKY

With 23 million customers across seven countries, Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group.

We have 31,000 colleagues and together we want to connect our customers to more of what they love, including our award-winning original productions, like Patrick Melrose and Save Me, and great shows from our partners including HBO, Showtime and Warner Bros. And our ever improving technology makes it even easier for customers to watch more of the shows they love with personalised recommendations and voice control and, our online streaming service, NOW TV, brings all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract free service.

We treat our customers better than anyone else in our field, as Ofcom’s complaints data shows, and we look after our staff too. Sky is one of The Times Top 50 employers for women and we’re in Stonewall’s list of Top 50 LGBT-Inclusive employers.

We also use our position as the leading entertainment business in Europe to do the right thing. As part of Sky Ocean Rescue campaign we’re committing to be completely single-use plastic free by 2020, we’re investing £25million over five years in ocean-saving tech and we’re supporting the WWF to protect our oceans with designated Marine Protected Areas.

ABOUT NEWS UK

News UK is home to some of the biggest and most popular newspapers and radio stations in the UK and Ireland, alongside video ad tech company Unruly.

Our titles, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS, reach more than 70%* of the UK's total newsbrand market. The Times and The Sunday Times are the world’s best-known quality newspapers and The Sun, the most read British print newspaper, is also the UK’s number one online newsbrand. In addition to our successful brand extensions, fantasy football game Dream Team and Sun Bingo, in July News UK launched Q LIVE, a live game show app with cash prizes for players across the UK and Ireland.

Wireless, acquired by News UK in 2016, comprises of talkSPORT, talkRADIO and Virgin Radio as well as 30 local radio stations in the UK and Ireland. Across its network Wireless reaches 4.6m adults, who are listening for 33 million hours*. Wireless also owns two digital businesses, Tibus and Zesty - read more here.

Digital ad tech company Unruly, acquired in 2015, uses unique emotional data to help advertisers better engage global audiences on brand safe, premium sites helping brands to inspire 1.44bn people around the world - read more here.

For more information on our brands please go to www.news.co.uk or follow us on Twitter @NewsUK.

News UK is a subsidiary of News Corp, the global, diversified media and information services company. (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV).

*Print and online figures are taken from latest PAMCo industry measurement results (for the period April ‘17 – March ‘18) and the radio stats from RAJAR (reported May 17, 2018).

For enquiries please contact:

News UK: Chris Taylor, Deputy Director of Communications, chris.taylor@news.co.uk

Sky: Harrison Kelly, Senior Corporate Communications Manager, harrison.kelly@sky.uk