At the Radio Festival it was hard not to see the glee the GMG Johns felt about having signed Chris Tarrant to present a new Saturday morning show across its Real/Century and Smooth networks. I'm sure they're even more chuffed that it turns out that they won't have to pay CT themselves as apparently, according to the great man himself, he's being paid by Nissan, whilst GMG collect the other ad money.
CT also says that he's going to have complete editorial control of the show (which means some poor GMG staffer will be hoping that he doesn't breach the formats of the two differently formatted networks he's broadcasting to), but what about Nissan - what do they get from the programme and the host?
It's going to be an interesting to see how this content/advertising model, apparently brought in from the states, fares in the UK when the show launches later this month. Is it the beginning of more talent signing exclusive deals with brands and looking for broadcast partners? Who's next?
