Skip to footer

Downton Abbey picks up new Season 4 sponsor

Downton Abbey has a new Season 4 sponsor: Tesco. What else is new in Season 4? Paul Giamatti, another American joins the Downton Abbey cast,

|
REUTERS/Fred Prouser
Actress Shirley MacLaine in Hollywood in April 2013. MacLaine plays the American countess Cora in Downton Abbey.
  • By Staff Reuters

| London

Tesco has become the latest British retailer to link-up with television show Downton Abbey, hoping an association with the popular post-Edwardian period drama will boost sales of its premium own-brand food products line.

Britain's biggest grocer said on Friday the "Tesco Finest" range, which consists of over 1,400 products from ready meals to wine, would sponsor Downton Abbey in the first TV sponsorship deal by the range.

In June Tesco posted a drop in quarterly underlying sales in Britain, resuming a trend seen for most of the past three years and raising doubts about its 1 billion pounds ($1.56 billion) turnaround plan despite a host of new initiatives.

The TV sponsorship deal, negotiated by global communications network Initiative on behalf of Tesco and television network ITV , will run throughout Downton Abbey's fourth series which starts in October and involves a sponsorship package across broadcast, mobile and online platforms.

"Downton Abbey is a great brand fit for Tesco Finest," said David Wood, Tesco's UK marketing director.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Last month Marks & Spencer launched a Downton Abbey range of toiletries, sold in traditional post-Edwardian packaging.

The third series of the show, which climaxed with the car crash death of the heir to the Downton estate Matthew Crawley, drew in 12 million viewers and a 40 percent share of Britain's TV audience.

The fourth season of the series will feature the debut of Paul Giamatti, who be appearing in the smash-hit British drama as Harold Levinson, brother of American countess Cora. The brother character has been discussed during the series by Cora and their mother (Shirley Maclaine), but so far had remained off-screen, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

Harold is “free-spirited,” Carnival Films managing director and “Downton” executive producer Gareth Neame said in a statement, and that during the finale of the upcoming season, he and Maclaine will “upset the Granthams’ apple cart.”

“We can't wait to see him work alongside Shirley Maclaine,” Neame said.

“Downton” will be premiering its fourth season in the UK in October and is scheduled to come to America’s PBS stations in January of 2014.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Downton Abbey picks up new Season 4 sponsor
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2013/0824/Downton-Abbey-picks-up-new-Season-4-sponsor
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe