SUMO-sized brief for Brown

Erstwhile media enfant terrible James Brown, founder of the original ‘lads mag’ Loaded in the 1990s, has joined interactive digital broadcaster Cellcast as group creative and editorial director of its video sharing website SUMO.tv.

Contracted through his media consultancy Black Ops, Brown’s brief is to help SUMO.tv, which has seen sales soar of late, build its brand and editorial and marketing teams. SUMO.tv claims to be the world’s first media network ‘to seamlessly integrate user-generated content into TV programming, the internet and mobile services’ through its own technology architecture.

The site enjoyed a 25 per cent rise in online traffic in the third quarter, receiving over four million unique users each month, to overtake the web rankings of broadcasters such as Five, Channel 4 and ITV. It has revenue sharing deals in place with the likes of online digital games distributor Bluefish Media and DVD distributor Liberation Entertainment.

At Loaded, Leeds United fan Brown weaned readers on a cocktail of cultural comment, sports and titillation (bringing Jo Guest to the masses) and is widely credited with revolutionising the men’s magazine sector. Subsequently lured to Conde Nast to turn round GQ, Brown went on to launch publishing group I Feel Good on AIM with less successful results, though the company eventually sold for £6.4 million in 2003.