Universal Television & Media Ltd

Universal TV and Media Limited targeted me as a new startup, and engaging with them has been the biggest mistake of my business career. I was led to believe I had “won” a competition and specially selected by a “fictitious panel”— I now see that as a sales tactic rather than anything genuine. If you’re a startup, you could easily fall for the same thing if you don’t take this as a warning. In my experience, you will overpay and see no meaningful return. I was told to keep the business terms confidential, which in hindsight was an underhand scheme and only served to hide how expensive the deal really was. Their approach appears heavily geared toward new businesses who may not have prior experience with TV advertising. I spent £15,000 on a TV campaign that did not generate a single sale. After that, I cut all communication and ties with this company. They pitch it as “free ad time” on a TV channel, where you only cover production costs to help new brands get started. In reality, it did not work out that way. If you hear that pitch, walk away. The concept is framed as your brand being selected to compete with other startups for airtime. It sounds credible at first, but it creates a false sense of opportunity and urgency. They also tried to introduce “experts” to manage online marketing. This involved upfront fees and then additional percentages on ad spend, which quickly drains your budget without clear results. A key part of the pitch is making you feel specially selected. That sense of exclusivity pushes you to sign quickly, often paying a deposit with no cooling-off period. Looking back, this felt like a deliberate sales tactic rather than a genuine opportunity. Another issue is that you don’t actually own the advert created for you. The contract requires you to pay an additional fee if you want to reuse it elsewhere. The whole structure felt restrictive and stacked against the client. I would have been in serious financial trouble if I didn’t have savings to absorb the loss. After engaging with them, I also started receiving unsolicited calls from other agencies offering advertising deals, such as newspaper placements. That may be coincidence, but it didn’t inspire confidence. Overall, this has been my biggest business mistake. Do yourself a favour and walk away. I am now exploring with my legal team whether the contract, if based on a misleading narrative, could be challenged.

We had a great experience working with Universal TV and Media on our TV advertising campaign. The whole process was smooth, well organised, and communication with the team was excellent throughout. They produced a high-quality advert for our company and aired it on Sky TV, giving us fantastic exposure during non-live sports events. We saw a clear impact from the campaign, especially an increase in online website views. We’re hugely satisfied with the final advert and felt comfortable and confident working with a solution-focused, professional team. Competitive pricing and great results — we’ll definitely be running another campaign with them in the future. Thank you!

Universal TV were wonderful to work with. Mee Blueberries now have a beautiful advert to use, and we have been thrilled to see it live on multiple channels. The team at Universal are very down to earth, always have time for you and are incredibly supportive when navigating a completely new area of marketing. We greatly appreciated their guidance and expertise. We highly recommend working with them, its a great service!

An absolute pleasure to work with! Universal Television & Media very much felt like an extension to our team and were equally invested in the success of the campaign from start to finish!

Had a great set of adverts created for us with good result in various categories: sports, eye health and vitamins. Look forward otto working again with them in the future,

Great company to work with very understanding team of people they supported us through a tough situation just to ensure we produce the ultimate final piece, they really have a true vision to see our company do well. That money can’t buy! 👌 Huge Thank you to the team

If they approach you as a start up business, pitching "so much free ad time from the channel X, in order to get new brands onside with TV advertising early, just pay X fee for production costs" then do yourself a favour and walk away. Long story short, Jonathan later admitted to me that if I wanted to run the exact same campaign again, it'd be almsot half the cost of what we had paid for. When questioned why we had overpaid, he explained that paying for production costs only etc was how they worded it to get new clients onboard. Their approach stated that my brand would go to the board competing against other start up brands, to have the opportunity of free air time by way of ads on X channel. Can't say I completely believed this but I did truly believe, as it made sense, that I would be getting a competitive rate as a start up to help the TV channels compete against start ups just sticking with META ads. All that aside, I made Universal TV Media aware that I wanted the campaign to run around October/November. At the start of November I and not heard from them, I trusted they'd be aware of what had been stated and could still have the ad on TV well before Christmas. If I hadn't of contacted them I'm not sure they would of ever got back to me. The ad was late to air, eventually the campaign started in March the next year, it did not run as was agreed and did not air as scheduled. At one point there was a month gap where the campaign just did not run and had I not have chased them, then I dont beleive I would have received anymore air time and would of just been forgotten about. Universal TV media blamed the channel repeatly, claiming it was not their fault, and yet were constantly slow to respond to email, with me repeatedly having to phone to get any update or answer as to why nothing was running as had been agreed or planned. Johnathon was always apologetical, and as has been previously stated in this review, did concede to me their client onaboarding tactic and the realistic cost of the campaign should it of aired around Christmas time would have been closer to [but not above] the figure I had paid. At the start of the process I was promised analytics and also sorts of post campaign review, I didn't even receive a single email after the campaign ended. If you're start up brand, steer away from this offer, had I have put the equal amount of money into META ads I'd be in completely different position. The TV ad campaign had little to no impact at all to sales and website sessions saw only a small increase. Going with this company after their pitch, I have chalked down as my biggest business related blunder to date.