BSkyB pays £600,000 for Sun cover wrap Sun cover wrap: cost BSkyB about £600,000 BSkyB is thought to have paid about £600,000 for the privilege of being the first advertiser in the 42-year history of the Sun to be allowed to place a cover wrap on the newspaper. The satellite broadcaster, part owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, paid for a cover wrap on Friday's edition of the News International tabloid to promote its 3D coverage of sports coverage throughout the summer. The deal is thought to be worth about £600,000 for four pages of advertising, which would make it the second most expensive cover wrap only to Pepsi's £1m deal to turn the Daily Mirror blue in 1996. "The Sun [has] once again set new standards for our industry having landed one of the biggest deals ever for our industry," said the News International chief executive, Tom Mockridge, in an email sent to staff late on Thursday night. He described the deal as potentially a "one-off" worth "more than £500,000" which had been struck with one of the newspaper's "most loyal and valuable clients." Given the significance of covering the Sun's most valuable editorial real estate, its front page, the deal was signed off by Mockridge and approved by Sun editor Dominic Mohan. "The Sun brand is extremely precious and we take great care to protect all of our newspapers," said Mockridge. Deals like these are lucrative but they will always be rare. BSkyB, which is 39.1% owned by News International's parent company News Corp, is the biggest-spending advertiser in the Sun so far this year by a large margin. According to unofficial Nielsen figures Sky has spent £9.25m on ads in the Sun so far this year, down about 7.8% year on year, with Tesco the second largest - but with a spend 86% lower. Overall the Sun is estimated to have pulled in £94m in advertising so far this year, down about 9.5% year on year. "It was an idea Sky and ourselves came up with and we thought 'if you don't ask you don't get'," said Claudine Collins, managing director of MediaCom, Sky's media buyer. Everyone is looking for new commercial opportunities, as long as it is done the right way, and editorial integrity is preserved that is the main thing. I can see this happening again but it would be very selective - the brand and idea would have to be just right. The Sun recently raised its cover price from 30p to 40p from Monday to Friday - the first time the tabloid has been priced so high - as did the Sunday Times moving from £2.20 to £2.50. The full impact of the price rises on sales will not be fully known for a few weeks. However, early figures show that the rise has pushed headline sales of the Sunday Times to below the 900,000 sales mark for the first time - losing about 25,000 sales to reach 885,000 on Sunday. Any impact of the price rise of the Sun, to 40p, is currently being masked by the newspaper's hugely popular annual £9.50 summer holiday token promotion. The two-week promotion is understood to have added more than 100,000 in sales for the newspaper.