Channel 5

Have you conducted a full valuation of the company? I'd be interested to know how arrived at that figure.

So Viacom will gain in addition to Channel 5, their slots on Freeview for Channel 5+24, 5* and 5USA.

I can see 5USA staying as a brand, while 5* hasn't really worked for them under N&S and Five Life under RTL as they haven't been able to compete on the same level as E4 and ITV2 for the same audience.

Personally I'd love to see some of the Viacom brands go FTA on Freeview, however I think only BET is the only Viacom brand bar Viva on Freesat?

Blimey, that's a tidy £400m profit for Dirty Des in just 4 years! Whatever else you may think of this guy, he knows how to make money.

Normally media companies are valued at approximately 9 times their annual profit, so there was some logic to Whataday's statement as last year's profit at C5 was about £25m.

A quote from Viacom's chief exec Philippe Dauman.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/01/viacom-purchase-channel-5-richard-desmond



So tons of Comedy Central back catalogue as filler in daytime and MTV structured reality formats then alongside the usual C5 fare and hopefully some investment in UK drama.

Obviously I have not conducted a full valuation of the company (there is no need to be facetious)

I've arrived at the figure (supplemented with the comment 'in my eyes', ie my opinion on face value) because although Channel 5 has made a profit, I believe much of that is due to support from other N&S businesses.

Over the last few years, N&S has turned Channel 5 around to make a profit, but not without heavy cost cutting and supplementation from its other businesses. The profits from 2011/2012 of around 25million was seen as a huge turnaround for the channel, but when you consider over £30m of its advertising revenue comes from N&S titles, it starts unravelling.

Also, despite investing an initial £200m into Big Brother over 2 years, which has yielded some relative success, the overall share of the channel has declined each year since N&S took over, from 4.8% to 4%. To boost that would take considerable investment in programming and advertising. Their multichannel offering is also very weak in comparison to commercial rivals.

And regardless of all this, bidders who HAVE looked at the business have said that £200-250 million is a far more sensible valuation.

The profit for the first half of 2013 was £26m. Going by that logic, £450m is pretty much bang on (£26m × 2 × 9 = £468m).

Very unusual to value a business based on half a year, particularly when it has not long broken into profit.

Yes, but I was pointing out that £26m wasn't its annual profit, as Stuart was claiming.

He didn't say that, last years profit was indeed around the £25m mark.

Which is untrue - £26m was the profit for the first half of 2013.

Have they released results for the whole of 2013? The last year of full results I've seen is 2012.