Express charge for digital listing

I just read that apparently the Express group want to charge broadcasters for listing Digital TV channels in their paper.

My understanding of the article I read was that the analogue channels are ok but anything over that would cost £600 a day to go in the Express and the Star, £388 for the Express and £288 just for the Star.

Although listings at weekends would be thrown in free of charge.

Most broadcasters including UKTV have basically stuck two fingers up at the Express group and said fine don't list them.

What a great way of helping digital take-up.

It's the same situation as Horse-racing as got itself in - the papers used to pay for the listings as t hey brought in the readers. Now however that isn't the case papers want the race-courses/bookies to pay for their inclusion.

It's all a matter of who needs who more - do the Express need the TV companies or do the TV companies need the Express?

I bet they wouldn't charge to print the listings for the Express Shopping Channel!

An article about this on Media Guardian today.

Basically the BBC, ITV, C4 and most other broadcasters have refused to pay.

The Express boss tries to justify it because other papers refuse to publish listings for their porn channels!

There's no better way to highlight the Express group's link to porn, is there? Especially in a newspaper which makes the Daily Mail look almost left wing and unrighteous.

I always thought Desmond and Co were evil, not stupid.