Doesn't look like the shopping channels will disapear soon - Ideal World have signed a deal which keeps them on Freeview till 2018!
I think the only way we'd see them go is if one of the bigger companies buy the channels out and then sell them on Quiz Call style, keeping the Freeview slot for themselves!
Doesn't look like the shopping channels will disapear soon - Ideal World have signed a deal which keeps them on Freeview till 2018!
Why should they disappear? There's obviously demand to buy things off of them, though I do wonder actually how QVC and Ideal World manage to sell enough produce to make it worth their while when Sit-Up is effectively eBay on your telly and bangs through more stuff in an hour than QVC does in a day.
Anyway Freeview seems to be the in-thing at the moment from a broadcaster's point of view, considering many satellite only channels are barging in on the downtime of other channels. Nick Junior gets three hours on TMF, Screenshop gets 14hrs a day across two channels, Great British Quiz props up Five US and Five Life and other TV shopping networks have had access to More4 and Quiz Call downtime, with the latter now taking time off Ftn.
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I think the only way we'd see them go is if one of the bigger companies buy the channels out and then sell them on Quiz Call style, keeping the Freeview slot for themselves!
Channel 4 only flogged off Ostrich Media which runs Quiz Call - Ostrich never owned the Freeview slot AFAIK, its always been owned by the parent company Channel 4. And as Freeview slots are like gold dust at the moment, C4 were not prepared to let that go, whereas cable and Sky slots are available at the drop of a hat, virtually.
Anyway, Ostrich was a one-off, most other deals include the Freeview slot where available. The only other channel likely to be sold off is ITV Play when Ofcom and Gordon Brown throw the book at the sector.