Richard Desmond is understood to have quietly made soundings about whether there is any appetite to potentially sell Channel 5 to rivals including ITV, just three years after he acquired it from pan-European broadcaster RTL.
ITV sources have confirmed that a very informal approach has been made through intermediaries, although it is notoriously difficult to divine Desmond's true intentions in testing the value of Channel 5 in the market. The approach is understood to have taken place several months ago.
Richard Desmond is understood to have quietly made soundings about whether there is any appetite to potentially sell Channel 5 to rivals including ITV, just three years after he acquired it from pan-European broadcaster RTL.
ITV sources have confirmed that a very informal approach has been made through intermediaries, although it is notoriously difficult to divine Desmond's true intentions in testing the value of Channel 5 in the market. The approach is understood to have taken place several months ago.
Whole article is a bit 'wooly' seems that both sides have made soundings, ITV having previously discussed, N&S recently having touted a sale around informally.
(Have amended title accordingly)
:-(
A former member
I'm suprised rtl has never gone after itv after disposing of ch5. When was the last time a tv company from Europe had a stake in itv? Tvs 1989?
I can't see how any of this could be allowed. Wouldn't sky be a better bet.
Essentially for ITV, this would bring their secondary service slightly higher up the EPG on most platforms but bring them costly PSB requirements. Can't really see that appealing.
I think that would cause no end of problems more so than ITV going for it. I also don't see that as Sky's business model.
Sky were forced to sell part of their stake in ITV at a huge loss, so because of this I think it's highly unlikely that they would even consider acquiring any of Channel 5.
C5 isn't ITV though and I think Sky owning C5 would be far less of a problem than them having involvement in ITV due to C5's relatively small slice of the advertising market
If it's true then it's a heck of a u-turn by Desmond, presumably he's discovered that he can't cut costs and milk as much money out of it as he thought.
As for ITV, is there really any advantage in buying Channel 5? They'd not actually get anything except a couple of channels full of American police procedural dramas, a slightly better EPG position and a load of PSB license commitments it doesn't really want. Channel 5 has no intellectual property as such as it's not a producer and that's where ITV seems to be expanding these days with it's continual buying up of production companies
10 years ago when it had an analogue slot then there might have been a point, but then ITV didn't have the cash and C5 wasn't for sale. Now C5's distribution isn't that much better than ITV2's and ITV2 is doing better than C5
I do feel slightly sorry for those at Channel 5. I'm convinced the channel could buy The X Factor only to watch the viewing figures fall off a cliff just because it's on that station.
They've actually got quite a lot of great programming on there - mainly imported US stuff, admittedly - splashed the cash to steal the Australian soaps off BBC and ITV, had a go with live sport and movies and do the most children's programming by far of any mainstream channel, and for relatively low figures.
Despite it being a digital age people still have a huge bias towards the old heritage stations. Mind you, Channel 5 didn't help itself in the early days with its "football, films and f***ing" mindset. Yes, that is what most people are interested in but you need to be a bit more clever about it and make people think they're watching something with more worth.
I agree it would make absolutely no sense for ITV to buy it. To get ITV2 promoted from channel 6 on council telly to channel 5?
I'm surprised Channel 5 haven't bought the rights to X Factor Australia actually, I don't think anybody else here shows it - and there are well known names involved - Mel B, Ronan Keating.
If it's true then it's a heck of a u-turn by Desmond, presumably he's discovered that he can't cut costs and milk as much money out of it as he thought.
I always thought it would be a troublesome approach - Five was hardly a wasteful organisation, with no facilities or significant staff of its own. The cuts that have been made hardly come to much in the grand scheme of things - off the top of my head, disbanding Five's offices in Covent Garden and merging it in to Northern & Shell's headquarters, banning expensive PRS music (except from Big Brother, it would seem) and cutting down on news budgets.