All this chatter about channels merging or closing is daft. They all ultimately exist to make Sky's portfolio of channels looks stronger to potential customers and to make money out of their archive through advertising, hence why Sky 2 and Sky Living It continue to exist.
Would you say UKTV has a strong portfolio? It'd make sense if they kept Bravo and Trouble as they had specialised demographics, but they've retained channels that have ended up painfully bland.
Aside from Watch which they still don't seem to know what to do with, they've got a very strong portfolio indeed. You generally know what you're going to get with each channel and they've all got strong identities.
Not sure retaining Bravo would have done them any good. It had a bloody awful reputation as being the home of tacky, cheap programmes, especially towards its demise. Its shows and archive have successfully found homes on their other channels.
Just before their purchase of the Virgin channels they were going to make Sky2 into a female skewed channel and had sent out commissioning briefs for it for indies. Clearly they thought it was easier to buy an established channel and brand with a set of its own successful shows rather than having to build a channel from scatch.
Last edited by gottago on 11 April 2015 2:39pm - 2 times in total
