London Live, the local television station owned by the Lebedev family, recorded an operating loss of £11.6 million for the year ending September 2014, according to the company’s latest financial results.
The channel, which cut its staff by a third at the beginning of the year, also reported a trading loss of £10 million (excluding exceptional start-up costs) while revenue for the first six months of broadcasting was at £1.3 million.
“We launched a quality channel after building the complete broadcasting chain from scratch and our agile approach during our first year has seen us evolve the channel, focusing investment on the most popular programming and ensuring a financially sustainable cost base for the business,” said Tim Kirkman, chief operating officer, London Live.
“Following consultations with Ofcom, we have also benefited from a number of modifications to licence requirements, which have enabled us to further boost our offering for viewers.”
Since launching in spring 2014, the channel has struggled to pull in viewers – and in October 2014, after an initial refusal, was granted its request to reduce its broadcasting hours by Ofcom.
On 30 March 2014, when London Live first aired, its audience peaked at 59,000 viewers. By the summer, the channel was flat-lining on a 0.2-0.3% audience share; however, according to BARB figures, London Live currently pulls in 2.5 million viewers after increasing its audience by 200,000 between April 2015 and May 2015.
According to the latest results, May also saw London Live rank 21st in terms of audience reach, “marginally behind” Sky 1 but attracting more viewers in London than 5USA, Sky News, Watch, ITVBe, Quest and Comedy Central.
The month also set a new record with 0.36% share of viewing in London – a 13% increase on April 2015 and a 112% increase on May 2014.
Commenting on the results, Steve Auckland, group CEO, ESI Media, said: “I’m delighted with the progress made over the past few months with the channel enjoying record audiences and revenue. The business is in far better shape than it has ever been and is building a strong foundation for the future which is a credit to Tim and his team.”
London Live expects operating losses for the current financial year ending September 2015 to be reduced by almost 50% compared to 2013/14.
