Associated Acquires Second TV Channel

At the TV Summit ’94 this morning, Sir David English, chairman and editor in chief of Associated Newspaper announced that they have just acquired a second cable television channel. “The Performance Channel”. It is an Arts and Entertainment channel which broadcasts for 10 hours per day. Associated’s 24 hour news and feature channel, “Channel 1” launches next month. “This will be a live video newspaper”. Sir David also confirmed that they intend to own more than two channels in the long term,

Associated Newspaper’s acquisition of 20% of West Country TV prevented them to from taking any further terrestrial television interests. Satellite was rejected because of Rupert Murdoch’s dormination, so they opted for cable. Sir David English, whilst predicting that the current “ridiculous and unfair” ownership restrictions would be altered soon, did outline the suitability of linking press with cable. He pointed out that the Mirror Group has followed them into cable, and predicts other papers will too.

He also added that regional newspapers are linking with cable now. Cable can be as locally focused as regional press. He answered criticism that newspapers were building their own competition by saying that joint co-operation and promotion will outweigh any problems. Associated believe that their £50m investment in Channel 1 will be profitable by 1998-1999, with estimated subscribers of 4.5 million.