Latest In Channel 5 Court Hearing

In court this morning Mr Scrivener QC said that his client, Virgin TV, had been treated unfairly when its programmes failed the quality thresholds set by the ITC.

One criticism was that Virgin TV did not have enough staff on its news team. Mr Scrivener, however, said they had the same amount of staff as C5B and accused the ITC of ‘misunderstanding’ Virgin’s staffing levels.

The ITC also said that Virgin had too much entertainment and drama, but Virgin say that this was an unfair accusation because the ITC included children’s programmes in this category. It also emerged that Virgin TV actually had more arts and education programmes than New Century TV.

Virgin did not offer sport because it was too expensive and research had suggested that 70% of people did not want sport on TV. They did not consider 24-hour broadcasting because again it would be too expensive.

The ITC denied all these claims, saying that any decision about the quality of programmes was judgmental, and the ITC as a specialist body with vast experience should be in the best position to decide these matters.

This afternoon saw the last of the evidence presented and the result of the hearing will be known on Friday.