Virgin TV has lost its High Court appeal to run the last terrestrial television channel. The court upheld the ITC’s decision to award the license for Channel 5 to C5B, and the complaints from the other failed bidders, UKTV and New Century TV, were also dismissed.
The cost of the hearing is to be split between the failed bidders, with Virgin paying 50%, New Century paying 40% and UKTV 10%. Both Virgin and NCTV asked the judges to grant them leave to appeal against both the decision and the award of costs: this was denied. Virgin and NCTV could still go to the Court of Appeal, though after the judges’ decision this would be very unlikely to succeed.
After the hearing Greg Dyke, chairman and chief executive of Pearson TV, a partner in C5B, said that he was always confident C5B would win and he could now concentrate on making Channel 5 a success.
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