Richard Desmond owns the right-wing tabs the Daily Express (semi- respectable) and Daily Star (trashy) and the weekly celeb mag OK! (which has a U.S. edition)--his Northern & Shell now owns Channel 5 (or just Five), the youngest and least-watched of the UK's five terrestrial networks best known as the UK home of the "CSI" and "L&O" franchises, Aussie soaps "Home and Away" and "Neighbours" and airing softcore porn during overnights:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/business/media/26five28.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fbusiness%2Fmedia%2Findex.jsonp Desmond bought the channel for $161MUS from the German media conglomerate Bertlesmann's RTL Group, which had wanted to dump the low- performing (and in their view, hobbled by UK government requirements for news, cultural and children's programming) net for some time now. Desmond is probably hoping that sister commercial net ITV will convince the regulators to be relieved of some of the "public service broadcasting" requirements (most notably, the requirement of local news shops for their stations, which would give the BBC a TV local news monopoly) and that he can then jump in and get relieved, as well, since his track record doesn't speak too well for the possibility of quality programming. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
