Sky To Shutdown Bravo

[Regia]

BSkyB is to close Bravo and general entertainment station Channel One, putting more than 50 jobs at risk, as part of the integration of Living TV Group.

BSkyB has decided to focus on the Living TV channel portfolio, which will see a 25% boost to its programming budget, and the gameshow and quiz channel Challenge.

Living TV Group, which is home to shows including Grey's Anatomy, Britain's Next Top Model and Sons of Anarchy, currently employs 110 staff. There will be just 58 roles after integration, but it is understood that there are a significant number of positions potentially available in other parts of the BSkyB operation.

BSkyB is understood to have decided to jettison Bravo, which launched as a cable channel in 1985, because it reaches a similar demographic to Sky1 but is not believed to have the same brand equity or reach.

BSkyB is backing Living TV because, outside of sport, it is second only to Sky1 in popularity among its basic pay-TV channels. BSkyB has failed to target the female market as successfully as Living TV, which has a two-year deal with Katie Price. Sky closed its own attempt to target a female audience, Sky Real Lives, earlier this year.

It was decided that Channel One, which was rebranded from Virgin 1 in August following BSkyB's acquisition of Living TV Group for £160m in July, was too similar to Sky3, which it sits alongside as a free-to-air channel on Freeview.

BSkyB intends to "redeploy" the channels' programming, with pay-TV shows moving to other Sky channels and free-to-air fare mostly moving to Sky3.

Bravo is home to shows including Spartacus, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Sons of Anarchy. Spin-off channel Bravo 2 will also disappear. BSkyB has not said what it intends to do with the channel slot.

Challenge will move free-to-air in Channel One's slot, which will effectively double its audience reach, as BSkyB looks to grow its presence in quizzes and gameshows. There are longer-term possibilities of tie-ups with Sky Bet.

Staff have been informed of the integration plans this afternoon with all staff, including the Living TV Group managing director, Jonathan Webb, under review.

The review has been carried out by Sophie Turner Laing, the managing director of entertainment, news and broadcast operations at BSkyB.

"Content is at the heart of Sky's strategy," she said. "Living is already one of the best pay-TV channels around and is obviously a great fit with our existing channels like Sky1. There is so much potential for further development and we intend to increase on-screen investment in Living by around a quarter as part of our expanded channel portfolio. This is a big part of our plans to bring customers great content from channel brands that really cut through."

BSkyB moved quickly to announce the integration of Living TV Group after being given final clearance by the Office of Fair Trading only yesterday.

The Living TV Group integration adds to what is expected to be a major revamp of BSkyB's entertainment programming after the broadcaster struck a five-year £150m deal for the exclusive UK rights to the entire HBO catalogue of shows including The Wire, True Blood and The Sopranos.

Source: The Guardian

It's certainly an interesting move, I wonder which programs will make the cut.

[YI]

CHALLENGE SURVIVES!!!! But if they start stinking it up with those fucking TERRIBLE Sky quizzes they can fuck off. "Challenge" has 2-criterium. a) Quality nostalgia (Catchphrase, Family Fortunes, Wheel Of Fortune, Gladiators, Play Your Cards Right etc.), b) Mental foreigners (Ninja Warrior etc.)...fuck off with those wank Sky quizzes, don't want none of that. Actually they have a third. c) Episodes of 8 Out Of 10 Cats (with Dave Spikey) shown seemingly at random times, on random days, in the middle of the night.

...actually just realised some of the TERRIBLE quizzes I'm attributing to Sky are actually "Watch"...eugh.

Plus, "Chuck" better get shifted to a good channel.

Edited September 15, 2010 by YI

[DavidMarrio]

challenge have Distracted as well which is always decent to watch. Tbh I can't remember the last time i wanted to watch something on Bravo all it'll mean is Danny Dyer will have went from about 50 stuff being aired with him in it to about 1 or 2.

[YI]

challenge have Distracted as well which is always decent to watch. Tbh I can't remember the last time i wanted to watch something on Bravo all it'll mean is Danny Dyer will have went from about 50 stuff being aired with him in it to about 1 or 2.

"Spartacus: Blood & Sand" is too funny. But it's not something I 'have' to watch every week. Bloody good fun for a drink though.

[Hobo]

One thought and it was mentioned by PWI (which is where I saw this) is where will Impact go? Sky likely aren't going to take that to their channel they've got the WWE.

[DavidMarrio]

Virgin One i reckon. I already thought it moved to Virgin tbh, shows just how much I've watched Impact.

[YI]

"Virgin 1" is apparently now "Channel One", which was part of the buyout and being shut down. It shows "Chuck"...only thing worth shit on it.

[Katsuya]

The only thing I'll be bothered about from all this is the lack of Deadliest Warrior.

[DavidMarrio]

Virgin One had My Wife and Kids and Fresh Prince as well

Ain't the TNA PPV's on The Extreme Channel or some garbage like that? Could it possibly go on there

[New Damage]

According to TNA's website they have a multi-year contract with the Living group.

Only the PPVs are shown on the Extreme channel. And last year for essentially a month which started in mid-late October (I know for certain that Impact was shown on the 30th October) Impact was shown on Virgin as a "tester" or "preview" or something.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, Chuck better find a good, new home.

[Benji]

Whelp, bye-bye SKY subscription. I basically only have it for wrestling, and with the amount I'm spending I'd rather just get Smackdown and RAW from other sources since NXT is likely to be cancelled and Superstars isn't worth watching. Also means I can give money more directly to WWE because I'll just buy the DVD's instead of watching the PPV's live and not want to pay twice for them. Hooray!

[Regia]

The only thing I'll be bothered about from all this is the lack of Deadliest Warrior.

This is actually the only thing I watch on a weekly basis on Bravo, so I hope it finds somewhere. The trouble is I can't see a lot of Bravo and Channel One's programmes having a place after the shut down, I never really saw Sky One as the same type of channel as Bravo, but apparently that's the reason they are deciding the shut the channel down.

[TCO]

Bizarre Sports Science is pretty good too, I hope they squeeze that in somewhere.

[TKz]

People on the internet still watch TV?

[Jimmy]

I'm a simple man, Tkz.

[Pesci]

MANswers is amazing... if they don't put that somewhere else I don't know what I'm gonna watch at 1AM. Virgin One.... bleh. I'm getting up to date with Chuck so I'll probably be ready to watch the new season when it's out and I can easily find alternative means for that... and there isn't fuck all else worth watching on there. But Bravo? Where will all the softcore porn and Danny Dyer vehicles go?

I don't necessarily see the logic in Bravo's demographic trading tits for 18 episodes of The Simpsons a day either but eh, we'll see. Plus I don't think there's ever been anything worth watching on Sky3.

[stokeriño]

I wonder whether the fact that Channel One is still hyping new upcoming series (e.g. the new 'V') means its going to stick around for a while... Maybe they just don't have a clue and are continuing as normal for the time being.