LONDON, March 31, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian businessmen Alexander and Yevgeny Lebedev have launched the first round-the-clock TV channel in Britain. London Live when on the air at 18:30 GMT with a summary of London’s cultural highlights.
British media call the launch of a new pay-free television channel the main event on British TV since the start of programming of Channel 5 in 1997. London live will broadcast entertainment shows, sports, analysis, and serials.
Also, big attention will be paid to local news.
Stefano Hatfield, the editorial board director said that London was bustling with interesting events but nationwide broadcasting companies far from always paid due attention to those developments.
The Lebedevs won the bid for launching a new TV channel in February. Their bid was endorsed by Ofcom, a British regulatory agency, which preferred them to the other nine contenders.
The broadcasting license issued to the Lebedevs enables the new channel to broadcast to the entire territory of London, which means that London Live will have a reach to 4 million houses.
Yevgeny Lebedev is expected to allocate GBP 15 million to the channel a year. He hopes the project will become profitable in three years’ time when its annual revenues come to GBP 25 million.
London Live hopes to get profits most from selling advertising slots.
Lebedev calls London a beautiful place that can offer really much in terms of culture and sports. He says efforts have been made to create channel that will be fully different from others.
This means, for instance, that the editorial board will not invite well-known TV journalists and will discover new talents instead, he said.