Quote:
Originally Posted by batchain
Sky and ITV are minority shareholders same as Liberty Global is with ITV, they are not directly involved in the running (into the ground) of Ginx and have probably already written it off as a bad investment.
The end notes Ginx TV's 2017 financial statement are somewhat revealing.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/c...filing-history
"The company incurred a net loss of £1,771,479 for the year ended 31 December 2017 and at that date, the company had retained losses of £8,827,049 and net assets of £640,254. However losses at the current levels indicate the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern." |
Ginx, before it's e-sports incarnation, was a VM exclusive on Linear TV. I imagine that VM paid little, or anything, in carriage costs. Perhaps the carriage agreement has come to an end and Ginx were seeking to stem their losses by asking VM to pay higher carriage costs* and, given its lack of popularity, VM decided to allow the carriage agreement to expire.
I always thought it odd that ITV & Sky would invest in this channel. Maybe Sky were given shares in lieu of carriage/uplink fees?? Not sure how or why ITV got involved though!
After they invested it refocussed on e-sports and appeared on Sky, but this obviously hasn't increased its popularity.
Coming off VM will make their reach even worse, so I tend to agree with you that it won't last much longer.
* I didn't realise that it was an international operation. According to wiki, all the original founders have left and VM were asking them to pay for carriage (As they do for shopping channels etc). Looks to me like it was a cost neutral arrangement, but Ginx are now being asked to pay for the channel being on VM.
Hardly surprising given that their pitch was having 12 million viewers and some programmes only getting 400. Ginx seem bitter about this after allegedly saying that they are "disappointed with VM" after havimg "helped them get a foothold in e-sports"!!!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginx_TV