Bids went in yesterday for the second national commercial multiplex.
There are two bidders – Channel 4 and National Grid Wireless. Channel 4 we know about – James has all the details. National Grid Wireless (NGW) are one of the two radio transmission comapnies in the UK (the other is Arqiva), and the big story has been about their inclusion of Channel 4 services in their application without getting permission from C4.
It’s all got a bit tetchy with Channel 4 a little miffed about being included on someone else’s bid. In fact, it doesn’t matter who the service provider ends up being – you can rope anyone in – but they do have to adhere to promised formats.
There’s a great round-up of the situation over on the Media Guardian Organ Grinder blog. And read the comments. Could emma2001’s be common than we care to think?
Still some interesting new services promised, although I’m amazed that NGW have retained their competition station, “Radio Play,” after all the recent hoo-ha. I suppose the problem is that it’s a speech service using very little bandwidth, and finding another service at short notice would have been tricky. Still…
Disclaimer: I’m writing here in a personal capacity, since my employer does have a vested interest in the Channel 4 bid.