TV7 is a commercial television channel in Sweden. The channel launched by the tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet as Aftonbladet TV7 on October 9, 2006. Aftonbladet sold the channel in late 2007. In August 2008, it was sold once again and is since owned by NonStop Television.
History
The channel was based on the webcasting service that was launched on Aftonbladet.se a few years earlier.
Aftonbladet applied for a license to broadcast a channel with the working title "Storstads-tv" ("City TV") unencrypted in the Swedish digital terrestrial television network in the autumn of 2005. During the process of reviewing the licenses, Storstads-tv teamed up with Axess TV of the Ax:son Johnsson Foundation. In February 2006, Aftonbladet were granted a license to broadcast on Weekdays. Axess TV would broadcast in the Weekends.
Broadcasting trials started on May 29, 2006 with the name "Aftonbladet TV". During this period, the schedule consisted almost solely of content from the webcasts and reruns.
The full launch as TV7 occurred on October 9, 2006. Within a few weeks the channel launched on satellite from Canal Digital and Viasat and digital cable from Com Hem. The schedule now started at 5 p.m. with continuous live news, weather and entertainment news to 9 p.m. when other programming took over. With the launch of TV7, Aftonbladet adjusted their TV guide by introducing TV7 next to the five largest channels. The evening schedule featured both programmes produced in-house at Aftonbladet and aquired programming, including many British lifestyle programmes.
In January 2007 the channel was changed slightly by introducing sports to its newscasts and adding some new programmes.
The CEO Stephen Mowbray decided to leave the channel in April 2007. He was replaced by Helena Westin. In August 2007 it was announced that Schibsted intended to sell TV7. The ratings had remained very low and advertising sales never caught up, meaning that Aftonbladet suffered heavy losses from both TV7 and the free newspaper Punkt SE. Aftonbladet would now concentrate on the web television service on their website aftonbladet.se. [2]
On October 24, 2007 it was announced that Aftonbladet would give away the responsibility for TV7 to the venture capital firm C4 Partners. It was reported that until September 30, the channel had an operating loss of 71 million Swedish kronas. [3] An immediate change was that the news department was shut down the same evening and would be replaced by short news updates without hosts the next day. [4] C4 Partners intends to give the channel a new profile and change it from a free-to-air channel into a pay channel. [5] The owner of C4 Partners, Hans Linder, also owned Xover TV that had previously produced Gameplay, a programme about video games, for TV7. The new owners had plans on turning the channel into a channel dedicated to video games, but did however keep much of the imported programmes.
When new licenses where handed out in March 2008, TV7 would see their broadcasting hours drastically reduced. From April 1, 2008, TV7 would broadcast between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day of the week in the terrestrial network. On January 1, 2009, the channel will get to broadcast during the entire day again, but will be forced to use new compression technology H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.
In August 2008 it was announced that the channel had been sold once again. The new buyer was NonStop Television, who already owned several other channels such as Star!, Showtime and Silver. They intend to transform it into a pay channel with broad entertainment and launch the channel in Denmark, Norway and Finland. [6][7][8]
References
- ^ Månadsrapport September 2007, Mediamätning i Skandinavien, <http://www.mms.se/manrapp/Månadsrapport_2007-09.xls>
- ^ Magnus Helander (2007-08-17). "Säljer TV7 i panik", Resumé.
- ^ Schibsted (October 24, 2007). "Aftonbladet gives away TV7". Press release.
- ^ Magnus Helander (2007-10-24). "Nyhetsankaret sågar Aftonbladets ledning", Resumé.
- ^ Henrik Widell (2007-10-24). "Riskkapitalister tar över TV7", Dagens Media.
- ^ "TV7 ska fyllas med bred underhållning för 18-49-åringar", Dagens Media (August 4, 2008).
- ^ "TV7 ska slåss med TV6 och TV4 Plus", Resumé (August 4, 2008).
- ^ "Nonstop tar över TV7", Resumé (August 4, 2008).
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