New owners for Create & Craft as Ideal Shopping Direct continues plans to develop its online provision. Rival Hochanda Global, owner of the The Craft Store TV channel, now controls the two biggest craft shopping channels in the UK.
For the time being, customers and viewers of Create & Craft and Craft Store won’t see any changes. Ultimately, Hochanda Global plans to merge the two businesses to offer a wider variety of goods in one place. The changes also affect Create & Craft USA.
The sale comes as Ideal Shopping continues its strategy to protect against declines in TV viewing by building its online marketplace and digital streaming service. This allows specific content to be put in front of younger audiences, who do not watch traditional TV. As part of the strategy it is increasing its reach through online platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and YouTube.
Ideal Shopping continues to operate its main Ideal World TV channel, which is also available overnights on ITV.
What does this mean for viewers?
For now, Ideal Shopping Direct continues to hold the licence to broadcast Create & Craft. However it will now co-operate with Hochanda to keep the service on-air on its current Sky and Freeview channels for the time being.
Neither company has confirmed if the deal also includes the transfer of the Sky channel slot or even if both channels will continue alongside each other. Whereas Hochanda’s The Craft Store is standard definition only on Sky, Create & Craft is broadcast in HD.
Reassurances have not been provided for Create & Craft’s spin-off channel Craft Extra.
On-screen, viewers can expect to see presenters from both channels in the merged business.
What does this mean for shoppers?
For now, both services continue to co-exist. Orders with either Create & Craft or The Craft Store continue as normal.
In time, the two businesses will merge, so that there is just one destination for shoppers.
Hochanda Global in control
The deal gives Hochanda Global Limited control over the two biggest craft TV channels in the UK.
But it has not been plain sailing in recent years. Hochanda Global Limited acquired Hochanda Limited in 2019 and subsequently rebranded its TV channel to “The Craft Store”. Its latest financial statement to the end of 2020, but only published this month, confirmed a post-tax loss of £7.1 million. The company paid £1.7 million to creditors of Hochanda Limited in order to maintain supplier relationships. Increased prices due to import delays and international freight costs may be passed on, according to its recent financial statement.
Going forward, Hochanda’s main craft shopping channel competitor will be Gemporia Craft. It operates on Freeview through the Shopping Quarter channel.
Meanwhile, Ideal Shopping Direct reported net current liabilities of £13.6 million at the end of 2020. It had an outstanding debt of £8.1 million payable to Aurelius Alpha Limited, the ultimate owners of the shopping channel. Nevertheless, the company posted a pre-tax profit of £8 million at the end of 2020.
Before selling off Create & Craft, Ideal Shopping used recently revised Freeview channel rules to raise revenue by indirectly selling off Create & Craft’s prime Freeview channel slot. In 2020, it launched entertainment channel CCXTV on channel 23, adjacent to the main Ideal World channel on Freeview. Create & Craft was demoted from 23 to the bottom of the channel list. The subsidiary created by Ideal Shopping to run CCXTV was then sold on to UKTV Media in October 2020, allowing UKTV to claim the Freeview channel slot. Following the sale to UKTV, CCXTV swapped slots with Dave Ja Vu and closed, making way for Drama+1.
Financial terms of the deal to sell Create & Craft were not disclosed.