Rival home shopping channel operator QVC swoops on Ideal World’s former Sky satellite slots, giving two of its channels a leg up the channel list.
- Ideal World previously occupied channel 664 and 671 until it fell into administration in July.
- QVC has now secured both slots for QVC Style HD and QVC Extra.
On the morning of Monday 4th September, QVC will move two channels to fill the empty slots left by Ideal World.
- QVC Style HD will move from channel 677 up to 664.
- QVC Extra will move from channel 679 to 671.
For QVC Extra, this will be the channel’s second Sky channel change this year, after it moved from channel 682 to 679 on the 29th March.
Ideal World was delisted from Sky shortly after suspending programmes in July, as it was in breach of Sky’s strict channel listing rules. Under Sky’s rules, vacant channel numbers can be sold on to other broadcasters.
The changes do not apply to Sky Glass or Sky Stream, which operate a separate listing and where Ideal World was not previously available.
In contrast, both Freeview and Freesat have more liberal rules, allowing services to be unavailable for up to 12 weeks in any rolling 12 month period. As a result, Ideal World continues to show a static caption. Freeview channel slots can be traded and the administrators of Ideal World will seek to maximise the value of these slots before they’re lost. A number of broadcasters are understood to have expressed interest in Ideal World’s current Freeview slot. Ideal World also vacates a valuable all day Freeview slot with a technical reach of over 90% of UK households.
Marc Thornham