Troubled shopping channel Ideal World has crashed off air after the channel was put up for sale last month.
Viewers tuning into the channel on Freeview, Sky and Freesat will see a message stating programmes are suspended. Ideal World’s online store is also offline where visitors are greeted with a message saying the broadcaster hopes to be back online soon.
The suspension follows a last-ditch effort to find a buyer for the broadcaster. Financial and Risk Advisory company Kroll had appealed for interested buyers to come forward by last Friday. The company hasn’t commented further on the matter publicly, but it’s understood interested parties have been given until later this week to put forward concrete proposals.
Meanwhile in front of the screen, live programmes were increasingly replaced by pre-recorded shows. Then, at 3pm on Monday afternoon, the channel came off air altogether.
ITV, which had a long-running agreement with the broadcaster has dropped Ideal World, with alternative programmes filling the overnight schedule. These include the Gok Wan fronted show Bling and re-runs of Omid Djalili’s short lived game show Winning Combination.
Ideal World was already removed from Virgin Media without notice last month.
Customer orders
Ideal World hasn’t commented on the status of existing customer orders.
In the meantime, affected customers are invited to email customer.services@idealworld.tv
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Troubled 18 months for Ideal World
The Peterborough-based channel first launched in 2000, soon expanding on to Freeview, becoming one of the most widely available teleshopping channels. In early 2022, former owner Aurelius embarked on a sale of its assets, selling off sibling Create & Craft to Hochanda as well as trading its long-standing Freeview channel number (22), before selling the remaining part of the business to investor Hamish Morjaria.
Ideal World was most recently under the control of Chess Valley Group and SDI Retail, a subsidiary of Sports Direct, which took a substantial shareholding in the business at the end of May.
Marc Thornham