[arista]

"Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev have won
the hotly-contested battle for
the local TV licence for London,
with Ofcom awarding the franchise
to the Evening Standard's London Live bid.
The victory is significant for Independent
proprietors the Lebedevs, with the London
franchise regarded as the most lucrative
new UK TV licence to be awarded since
the launch of Channel 5 in 1997.
London Live was one of five bids
for the licence, and the Lebedevs
will be banking on their entry into
the UK TV market helping to move
their newspaper assets to profitability.
The new Evening Standard-backed
TV channel – which will initially offer
an 18-hour-a-day service
covering news, current affairs,
entertainment, weather and
sport – is critical to building a
cross-media portfolio including
the loss-making Independent, I
ndependent on Sunday and 20p i,
that will significantly boost appeal
for advertisers.
An initial five-year plan for London Live
will include annual marketing support of £5m,
and it has been indicated that
it could launch early next year.
London Live will air on channel 8 on Freeview,
which will give access to potentially 4m homes.
In its submission the Evening Standard
said that it will also launch London Live
on Sky and Virgin Media to give blanket
coverage of the capital, although this will
require separate negotiations.
Sky has earmarked channel 117,
but Virgin Media has not yet assigned a channel.
It will cost the Evening Standard up to £1m
a year in fees to launch across the two platforms,
the vast majority on satellite capacity,
uplink and playout fees."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013...cal-tv-licence



18 Hours - that may be good, Longer interview times.


ITV1 London said its due to start at the end of this year.
ITN's group lost the bid.