Desmond seeks Sky News exit
Channel 5 owner Richard Desmond has resumed negotiations with BSkyB over bringing Sky’s five year contract to provide the broadcasters news output to a premature end.
Desmond is keen to revamp the stations news bulletins to make them more populist and entertainment driven and has asked rival news providers to supply quotes to that effect.
Sky is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a key adversary of Desmond, but is contracted to supply news bulletins till 2012 at a cost of £9m per year.
Terminating the contract early will incur heavy penalties however, leaving Desmond with little room to manoeuvre.
Desmond has courted bids from ITN, Mentorn and CNN amongst others when he put the contract out to tender before Christmas.
It is believed these organisations undercut Sky, giving Desmond some much needed ammo to bring Sky’s cost down.
Channel 5 will introduce new onscreen branding and a programming shakeup from February 14.