Ten Alps loses £10m-a-year Teachers TV contract
A trading update issued today by Macclesfield headquartered Ten Alps reveals that its Teachers TV project, which the company co-owns with ITN (Ten Alps 75%, ITN 25%), has been terminated, to take effect on 29 April 2011.
“No prior notification had been given”, said the Dow Jones Newswire, before the Department for Education pulled the plug on the online training site for British schoolteachers.
The trading update also reveals that Ten Alps has “commenced a reorganisation of its business streams in order to reduce overheads and simplify the Company's offering in the marketplace” with directors expected to make further announcements in the near future.
The annual contract is worth £10m and was due to run until 2013, but the government invoked a six-month break clause.
Ten Alps chief executive Alex Connock said the news "came out of the blue". "The company had no inkling of the government's thinking, and was only informed by letter last night", he added.
"The irony is that we had worked on a business plan for this exact eventuality, but we had absolutely no warning that this is what they were planning."