Ideal World has gone off air today in what could be the final nail in the coffin for the teleshopping broadcaster.
The remains of the broadcaster were bought last year by investor Hamish Morjaria after it was put up for sale by German investment company Auerlius, who had previously asset stripped the business, selling off Create and Craft to Hochanda Global and trading its Freeview channel with TJC.
But at the end of May, a company linked to Sports Direct took a share in the company. The broadcaster was put up for sale, with expressions of interest due by the end of last week.
Since earlier today, Ideal World is off-air or offline on its remaining broadcast platforms. As of yet, there’s been no word regarding the fulfilment of customer orders.
ITV, which carried overnight teleshopping strands from Ideal World on both ITV 1 and ITV 4 discontinued the strands at the end of last week. In a change to published schedules, ITV has substituted the teleshopping segment with alternative programmes.
Ideal World abruptly dropped off Virgin Media last month. Since then, live programming at Ideal World was replaced by recorded segments.
UPDATE (4th July, 10am): Ideal World HD and Ideal Extra have now been removed from Sky. Broadcasters can’t leave a static caption up for hours without risking loss of their Sky slot.
It will be important for Ideal World to get this back – the EPG slot may well be one of its few remaining assets.
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PICTURED: Ideal World apology graphic. COPYRIGHT: Ideal World Ltd.