FilmFour relaunches as free-to-air service
John Plunkett
Wednesday February 8, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Channel 4 is to relaunch its movie channel FilmFour in July as a free-to-air service, which will be available on Freeview for the first time.
FilmFour, home of British films such as Trainspotting and independent movies from the likes of Pedro Almodóvar and Quentin Tarantino, will also go from being a premium subscription channel to a free offering on Sky Digital and digital cable TV.
The switch, which has been long been mooted by the Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, will make the channel available in 18m homes with digital TV, as opposed to the 300,000 who currently pay up to £7 a month for the service.
FilmFour's move follows Channel 4's decision to put another pay-TV service, E4, onto Freeview in May last year. E4 has since almost doubled its audience share, up to 2.3% in 2006 so far, compared with 1.25% in the same period last year.
Sister station FilmFour Weekly, which offered a cinema-style schedule by playing the same three films at the same time each night across the week, is to close.
Channel 4 will also launch a FilmFour-branded video on demand subscription service on platforms including broadband, mobile and cable later this year.
"Channel 4 has a pedigree in film that is second to none amongst British broadcasters - we've not only showcased the best films on Channel 4 and FilmFour, we've actually funded and produced many of them as well," said Mr Duncan.
"E4 has shown the ratings gains that can be made by going free-to-air and I'm convinced that a highly distinct and desirable brand like FilmFour can also make an impact on a wider audience."
The new FilmFour will carry six films a day, broadcasting for 12 hours from 3pm to 3am. Unlike the old channel and Sky's movie services, it will carry advertising breaks within the films for the first time.
Mr Duncan said the switch would "significantly extend our presence in multichannel homes in advance of digital switchover".
"It will also strengthen our public service contribution by offering regular showcases for British and European movies, including films financed by Channel 4 itself through its £10m annual production fund," he said.
Channel 4 claimed FilmFour would offer a "broader range of films than any other UK film channel, with classic films earlier in the day giving way to modern Hollywood output and the best of US and UK independent cinema in peak time and foreign-language and cult cinema late at night".
Although FilmFour is understood to have started making a modest profit, it was likely to be unsustainable in the long term because of its limited subscriber base.
By switching to free-to-air, and in particular by giving it a berth on the burgeoning Freeview platform, Channel 4 hopes to be able to make more money from advertising than it used to from subscriptions.
FilmFour launched on November 1 1998 but never enjoyed the success of the film with which it was most synonymous, Trainspotting.
Two spinoff channels, FilmFour World and FilmFour Extreme, were subsequently launched but closed in 2003.
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