About PowerChannel
Granada Media
Granada Media is a substantial, integrated and international producer and broadcaster with strong positions in content creation, free to air broadcasting and pay television, and rapidly growing new media businesses.
This is reflected in Granada Media's organisational structure of Granada Creative, Granada Broadcasting and Granada Broadband respectively. These divisions are supported by Granada Enterprises, which provides the commercial interface between the group and its customers.
Granada Media is the largest and most successful company in the UK commercial television sector, producing nearly 6000 hours of programmes and making 47% of the original programming for ITV, the UK's national commercial TV network, in 1999. It is also a major supplier for other UK and international broadcasters, selling to more than 120 countries around the world.
It owns four major ITV licences - Granada Television, London Weekend Television, Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television, which cover approximately 26 million people, almost half the UK population.
Granada Media owns 50% of ONdigital, the world's first digital terrestrial pay television operator. It also owns 50% of Box Clever, the UK's leading electrical retail chain, which will be formed following completion of the merger of the consumer rental businesses of Granada and Radio Rental Holdings Co Ltd, first announced in December 1999.
In addition to the above businesses, Granada also has equity investments in ITN (20%), GMTV (25%), London News Network (50%) Scottish Media Group (18.1%) Liverpool FC (9.9%), Ask Jeeves UK (25%), Seven Network in Australia (10.4%), and PowerChannel Europe (23.5%).
Granada Broadband
Granada Broadband, the newest division of Granada Media, has been set up to create new media businesses and meet the growing demand for content in the pay television, Internet and emerging broadband markets.
Broadband platforms will offer consumers a range of innovative services including interactive and on-demand video content, enhanced e-commerce capabilities, Internet content, broadcast video and personalised content. Granada Broadband is dedicated to identifying ways to maximise Granada Media's traditional production and distribution strengths in this new arena.
All Granada's existing Pay-TV channels, Internet businesses, education services and other digital TV propositions and housed within Granada Broadband. Complimentary Internet businesses ventures for Granada Broadband include G-WIZZ, the UK's first "Entertainment" Service Provider launched in December 1999, Ask Jeeves UK, the highly successful natural language search engine, and the soon to be launched Granada PowerChannel TV Internet box.
PowerChannel Europe
Granada own a 23.5 per cent stake in PowerChannel Europe, an alliance which later this year will offer television viewers free equipment to access the Internet through the television, in return for completing a brief monthly consumer survey.
Business Model
PowerChannel is an Internet-based consumer information provider with a proprietary business model. Capitalising on the ever-increasing demand from consumer and financial product marketing companies for timely and accurate demographic information about their target audiences, PowerChannel will provide subscribers with a free Internet Set-Top Box (subject to a £30 deposit) and unlimited free TV-based Internet access with calls charged at a local rate. In exchange, the subscriber completes a monthly on-line, point-and click, multiple choice questionnaire. The sale of this permission-based information, supplemented by e-commerce and highly-targeted advertising, is the basis of the PowerChannel business model.
Granada will provide free access to the portal and distribute the TV Internet boxes direct to consumers. Granada's Box Clever retail stores will provide demo points for the boxes and consumer application forms.
Granada and PowerChannel will share revenues generated by advertising, sponsorship, e-commerce and data sales.
Roll Out Plan
Launching this Autumn, it is anticipated that approximately 250,000 boxes will be distributed by end 2000 and a further 1m boxes by end 2001.
Portal Content
The Portal home page will offer users pre-selected links to sites for Shopping, News Sport & Weather, Entertainment, Home Style & Living, Money & Advice, Jobs & Education.
For launch, content will be provided by content aggregation deals concentrating initially on the six most popular categories for each section. This content will consist of various content feeds supplied daily.
The maintenance of content within each channel will be the responsibility of Channel Editors. Each editor will be given an area to work within and will assume responsibility for the daily running of that area. Responsibilities will include picking appropriate news content, making sure that where needed there is suitable and exciting photo material to accompany text, maintaining and refreshing links and keeping abreast of developments to ensure connections to appropriate, interesting and topical sites.
Channel editors will report to the Portal Editor who has overall responsibility for all portal content maintenance, relationships and staff |
