TalkSport to TV

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Former Sun editor and one time MD of BSkyB Kelvin MacKenzie is planning to take his TalkSport news and sports radio station to TV, with a new service planned for the sky digital network, according to a report on Media Guardian.
TalkSport TV will launch for six hours a day on October 4, on an existing channel slot, number 235, and is aiming to catch listeners who have come home from work. Initially the service will amount to little more than the televising of TalkSport's anchors and pundits at work.

"Chris Evans made a mistake when he went to Sky and turned a radio show into a TV show. We are radio; we have multiple cameras operating in a piece of software. Our business is radio and this is a marketing exercise," said MacKenzie. He said the development would give a new meaning to the phrase "face for radio": "If some of our broadcasters are facially challenged they are going to have to raise their game."

MacKenzie unveiled the plans as the Wireless Group announced its half-year operating profit had more than doubled to £1.63 million (E2.4 million) in the six months to June 30, thanks to the increased interest in radio among advertisers and a Euro 2004 windfall. Revenues have soared throughout the third quarter of the year - up 18 per cent in July, 43 per cent in August and 16 per cent in September.