Channel Five’s fate to be decided on Friday

The future of Channel Five and who’ll own it will be decided on Friday by the broadcaster’s parent company RTL.

RTL, the parent company behind Five, will meet on Friday to decide the channels fate and who will own it. RTL have made it known they are willing to sell Five to the right company and this has prompted interest from Virgin, Time Warner and Richard Desmond; owner of The Daily Express and The Daily Star. It is now thought that Desmond’s bid for the channel will most likely be successful.

RTL will hold a board meeting on Friday to discuss the deal with Desmond and attending will be Dawn Airey, chief executive of Five, and Gerhard Zeiller, the RTL chief executive. It’s most likely that Desmond’s deal will be the most attractive to RTL not only because it’s the highest bid but also because there is more detail been made in it than others – also regulatory wise it would cause less problems. Desmond has reportedly stated he will retain all of Five’s PSB commitments which include regular news bulletins. Universal, who own NBC in America, are also reportedly interested in Five but there could be issues to prevent that takeover.

If RTL decide to endorse the Desmond bid a deal could be signed on Friday but it would be a slow process to the media tycoon’s actual taking possession of the channel.