P.M. BRIEFING : Swiss TV Business Channel Fails
The first European television business channel said today that it is bankrupt and will go off the air at the end of this week.
Swiss-based European Business Channel, in which Swiss businessman Felix Matthys and other investors hold a majority stake through AG Fuer Wirtschaftsfernsehen, has estimated its daily audience at between 120,000 and 250,000.
The channel transmits half an hour of business news in both English and German at breakfast time, which is later repeated. The program began in November, 1988, but failed to attract enough advertising to cover costs.
Time Warner of the United States, the world’s largest media group, was interested in taking over the channel, but pulled out due to problems over the length of EBC’s concession and Swiss rules restricting foreign ownership, EBC said.
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