TalkTV will go off the air in the summer and move online, weeks after Piers Morgan left his daily show on the channel.
Piers announced his departure to focus on the Uncensored YouTube channel, claiming that daily, fixed TV schedules were ‘an increasingly unnecessary straitjacket’.
Scott Taunton, TalkTV’s president of broadcasting, said in a briefing to staff that their adaption to the public’s way of consuming content needs to be a priority.’
‘Two years ago, we would not have been brave enough to launch a channel without a linear presence, but audiences of all ages have moved fast and smartphones are now the primary device where news is consumed. We need to adapt to this as a priority,’ he instructed.
‘We are therefore intending that Talk comes off linear television from early summer and our focus will be on streaming.’
He added: ‘Talk will continue broadcasting as a live streaming news and opinion channel, distributing through streaming platforms to include YouTube, Amazon Fire, Samsung, LG and others.
‘A large proportion of our live viewing is already through streaming on televisions and we intend to continue to grow this.
‘Clips will continue to be shared through social media. There is no doubt over Talk’s future as an audio and video channel, it just won’t be distributed on linear. Radio on DAB continues unchanged too.’
TalkTV, a 2022 launch from News UK, the publisher of The Times and The Sun, currently has 812,000 YouTube subscribers. The launch schedule for April 25th, 2022, began with The News Desk with The Sun’s former political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, followed by Piers’ Uncensored show.
The channel has been the source of controversy, and Ofcom has received numerous viewer complaints.
Julia Hartley-Brewer’s interview with Palestinian MP Dr. Mustafa Barghouti sparked outrage among viewers following the death of a senior Hamas deputy leader in an Israeli drone strike.
During the chat, she interrupted him continuously, and screamed at him: ‘For the love of god let me finish a sentence man!’
She also shouted: ‘Maybe you’re not used to women talking, I don’t know, but I’d like to finish the sentence!’ Viewers contacted Ofcom 15,536 times.
Source My Celebrity Life.