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Dirty Dick Desmond buys himself another channel

Nobody really watches it, but...

"Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star, has bought Five Group from entertainment network RTL for £104m. The deal for Mr Desmond's Northern & Shell company to buy Five, which runs TV channel Five, has been closed with immediate effect. RTL said a recovery in the UK TV advertising market meant now was a good time for it to sell. Last month, Mr Desmond indicated that he wanted to buy the Sun newspaper."

So the man who owns fine publications such as Asian Babes, Horny Housewives, The Very Best of Mega Boobs, and Spunk Loving Sluts now owns Five. He adds that to his portfolio of adult channels, including Television X, Red Hot TV and Gay TV.

Great. Standards in the media are about to fall even further. Greenslade points out the numerous errors the Daily Star has made under his ownership, and there are countless examples of the Daily Express resorting to homophobia and thinly-veiled racism in its pages since he took over.

The only thing that could be considered as vaguely good to come from this is Natasha Kaplinsky will probably have to do the news in the nude from now on, which I wouldn't complain about. Other than that, it's all downhill...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    God, I liked Five. If they keep CSI Sundays I'll be happy.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Five was one referred to as the US election station - nothing but Gore and Bush - and also as films, football and fucking.

    So, perfect station for Desmond to buy really.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    Who is that and what's it from?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MoK wrote: »
    Who is that and what's it from?

    1970's film called ...Network.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Brilliant little 1970,s film that could be said to be a little prophetic?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    stargalaxy wrote: »
    So the man who owns fine publications such as Asian Babes, Horny Housewives, The Very Best of Mega Boobs, and Spunk Loving Sluts now owns Five. He adds that to his portfolio of adult channels, including Television X, Red Hot TV and Gay TV.

    Great. Standards in the media are about to fall even further.

    Why should 'standards fall' because of him owning these porn channels you refer to? :confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teagan wrote: »
    Why should 'standards fall' because of him owning these porn channels you refer to? :confused:

    Cos freely available porn was a fall in human standards and decency?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    More people must have turned into wankers than any other time in history.
    Wanking has always been with us but now seems to be a pastime one can book ...oooh it's Friday ...porn vid and wanking night!

    It can't be good.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Charlie Brooker references Network quite a lot and since he turned me on to the sheer unadulterated awesomeness that is The Shield, I shall get me a copy of Network.

    Like many iconic things from ye olden days, still disturbingly relevant.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Charlie Brooker references Network quite a lot and since he turned me on to the sheer unadulterated awesomeness that is The Shield, I shall get me a copy of Network.

    Like many iconic things from ye olden days, still disturbingly relevant.

    Bit of a cult classic now ...where will you get a copy?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Desmond's papers are beyond dismal. The Express used to be a semi-decent papers back in the times before WWII. Now it's no better than your average American weekly supermarket tabloid. C5 might not have been high brow but wasn't particularly worse than ITV. Fuck knows where it'll go from here.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Bit of a cult classic now ...where will you get a copy?

    Ahem :) And for the bargain price of £3.93.

    Meh, if you worry about Desmond buying C5, just don't watch it.

    Though I myself may have to watch it occasionally if they don't pull CSI.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Ahem :) And for the bargain price of £3.93.

    I.

    :D Right ...I didn't think it would be that easy to get ...cheap innit!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Teagan wrote: »
    Why should 'standards fall' because of him owning these porn channels you refer to? :confused:
    Because the standards of his publications are absolutely abysmal. Only a few days ago, the Daily Star (one of his organs) was forced to apologise to Rockstar Games after publishing a story saying they were going to create a game based on Raoul Moat's death. They not only admitted the story was false, but they even said they hadn't bothered to make any cheks on whether it was true in the first place! The Star and Express are having to make one or two apologies in their papers practically every single week for publishing, in many case, bare-faced lies.

    Dick Desmond has done nothing about this. So I see no reason why he would bring anything to Five. To be fair to them, they have been trying hard for years to ditch their early reputation of having loads of cheap porn on the station. With Desmond in charge, that could soon mean years of work wasted.

    Standards in the media, in terms of programming and journalism, are probably at an all-time low at the moment. Whether it be the Daily Mail's totally one-sided coverage of the Gary McKinnon business, hysterical reporting and endless use of grief porn on ITV News, or wherever else you look, it's a similar story. It's getting harder and harder to know who to trust in the press these days. People such as Desmond make that even harder.
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