An ‘upstart’ London-based TV channel aims to create a direct link...

broadcast and simulcast on U.K. environmental, health, science and technology, and education and skills issues, plus European cultural and educational topics. It carries its own programming and that of SoundTV, which provides entertainment shows and which will launch next month as a separate channel managed by ITV. The commercial channel is funded by content providers who pay to air programs. CEO Fred Perkins said he’s not interested in building mass audience but in catering to viewers looking for specific public-service information. But advertisers, too, are beginning to see the value in devoting a half-hour or hour to a product instead of fighting competitors on mainstream channels, he said. ITV also carries programming created by entrepreneurs who, for whatever reason, aren’t able to start their own channels. The TV industry should “wake up to convergence” and start satisfying consumer demand for content, Perkins said. Absence of exciting content is fuelling infringement, but piracy should be “a stimulant [to creativity] rather than a threat.” What’s more worrisome, he said, are sometimes “backward ideas” coming from Brussels. The European Union (EU) TV Without Frontiers directive and various moves toward regulating Internet content are bids to apply old-fashioned rules to a new TV arena, Perkins said. The danger is the EU will impose doctrines and laws that encourage, rather than discourage, piracy, he said.